I've been fascinated by book folding for some time now and finally decided to give it a try. Now, I wanted something fast and mindless to do so don't be looking for the ones you need to set up an Excel spreadsheet to do! Those are amazing and I'll let them to the experts.
I did a search of the Internet and came up with a few different ones I thought I'd like. I fell in love with the trees, just in time for Christmas! Here is what I did!
Aren't they just fab!!!??? You can decorate them, if you want to but I wanted to go with a vintage look and think I pulled that off. Some people paint the edges or glue and glitter but I'm leaving mine just like this.
The smallest one is made from about 60 pages of a paperback book. The medium one is from a Super Pages phone book we get in this area. The pages are lighter weight and it took a lot more pages. The largest one and my favorite one, is made from the pages of a vintage dictionary!! The pages are thick and easy to work with.
A few tips I had to find out on my own:
1. Don't use any books or magazines that use staples, they won't work. The pages will just fall out when you get to the center.
2. When using vintage books, don't even try to use one with brittle pages, the end results aren't the nicest because the paper will feather.
3. Watch your vintage books for how they are bound. The dictionary I used was so old they had used thread/string for binding and this doesn't work so well, I had to use my own binding glue to glue them together before being able to use the pages but it was well worth it!
4. Don't get discouraged if you do one and it doesn't look full in the back, I have a solution! Make a second one using the number of pages you think you'll need, usually the same amount as the one you all ready made or more, then just hot glue the two together!!!
Think about this, these are SO inexpensive to do. Use items around the house such as books or magazines. The phone book was free, the dictionary I found on the curb for trash and made hubby stop and pick it up (boy am I happy he did) and paperbacks are around 50 cents each at thrift shops! The folding is easy enough for children to do, so throw a glitter party and have them make them up for you! LOL!
I have a few other ideas in my head that I might try but for now, that's all I've done! Hope you like them!
I couldn't believe my luck when I got my ornaments out to fill my bowl and realized I have these tiny glass mercury balls that went perfectly on my tree!
I hung the tree above my cabinet.
Top shelf is my vintage cheese container with Shiny Brite and Germany ornaments. The wooden reindeer and trees on the next shelf, I made so long ago, they are vintage now! The 3 Santas with a tree and the snowman are stitched on perforated paper.
The reindeer have twigs I found outside, another stitched tree on perforated paper and two of my book folding trees.
Sitting by the cabinet is a plastic canvas Santa door stop that was given to me ages ago.
My handmade wreaths from ornaments, the center one being my favorite:
I made this one with Shiny Brite ornaments and vintage decorations. The twine you see between the wreaths is to clip Christmas cards on!
The dish on the left holds the clips for cards and another one of my folding book trees. The candle has a bracelet made from plastic beads and says Noel on it. I found the van at a thrift shop and tied a bottle brush tree to it.
This is pathetic. LOL! I've always wanted a decoration tree and I started back in Oct. stitching up ornaments, finally got the tree and just hate how they look on it. I guess I should have done all uniform size ornaments. Why do other peoples stuff always look so much better than when I try to do the same thing?
On the other hand, this is one I'm most proud of. I stitched this up back in 1991.
I had to relocate the hanging book folding to my paint by number wall so I could keep it out. I don't have much room to decorate, so have to make due with what I have.
And part of my forest had to be moved too.
