The purpose of the altered book project was to alter, disassemble, or destroy an existing book, and then reassemble it in an original and creative way. The book I chose was The Little Prince or Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I chose it because when the project was first introduced, it was the first thing that popped into my head. I wasn’t sure why because I didn’t grow up with this book, but I’d heard the story in 2016 during my junior year of college and fell in love with it. I knew I could get really creative with using this book and while I hated to destroy it, I’m so pleased with how it came out.

For the little prince himself, I used some air dry clay to sculpt his head, hands, and feet and used a wire to connect them all together. I hand-sewed his outfit out of felt and used acrylic to paint his face, hair, hands, and feet. I used a semi-circle of foam for the planet and covered it in casting wrap then painted it with acrylic. I added strips of pages from the book to add the effect of the book crawling out in a 3-dimensional way.

The stars hanging was the trickiest part and what I wish could look cleaner. I used a thread rack and hot glued it to the book, then used a clear stretch cord to attach the stars, which were glued onto foam core board.

I’m overall very happy with how this project turned out and was happy to not have to completely mutilate this precious book.