Delicious Reads: DIY Holiday Craft Ideas Using Books

(Photo by Kellie)

I love Books! So I love to see pages and books reused into beautiful creations. What a wonderful time of year to be creative and make decorations to use during the holidays with fun creations we make from books.

We had our annual Christmas Book Club and I thought I would try a few things this year to give to the members of our book club who moderated each month. So I decided upon a Christmas Ornament and a Garland. At the end of the night I gave these things I made to the wonderful and talented women who helped out so much this year to make the year so fun. There is a picture of one of the ornaments I made in the picture above and the garland pictured below.

(Photo by Kellie)

The Ornament Tutorial

Step 1: Buy Supplies

First I bought some plastic ornaments from Hobby Lobby (and I went with plastic because I thought that way I won't have to worry about them breaking). I decided to get the larger globes and they looked like this:

Here are the supplies you will need: ribbon (which I buy at Costco because it's such a great deal and you can choose from so many beautiful selections they have), Jumbo Glitter, Green crafting wire and double sided tape, also you need a little bit of fishing line which I found in my garage.

(Photo by Kellie)

Step 2: The Picture

You can put anything inside these ornaments if you can get them through the tiny hole. I wanted to highlight the books we read each month but you could also put your favorite book you read this year etc. I printed two copies of each book about the size of 3" x 2" to fit nicely inside the globe without it feeling like it didn't fit right. I wanted it to loosely fit inside so that it could move freely and spin if needed. I printed these out and cut them and then used the double sided tape to match them up exactly. Before I put them together I cut a 5 inch piece of fishing line to hang the picture inside the globe without seeing the line that it is attached to. I put the fishing line in between the two pictures then sealed them together with the tape. I was able to fit two books on one 4x6 picture as you can see in the picture.

Step 3: Assemble

1. Next you want to put the glitter in the globe. I poured a generous amount that sits at the bottom. I didn't do this but if you want to try spraying glue inside the globe the glitter will stick to the inside and stay on the sides of the ornament. I didn't think of this till it was too late but doing it again I would most likely do that.

2. Next you will want to quickly roll the picture as loosely as possible to fit inside the globe. When it is inside and you have the fishing line to hold on to it use your finger to straighten out the picture to lay as flat as possible.

3. Then put the top back on and tape the fishing line to the top so that the picture is at a good position inside the ornament and doesn't fall down.

4. Now I cut a piece of the green crafting wire about 6 inches enough to hook it onto my tree later and looped it through the silver circle on the top.

5. Finally, I cut a long length of ribbon to tie a bow on the top of the ornament, then I cut the ends to look the same.

(Photo by Kellie)

The Books Garland Tutorial

Step 1: Get Your Supplies

You don't need too many things to put this together just an old book, rubber cement, a glue stick, gold jumbo glitter, hemp chord, baby wooden clothes clips, ribbon, cardstock paper and a paper cutter.

(Photo by Kellie)

Step 2: Assemble

1. I cut the cardstock in half so that I had two papers 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches.

2. Now I cut pages out of the used book I had. I just used scissors to score the edge as close to the binding as I could get. I used 4 pages for every piece of cardstock I had cut out.

3. I folded the pages at angles to cover the paper. Then I took the rubber cement and glued each one down until it was fully covered. On the back of the paper I glued one whole sheet so that it looked clean and nice.

4. Next I used the glue stick to go along the edges of the front of the glued down pages. Then I sprinkled the jumbo gold glitter on the edges. See below.

(Photo by Kellie)

5. Next I rubber cemented the picture of the book on the front of the paper.

(Photo by Kellie)

6. Then I strung up the length of hemp chord that I wanted and used the baby wooden clothes pins to clip them on the chord. Lastly I put bows of ribbons on the ends of the garland.