I've had so much fun creating this Easter decoupaged bunny, repurposing an old book.

I received a large polystyrene bunny from Hobbycraft, part of their Easter decorating range. 

She (I think it's a she, I'm not sure why) has been so much fun to decorate. I wasn't sure initially what I was going to do with her, but thinking about rabbits reminded me of a battered copy of Alice in Wonderland that I picked up in a charity shops ages ago. I had a plan to do some art work (still on my 'to do' list) but I knew that wouldn't take the whole book. I dug it out and on flicking through discovered that at the end is "An Easter greeting to every child that loves Alice".

I assume every copy has this but I don't know for sure. Still, it was like it was meant to be!

I realise that battered copies of Alice in Wonderland might be hard to come by, if you can't find one don't worry. You can use any book, not enough really shows to matter and then just photocopy a page with an illustration from a copy of the actual book if you want to make a tag like I have. 

To make your own Alice in Wonderland inspired Decoupaged Book Bunny you will need:

• A polystyrene bunny - mine is this one from Hobbycraft

• An old book - As I said, I had a copy of Alice in Wonderland but you could manage with any old book.

• Mod Podge - mine was the sparkly kind, I love it but you can use regular if you prefer.

• Ribbon

• A scrap of card, scissors, brush

I’ve found a few polystyrene bunnies on Amazon too if you can’t find one in a shop near you. A lot of these seem to be a much smaller size than the one I used though so do check the measurements given carefully.

Start by ripping a few pages of the book into small pieces. I put the ones with the illustrations I wanted to save to one side and ripped up about 10 pages in all for this.

Brush Mod Podge over a section of the rabbit and start glueing the book scraps on.

Cover the paper completely over the top with glue too. You'll find it softens and has a little 'give' once it's all saturated with the glue but for curved sections it's also helpful to do little rips in the sides of the paper scraps too.

I did my rabbit all over save for the bottom inch and allowed it to dry throughly overnight.

In the morning I decoupaged over the last bit going round onto the base.

I thought the ears were a little bit fiddly, that was until I did the tail! For these extra curvy bits I just used much smaller pieces of paper, this made it easier. 

Whilst she dried I made her a tag.

I ripped round one of the rabbit illustrations that I'd saved earlier and cut a simple tag shape from scrap card. I simple glued the illustration on and then added the happy Easter greeting I ripped from the letter at the back of the book.

To finish her off I just tied a blue check ribbon from my stash round her neck and added the tag with a tiny length of embroidery thread. 

The sparkle Mod Podge I used is awesome, no where near as messy as using glitter and the sparkly is amazing once it's dry.

Just to check that this could work using a photocopy too I make another tag. I wouldn't recommend using photocopies for all the decoupage, the ink tends to smudge a little if you rub it too much with the glue brush, but for a single illustration it was fine. I just made sure I didn't fuss it too much with the brush and it didn't really smudge at all. 

Made like this without the Easter reference this could work for any time of the year. It would be fabulous for an Alice in Wonderland themed party, are they a thing? If not they should be! Although having studied it as I ripped it up I have to conclude it is a slightly weird book! 

Hobbycraft have more ideas of how you can decorate these large polystyrene rabbits if you don't fancy book decoupage. I'm loving it, and now I'm looking for more things I can cover in scraps of old books! 

My mum always said that when I was really young I would spend a lot of time doing what I called “cutting and sticking” Some things never change! 

If you love crafts with old books you might also like to take a look at some of these other book craft ideas:

I'll be linking up this project at some of these lovely link parties