Vintage Book Paper Wreath

Good morning! I'm sure we've all seen those beautiful wreaths that look like a flower, made from old book paper right? They're all over Pinterest, and I desperately wanted to make one. I thought about making this a tutorial, but decided to just link the video that helped me make mine at the bottom instead. This particular project is better with a video tutorial than a photo tutorial.

I had already taken apart the book for a couple of other projects (I'd used a few pages in my 100 Happy Days album) and so I had a stack of pages just waiting for me to use them for something, so I found a tutorial online, and got to work.

I spent a couple of hours before work on it, and it took me about three days. I'm satisfied with how it turned out, but I know I could have done better. The book paper was a little thicker and didn't want to roll very nicely, so my cones turned out different sizes. It could always be worse, and I'm just happy that I tried something new. I stopped procrastinating it and just did it. I'm glad I did. I feel so much better about it, and know I probably won't make it again anytime soon.

I wasn't sure how to go about filling in the center so that it looked good, so I just took a rosette I had left over from another project, and hot glued it to the center.

The paper was a little on the thicker side, so some of them didn't roll as nicely as I'd wanted them to, but I worked with it. I hid most of the evidence of the paper folding more than rolling, and I'm pleased with the outcome. Now I just need to figure out how to hang it up.

Here you can see that the rosette has nothing underneath it. I just glued it to the pages that it touched. I also really love looking at it from this angle. The pages I used were from a book that was published in 1911. I'm so glad I could re-purpose them into something new.

Thanks for coming by today. I hope you'll come back on Monday to see my Project Life spreads, and share your own in Karen's link up!
Have a great day!
-Alexandria

Temporary Workspace & DIY Baby Gift

I feel as though I've made a terrible mistake by agreeing to make my nephew's birth announcements. I thought they'd ask for 50, and so I offered my papercrafting services, but they came back and asked for 100. Every single element of these cards is cut out on the silhouette, so this should be interesting. I spent all of Thursday afternoon cutting 100 card bases from brown paper. I had to buy more paper just for this project.

Here's my current workspace. I moved my computer, silhouette and a bunch of paper onto the kitchen table. I have no idea where we'll eat for the next few days, but we'll figure it out. I have a tray at the back of the table that I was using to hold some extra sheets of paper, and my tools. Now that I've finished cutting all 100 card bases, I'm using the tray to hold those. I've also started cutting out the inside portion of the card, so those will be going in there as well. (It's a pop up card).

The bead organizer in the bottom left corner is where I'm keeping all the pieces I've cut out. In there currently is the owls I cut out for the front of the birth announcement. Other things that will go in there include: his name, the parts of the owl (feet, beak, wings, eyes, tummy, etc.), their names (my brother, his fiance, and their daugter). 

I shared this sneak peek of the baby gift I was making my nephew on Instagram. I decided that their room needed to have more of an owl theme than what they had currently (which was nothing really). 

Here's one of the finished owls. I sent this to my sister and she thought it was the cutest thing ever. I have to agree. I made him to match the bedding and mobile I bought them. 

The bedding only had three different owls, but the mobile had four, so I used the colour combinations from the mobile to make these four owl frames. I used the same cut file to make these, that I'm using to make the birth announcements, and the owl on the left will be smaller, but will be on the front. They loved them so much. I'm so happy.

Using your cricuit, or your silhouette, you could make any design you have, into a framed "print". Just cut it large enough to fit the frame, and add white paper behind it. Tada!

Have a great weekend!

-Alexandria