Pinned & Produced: A Book Page Wreath …

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been having a slight love affair with Pinterest for the past few months.  It’s such a fantastic place for a creative brain to dwell!  But I had to decide early on that I would be fairly selective in what I ‘pinned’, otherwise it could just become another way for me to feel like I accomplish nothing I set out to do.

With that in mind, I selected a few Christmas gifts to make from ideas I’d found on Pinterest.  I talked about the gift I made for the Hubby here.  For my friend Ronalin, I tackled something I’ve been eyeing for a while on various blogs– a book page wreath.

Don’t let this project fool you! I actually  had almost all of the materials on hand: an old book, a glue gun, glitter, cardstock and my faux graphic design skills. All I needed to purchase was a styrofoam wreath form. The key to this project is completing phases over time. I think in all it took me three hours.

Here’s how I did it:

First I tore the cover off the book to make it easier to rip out pages. Then I used my paper cutter to make strips to cover the wreath form.  And I completely forgot to take a picture of that step.

Next I folded and stapled about fifty of the book pages into a flat(ish) cylinder, like this:



I folded an additional sixteen pages into cone shapes and stapled them at the bottom like this:

 

Once I had two big piles of folded and stapled pages, I began gluing them to the wreath form.  The first two layers were the flat{ish) pages:



The third layer was the cone shaped pages:



Clearly I needed something to hide that unsightly middle section, so I fashioned two more book pages into fancy little accordion folded ring and glued that on the wreath like so:



I wanted some additional layering and texture, so I added a ring of vintage tissue streamer which I’d gathered on my sewing machine. I topped that layer with a monogram of the letter M for my friend’s last name which I made on my computer. It seemed a little plain, so I dressed up the edges with a little glitter (see here for instructions).

The finished product turned out great! I don’t think this photo does it justice.  Maybe I need to sneak over and get a shot of it on the wall at her house.



Since I’m trying to spend less this year, I’ve decided I will make things I find on Pinterest that I’ve already got the supplies for.  It should be fun and keep my creative mind busy so it doesn’t spend money.

PS. Angela was so kind to give me the strawberry syrup recipe. I’ve added it to the bottom of that post from last week.