Wreaths from Old Books

Old books are works of art on their own and we have shelves lined with them. Pick up a few extras during your next trip to the thrift shop or antique store and spend 30 minutes making this beautiful wreath. See it. Create it.

1. Here are the supplies you will need. Two books of with different discoloration works best, and of varied size. We used two paper plates, hot glue, and ribbon.

2. Cut out the centers of two paper plates and then glue them together.

3. Carefully remove pages from the two books then use hot glue to secure them around the perimeter of the plates as shown, staggering the heights slightly.

4. Fold the paper, without creasing it, and glue the other side of each sheet as shown, working your way around the circle.

5. This is what the wreath should look like at this point.

6. Glue your ribbon to the paper plate.

7. Allow glue to set then hang and enjoy!

Here is one with more exaggerated variation in page length.

This smaller version was made with scrap card-stock. Tacky glue was applied and then Epson Salt was sprinkled on to look like snow and ice.

We hope you will enjoy making these.

An Invitation to Recycle

Sometimes we have to wait on art, and it is frustrating. I have a chandelier waiting to be born from recycled plastic water bottles. One crucial piece has not yet come to me from the great recycle-o-sphere.  So, I wait.  After reading today's newspaper, I thought I would spend no more than 30 minutes making something entirely from scrap materials I already had around the house and incorporate something from the newspaper.  This is what the 30 minutes produced. Mine is penned as an Invitation but could just as easily be a greeting or post card.  The point is, recycle and be creative.  I already had left over supplies from other projects, thus the snazzy paper and envelope.  I have made my own textured paper and I started to make the envelope from a brown shopping bag, however, I gave myself a 30 minute timeline and so I used left over supplies I had on hand.

As always, See it.  Create it.

Today's paper and some left over project paper and an envelope

I tore an interesting picture from the paper.

I cut a piece of left over project paper to fit my envelope then glued the picture on the resulting card, allowing the paper to overlap to the back so that part of the image and interesting visual lines are on both sides of the card.

Finally, using a chisel-tip marker, I wrote You're Invited on the front. The back, of course, includes all the necessary information.

Old Magazines Make Great Art

Believe it or not, you can make a visually interesting and beautiful piece of art from the pages of old magazines and some left over construction paper. All you need is:

• visually pleasing pages from magazines
• construction paper
• foam board
  
• tape
• spray acrylic
• spray adhesive or glue
• scissors
• utility knife
• cutting board
• t-square

As always, we have provided step by step instructions in the slides below. If the slides move too quickly for you, hover your mouse over the slide, click the pause button, and use the left and right arrows to navigate. See it. Create It.