4 reasons to tear up a thrift store book

Hello friends! I'm back with more Christmas crafting-

are you ready?

Today is all about book pages. After seeing all the many gazillions of ways you can incorporate book pages into, say... party decor, I reckoned you could also make some pretty snazzy Christmas crafts as well.

Let's get started.

Grab a book, preferably one you won't want to read ever and also, the older the better. Brandspankin' new book pages just don't have the same flair as old ones do. Are ya with me? My book of choice happens to be the 1957 Collier's Encyclopedia Yearbook:

Next, you'll want to rip out some particularly dull pages, for example:

For my first project, I used the same ingredients as with my wool felt garland but substituted paper for the felt-

String together as many or as few as you like and that's IT.

You could place them close together as I've done, or spread them out on your ribbon/string/twine.

Project 2-

I grabbed a frame and some scrapbook paper I had on hand,

scissors,

a pencil,

and more boring book pages

Now- sketch something Christmasy-

an ornament,

a reindeer,

a star,

evah whatcha want.

I chose a tree.

Cut out whatever it is you drew (and be sure to draw it small enough to fit inside your frame), and then fold a tee-niny piece of tape backwards into an official roll, like this-

oh yeah...you'll need a tee-niny piece of tape.

Place it on the back of your tree (or whatever...) and then cut your pretty background paper to fit your frame. Stick your tree (or whatever...) on the pretty paper, throw it in the frame, and voila-

Book page Christmas art.

Fab.

Project 3-

grab your handydandy glue gun,

a styrofoam ball,

and cut a few book pages into 3/4 inch strips

Start by placing a dot of glue at the top and bottom of the first strip of boring book page-

and place it on your styrofoam, like so-

Work your way around the whole thing, gluing and sticking down those wordy paper strips-

When you've made it all the way around, you might end up with an odd tail-like thing on the bottom. (see above)

No biggie-

just cut the excess off with scissors.

I'm planning to make several of these babies, but until I have mucho, I stuck my one lil' cutie in a white pitcher.

And now that I look at that, I may have to let one live there.

Kinda like it.

Project 4-

No, you will NOT need any food products for this one.

Just wanted to show those of you that know me that I do, on occasion, make actual dinners for my family and whatnot.

On occasion.

Grab some scissors and boring book pages.

That's it.

And remember when you made snowflakes in the 3rd grade by folding your paper into a triangle and then another triangle and then another triangle, and then you cut shapes along the sides?

that's it.

Book page snowflakes.

Purty.

String them up with some twine and hang 'em from a chandy,

or you could hang them on the branches of your real-not-fake Christmas tree that you're getting on Thursday. Did I mention we're picking out our tree on Thursday?

We're picking out our tree on Thursday.

Lil' excited.

Now- there are WAY more than 4 things to make with book pages. I'm sure you've all seen the famous book page wreath, or small trees made from books, or stars, or....eegads...the possibilities are endless. Just type 'book page projects' into the search bar of Pinterest to see what I'm talking about.

So GO!

Buy an old book and have some fun ripping it up!

How many things can you come up with?

Hmmm??

And, totally forgot to mention that I paid a whopping 1.57 for my 1957 Encyclopedia. I've had it for a few years, so these projects cost me absolutely nothing.

Gotta love free craftin'.

I've linked this to:

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts,

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design,Kate's Holiday Crafts linky at Centsational Girl,

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

That's right-
this year I've envisioned lovely vignettes of white pinecones, berries, ornaments, trees, and all things Christmasy. My hubs has talked me into having a real tree this year (with the agreement that HE cleans up needles off the floor each day) and I'm actually excited about it! We've always done a faux tree, but if you've seen pics of real ones, you know they're quite pretty. No...gawgeous.
They're gawgeous.
However, I don't want to junk it up with all of the hulabaloo that I usually put on our faux tree, so....
I'm going a more handmade, rustic route with everything this year.

While searching Pinterest for 'White Christmas' inspiration, I came across and fell in love with a white berry wreath so, naturally, I had to try and re-create it. This begins my 'Week of Christmas Crafts- 2011', and I'm starting out by saving a whopping $51 bucks.

Did you hear that internets?
I SAVED $51 dollaroonies by makin' this myself.
The one I found on etsy was $70 and I was able to pick up the supplies I needed for my own at a cool $19. While they aren't identical, I'm totally in love with my own now.
Totally.

Here's my version:

**updated**
I totally added a ribbon

and here's the one I pinned from etsy:

Source: etsy.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

And yes, I could totally add a bow to make them even more twin-like...

