Wallflower

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This weekend Josh had a lot of work to do, so I had to find a way to occupy myself. And I had the perfect craft in mind. I noticed a friend had this awesome flower thing on her wall. It was love at first site. I really thought she bought it, so I asked where she got it. It turns out it was handmade! It was made out of book pages. She took it off the wall and showed me how it was done. I was impressed (and jealous). I found myself thinking, "I want, I want."

(To get you to read on, here's my final product)

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So I did some rummaging online and came across a few sites that did wreaths with book pages - eh, close enough. With seeing the actual product up close and some DIY sites, I managed to figure out how this would come together. This is how I did it...

  1. I went to Goodwill and found an old, cheap book with some solid pages (e.g. a hard bound book with thicker pages rather than a flimsy romance novel (not that flimsy, romance novels are bad)). My book was about Pompeii...odd, but the pages were too good to pass up.
  2. I went to Bartells (drug store) and bought a small glue gun and some glue sticks.
  3. I had a hefty poster board that I had left over from my wedding projects. Then I took a big bowl, made a circle, and cut it out.

Those are the supplies, and then came the putting it together.

  • Rip out all the pages in the book (this hurt a little being an avid book reader).
  • Roll about 1/2 the book (it was a big book) into curl-cones. To make the cones, I took the bottom, right corner and rolled toward the top. It should look like a sugar cone almost. And staple the bottom.
  • Grab the glue gun, and starting from the outside, glue the cones along the edge. After you've made a full circle, start again one layer down.

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  • Keep layering until you get to the tiny center. Here I had to ripe more pages length wise and make smaller curl-cones. Then glue those in until you get so no more fit.
  • I used the top of a soda can to make a little thing to hang with. I just glued it to the back, and then hung it on our bedroom wall.

And that's it. A beautiful wall flower.

Here's the artist with her piece + Josh admiring my craftiness:

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[Note: This is not a DIY blog now. I just had a crafty spirit take over me. I am not a crafter, although I sort of aspire to be one; they're so crafty.]