If you've ever had a shelf of kindling (old books) and needed a way to dispose of a few, or if your coffee table is looking bare, or maybe you are just in a crafty mood, then this is a project worth undertaking.

Supplies

For this project you need:

a large book you are willing to transform/ruin
heavy duty scissors
20 minutes

Step 1: Step 1: Tracing

Lay the book out flat and trace only half of a heart so that the indent of the heart ends on the spine of the book and the point ends about and inch or less from the spine. Like in the picture.

Step 2: Step 2: Cutting

Cut around the half-heart shape you just made so that the cover page looks like half of a heart. Then open the cover page to see if you are satisfied with the shape. When you are done the other side of the heart will be identical, so if you made any mistakes feel free to trim the shape until you are happy.

Step 3: Step 3: More Cutting

Now that you have the cover cut, it will act as a pattern for the rest of the cuts. Depending on how thick your book is and how nice your scissors are, you can cut through about 8 pages at a time. Lay the book flat and grab about the first 8 pages and start cutting them to match the half-heart shape of the cover. Once you are through the first set of pages, cut through the next pages in the exact same shape. Continue to cut the half-heart shape until there are no more pages left to cut. The entire book should resemble a half of a heart with a small sections of book spine protruding from the indent. To remove the indent use your scissors to slowly gnaw through it, or use another preferred method.

Step 4: Step 4: Folding

Lay the book flat so that the spine is facing to the left then open the last four pages. On the uppermost (4th) page fold the curve to the farthest left in towards the middle, but only a little bit (like in the picture). turn to the next page and also fold it inwards. This time the flap should be slightly longer than the previous one so that you have two flaps pointing up. Continue to fold progressively larger flaps over until you have used approximately half the book. Once you have completed the right half of the books flaps do the exact same on the left side so that it is symmetrical. By now you will have noticed that the larger flaps are floppy and are crushing the smaller flaps. To fix this work from the middle out and fold the flaps that are too large in half so that its start and end are touching the middle of the book. Do this to all the pages that are flopping over on top of neighboring pages. when you are done doing this to both sides it should look like the last photo, big and puffy.

Step 5: Step 5: Even More Cutting

Yay, we are now at the last step. You probably noticed that your heart doesn't quite look like one because the top is flat without an indent. To make the indent, hunt down your trusty scissors and grab the middle 8 flaps or so (depending on how you want it to look). Then at the top of the heart where the indent should be, cut straight down on the flaps until you have cut out your own indent. Feel free to cut more wherever you want to make it look more hearty (pun intended). Now that you are finished, you can use your paper heart to cheer someone up or decorate your coffee table.