Sail away with stories… little boats made from snippets of old books, maps & catalogues.

These boats begin life with an origami folded base (made from a page of an old book or a section of an old map); to this I add sails, flags, buntings, gulls, fish and other little additions - all depending upon words and scraps of papers that I’ve gathered.

I spend a long time trawling through books in places like charity shops, to find the right ones to make my work – for the boats I’m really fond of copies of books such as Swallows and Amazons, old sailing manuals, maps that show the UK coast / rivers and copies of various stories such as the Famous Five and fairy tales. Snippets of old poems, sheet music and old book illustrations add to the little details… where would your imagination like to sail to…?

(NB: these boats contain very teeny parts and are for ornamental use only! Not a toy!
Old book pages don’t float too well!).