A funny thing happened on the way to my forest!

Okay, so, my hubby came upstairs to me and presented me with a surprise!

He uses these journals for every day on the job.  Writes down notes, hours, contact information etc.  He decided it is time to get rid of some of the old ones.  What did he do?

Made a tree!!  How cool is that?  It's dated, you can see his handwriting on some pages and it is just too neat!

Added a plate hanger to it, glued down the top corners so the pages stay flat and waalaa, a hanging book folding!

This is how it looks with the rest of the forest:

I think my hubby has been holding out on me!  It's neat that these are dated with the years on them, think I need more, don't you?  

PSSST, honey, go straighten it, it's hanging crooked!

My forest of trees

I needed to find a home for my trees and didn't want to put them away, just to get them out again in a week or two. I decided to clean off my small cabinet that usually holds my antique glassware and set it up with the forest! Along with my shell critter collection:

I cannot make anymore trees!  I don't have the room for them.

My newest project!

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!

Christmas Tree Farm

All these trees are made with a paper bead! Wire wrapped and a star at the top, each one comes with it's own little stand! I've sold quite a few of these and plan on using them to decorate my Norfolk Island Pine tree at Christmas. I've made earrings with a few of them and love them, can't wait to wear them! These are great for package decorations or as a necklace. I include a lengthy cord or ribbon with each one. They can be found in my Etsy shop at www.RunsWithScissors4.etsy.com