Here's what I used to make it:

14 white berry stems from Michael's at 50% off= $14

1 wired wreath form= $2.99

1 spool of floral wire= $1.99

In short, all I did was attach each of the stems to the wreath form with the floral wire, and since the wreath form started out dark green, I also used some white acrylic paint I had on hand so it would blend in.

p.s. Do you like my manicure? I call it 'taupe-with-a-tip-of-white-acrylic'

and...that's the backside of the wreath form. See how that green sticks out like a sore thumb?

Thar she is with 2 stems attached.

By the way, you'll need some of these bad boys to clip the long stems off since they're not needed-

They're called wire-stem-remover thing-a-ma-bobs.

Forgot to mention that it may also be helpful to have a 2-year old who refuses to go to sleep because she just wants to 'help'.

Even before the 2-year old goes to sleep, the wreath will be done because it was just so darntootin' easy.

For now, it's in the foyer on the Narnia closet door. I'm thinkin' I may go back and make it a bit fuller by adding in more stems, but who knows. I could grow to love it in this skinny state. And speaking of NOT skinny, I'll be dieting until I get this turkeyhamdressingcasserolepie gut off of me. I'd love to say I'm kidding when someone asked yesterday when I was due, but I'm NOT.

Someone actually asked me when I was DUE.

I know this is neither here nor there in regards to the lovely wreath above but I felt like sharing.

Anywho....

I hope you have a most excellent Monday!

I'll be back tomorrow with something else I'm creating for my 'white, light, and bright' decor.

And yes-

extra bonus points if you immediately spotted the plastic Easter egg in the pic above. It just wouldn't be right if a random toy didn't make it into at least one of the shots.

**********

I've linked this post to:



Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog,

 The Crafty Lassy Linky at Sew Stylish Boutique,Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts,Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design,Kate's Holiday Crafts linky at Centsational Girl,

A look back at last year's Christmas Crafts and a COUPON CODE

Happy Black Friday everyone!

**I've added a coupon code in my shop for 20% off everything! Just type THANKS11 to receive your discount from now through Cyber Monday!**


I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! We've had two celebratory meals already and have two more to go. Last night, however, was all about shopping. My sis and I do Black Friday every year- can you guess where?
Yup.
Target.
And can I just say that I loved being home by 1:25 am this year and going to bed INSTEAD of having to wake up at 1:25 to go stand in line. Midnight shopping was the bomb-diggity! Did any of you go out shopping last night? Or this morning? Or do you shop QVC-style in your pajamas from home? I do a mix of both...
Anyway, since my attention has now been turned to Christmas and decorating and yuletides and whatnot, I thought I'd take a look back at some of the things I made last year to prettify our house.

1. Ribbon Trees- saw similar trees on the Shanty 2 Chic blog and immediately made my own. The great thing about these trees is that there are SO many ways to make them- with ribbon, burlap, fabric, tulle... the possibilities are endless. **I'll be teaching a class on how to make these at Art Off Main next Tuesday night (Nov. 29). If you'd like more info, you can check out their website HERE or shoot me an e-mail. If you're local, I'd LOVE to see you there!**

Tutorial for the ribbon trees HERE, and the burlap tree HERE

2. Burlap Stockings- I made my own pattern for these and used burlap and muslin. Love how they turned out. Tutorial HERE.

3. A Christmas Yarn Wreath- I'm planning on a completely different color scheme for Christmas this year, so I'll be making a new wreath. Loved my bright greens/pinks/blues from last year, (and the year before and the year before) but I'm ready for a change.

4. A December Daily Album- this project is the invention of Ali Edwards (scrapbook extraordinaire) and is basically an album with a page for each day in December leading up to Christmas. We all have parties and gift swaps and special events and tree trimming and family get-togethers to document and instead of trying to cram all of that into my Project Life album, I loved being able to have space for ALL of it, or as much as I wanted to include anyway...

I used a small 3-ring binder I picked up at Target and numbered a page for each day with some cute FREE printables I found online.

Done.

That's it.

It can be as simple or as ornate as you want it to be (I went for a mix between the two) and really helped me to keep up with all of those Christmas cards, and  lists for Santa and receipts from special things we did and programs from Christmas plays/musicals.

Pocket pages were perfect for holding all of the Christmas cards we received in the mail. Need to put together another album for this year...

5. Christmas Pillows- These were both super-easy and while I didn't give full tutorials, one of them required about 8 runs through the sewing machine and the other required me to rip open about 4 inches of the seam on a leaf placemat, stuff it with polyfill, and stitch it back up. That's right. A placemat.

Can't wait to share with you what I've been working on for THIS Christmas, but I will tell you that a lot of my inspiration came from West Elm. Love their stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving/Family time/decorating for Christmas/Black Friday!