What should you do with unwanted phone books? Throw it out? Not Kristiina Lahde. The Canadian artist created amazing paper sculptures in a series appropriately titled Hive using phone books.

Check out more at Colossal: Link

This Twaggie was illustrated by Jeff Maksuta from a Tweet by @0ddfellow. How long has it been since you’ve used a phone book for anything other than boosting a seat? You can’t go by my experience, since I only talk to family members and people on the internet. Link

Instead of throwing out those ubiquitous phone books (who uses ‘em anymore?), try turning them into art. That’s what Taiwanese-born artist Chen Long-bin did with unused phone books, newspapers, magazines and discarded books.

Toxel has the gallery: Link

Long Bin-Chen, a New York-based artist originally from Taipei, sculpts books. He’s especially fond of depicting the Buddha, such as this sculpture made out of phone books. The artist explained that this is an effort to make the Buddha meaningful to the West:

Since colonial times, Westerners have taken Buddha heads from the Buddha statues in Asia and brought the Buddha heads back to the West. Today, while one finds so many Buddha heads in Western museums and galleries, equally many Buddha bodies in Asia are headless. The Buddha head is an important cultural image from Asia. Yet, by and large, it is misunderstood in Western societies. In this project, I chose the most beautiful Buddha head I found at a museum to use as a model and created this Buddha head from New York City telephone books. The Buddha Head contains the names and numbers of millions of New York residents. The Head will represent a caring Buddha, a Buddha from the East who has come to take care of the West.

Link via Dude Craft | Photo: New York Optimist

Architect Richard Kroeker designed a shed made out of phone books. It was built by architecture students at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Kroeker writes:

The books form a ready made, insulated building module held in place with sheet metal angles normally used as drywall bead material. Once tensioned, the phone books form a stable wall into which additional layers can be easily screwed. The roof joists are also made of laminated phone books. The finished structure becomes a kind of time capsule, recording the names and numbers of community members.

Link via GearFuse | Photo: Shedworking | Kroeker’s Website

Philadelphia-based artist Alex Queral carves the faces of celebrities into phone books, then coats the results with acrylic:

For me, the human head was a natural choice of subject matter because of its inherent expressiveness. I carve the faces out of phone books because I like the three-dimensional quality that results and because of the unexpected results that occur working in this medium. The three-dimensional quality enhances the feeling of the pieces as an object as opposed to a picture.

In carving and painting a head from a phone directory, I’m celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names that describe the size of the community. In addition, I like the idea of creating something that is normally discarded every year into an object of longevity.

Gallery at the link.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Projects Gallery

I ran across this excellent tutorial while looking for things to do with unwanted phone books (for some inexplicable reason, they magically show up at my doorstep year after year).

Chica and Jo has the perfect solution if you’re crafty: turn those phone books into office organizers! Link – via Make