Handmade Christmas part 4 - Book Page Wreath

Sooo...today I made a book page wreath!! (that photo is a bit yellow from weird night lighting!)

Yay!! So excited!! lol ... I've seen them aplenty on other girls blogs and on Pinterest...so decided to give it a go. As usual, I forgot to take photos from the beginning!!...but remembered as I started gluing..so here goes...

I used a book from the opshop..cost me about 50c - the same book I used to make the paper star garland..that book is value for money!

Anyway, I started with a 30cm (12"?) polystyrene (stryofoam) wreath,

an old book,

some Fabri Tac

and a stapler.

That's it.

Begin...rip out oh about a hundred pages!! (Oh if your book is not aged looking and you want it to be, rub some coffee/tea or thinned brown paint along the edges of the book before you rip the pages from the book, and let it dry)...Bring the ends of each page to meet in the centre, then fold in half, with the edges innermost, without creasing - you want it left rounded. The shape kind of makes a heart ♥ when you look at the end :) Pinch the torn end together and staple in centre.

Starting on the outside bottom edge of the wreath, put a dab of glue on the middle of the stapled end, tuck under the outer edge of the wreath and press against it to stick. Place them side by side creating a kind of fanned row all the way around. Next do the innermost edge in the same way, but standing them upright.

Next fold the end of each stapled edge on the rest of the pages up about 2cm (1") forming a 'tab'. Apply the glue to the underside of the tab and begin the next row, above the first outer row, and in the 'gaps' it formed, gluing to the wreath, working from the outside in, in complete circles before moving inward to the next 'row'. When you've filled in the whole wreath, check for gaps and glue in extra pages until it's as full as you like and no polystyrene is showing.

So this is how it looked at the end. You can just see the centre gap..they've 'crowded' in a little in the centre..you just push them back up. Oh I meant to say attach a loop on the back of the polystyrene wreath at the beginning - I forgot and had to add it later. I simply made a loop of jute twine and glued it on but if I'd remembered at the beginning I think I would have tied it around the wreath form.

I sat a silver star in the centre..might leave it there, might not. What I did find tho was that it was too 'round' and uniform for my taste so I carefully 'scrunched' it all, handful by handful to make it look a little 'shabbier'..a little more aged and rustic looking....

Much better!! Wish I had a dark wall to hang it on...maybe a square of dark fabric behind it? hmm..I'll see.

Thanks for stopping by :)

ciao for now

jessie xx