​'The Night Before Christmas'  Star Book​

with  Irina Kitaeva​

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Class: Thursday November 19
Time: 9:30-12
Location: SAA Classroom
130 Main Street
Sandwich MA ​
​​Cost: $75 Members
$85 ​Non-members

$20 Materials fee due to instructor day of the class
Materials: All materials and kit for the class will be provided by the instructor. $20 Materials fee due to instructor day of the class​
Class Description

Come enjoy a day of holiday creativity and learn the art of making this enchanting 'Night Before Christmas' Star Book!

Create a beautiful and magical A visit from St. Nicolas (The Night Before Christmas) Star Book in this hands-on bookmaking class.

You’ll learn how to construct this unique star-shaped book, from folding and scoring the pages to assembling the sections and creating the dimensional star structure.

​The finished book opens into a spectacular eight-pointed star that can be displayed as a festive holiday decoration. The pages feature selections from the classic The Night Before Christmas, beautifully presented within a wintry blue-and-white design. Decorative frames, snowflakes, and holiday details add to the charm of this special keepsake.

This class is suitable for beginners as well as experienced crafters. Step-by-step instruction will guide you through the entire process, and you’ll leave with a finished handmade book ready to display or give as a holiday gift.

Materials
All materials and the class kit will be provided by the instructor for the class fee. - $20.00
Tools to Bring – Pencil, scissors, ruler
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INSTRUCTOR: Irina Kitaeva ​  
Irina Kitaeva was born in Russia and grew up in Moscow, where an early curiosity for making and transforming materials began to take shape. In 1993 she moved to the United States working as a software developer, utilizing her both her technical mind and a quiet love of creating with her hands.

For more than twenty-five plus years, Irina explored many artistic paths, but paper always being her passion. In its fragility and strength, she found endless possibilities. Folded, cut, stitched, and layered, paper became a language through which she could tell stories. Bookmaking, in particular, captured her imagination—the book as an object, as a sculpture, as a container of memory and time.

She shared this passion widely, teaching classes and workshops in many forms of media at art retreats and creative gatherings. Her work and ideas appeared in art magazines, and through teaching she found another layer of meaning: the joy of guiding others to discover their own creative voice.

Life eventually brought changes and challenges that brought her to New England. For a period of time, she stepped away from teaching and returned to her professional training as a software developer, working full time in the world of technology.

Now retired, Irina is returning to the quiet, tactile world that first inspired her. She is once again folding, stitching, and shaping paper into books and sculptural forms. Her work reflects a lifelong dialogue between structure and imagination, precision and intuition—between the measured logic of systems and the delicate poetry of paper.
         
​Today she continues to explore book arts not only as a form of personal expression, but as a way to share knowledge, curiosity, and the enduring magic of making things by hand.