Book Wreaths

The other day I went Visiting Teaching and noticed the cutest wreath on this girls door.  The lady I was with informed me that it was just made from a book that was painted and then the pages were rolled up and so forth.  I figured it was something I could figure out on my own.   So in case you are interested in making one of these, here is a tutorial from yours truly.

Supplies needed:

---a book (preferably at least 300 pages...depends on how thick/full you want the wreath to be)

---acrylic paint

---wreath (a foam one would work best but I just had a stick one I used)

---glue gun

---Elmer's glue

---ribbon

The first thing you need to do is get a book.  I didn't want to use any books I had in my house so I went to the dollar store (Dollar General to be exact) and bought this little beauty.

This book had about 450 pages to it and I didn't feel bad at all buying it knowing full well I was just going to rip it apart :)  I know you are all wanting to go pick this baby up and read it.  It looks so intriguing.

Next you will take a paint color of your choice and paint the edges of the book.  I didn't have any brushes so I just put paint on a paper towel and rubbed it on there.

I then proceeded to rip out the pages in the book.  You will need at least 200 so rip away ladies.  I only ripped pages with words on them.  This book had a ton of pages with hardly any words on them.  You need them to have words so they will show on your wreath.  Otherwise it will be just blank and it doesn't look as sharp.  Just trust me on this :)

This next step I learned through trial and error.  I tried just rolling the pages up (make sure to not crease it) and then hot gluing them straight onto the wreath.  I don't know if it had anything to do with my wreath not being foam but they wouldn't stay tight.  So I decided to glue all my pages as I rolled them.  I just took old fashioned Elmers Glue and put glue on one edge of the page and then started rolling.  Just remember to roll so the top of the roll is the painted edges.  There are millions of ways to roll these babies but this is how I chose to roll them.  I started folding in one direction then mid way through started rolling in the opposite direction.  Hopefully this collage will give you a better idea of what I am so terrible at trying to explain :)

This is how my pages looked after I rolled them.  Fancy huh...

Here is my little rolled pile.  Trust me this is just a small small fraction of what I had to roll. 

Once you get a good little pile started you can begin hot gluing them onto your wreath.  You just start by gluing them directly onto the wreath.  Once you get the whole bottom covered, flip the wreath over and put something somewhat heavy on top of it to flatten it just a little.   

For your next layer you will need to fold the bottom of your rolled pages like so....

Then with the first layer on the backside of the wreath, start gluing them around the wreath like so.  And I also overlapped them a little at this point.

I believe I did 3 layers of this.  I would periodically stop and look for spots that needed to be filled in and fill them in.  I wanted a nice, full wreath with no holes.  For the very last step you will fill the inside of the wreath with rolled pages.  No need to fold these rolls.  Just glue straight up from the inside, essentially matching the direction your other pages are going.  Once you get your desired fullness take a piece of ribbon and glue it onto the back of the wreath like so. 

And here is my finished product.  I did do an extra layer on the inside of my wreath where I didn't roll my pages but did more of wave type look to them.  They were harder to glue but I did this extra layer to just hide some of the imperfections I had on the inside of the wreath.  Overall I am pleased with my outcome.
Of course I would never dare hang this beauty outside since the weather here in Utah is so unpredictable.  Not only is my house located in the windiest part of Utah (at least it feels like it ), it rains and snows out of nowhere here so to keep this beauty safe I keep her tucked away on my front door, but on the inside.

And besides bringing beauty to my door it also partially blocks people from peeping into my house through my glass window on my door (not a fan of glass on doors....I can't hide from people when they knock :) 

Oh and my husband told me the other day that he didn't like this little creation I did.  He said, "It looks just like a rolled up newspaper."  Tell me how you really feel hun :)

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