Book Pages Tray Tutorial

I'm sure I'm not the first person to Mod Podge old book pages to stuff, but this was a really fun and small way to bring even more themed decor to the Library baby shower. Today I'll share how I made the tray.

The supplies are pretty simple. You will need a tray to cover. I found this plastic "Merry Christmas" one at a thrift store for $0.50! You also need an old book. Try to find one that has yellowed edges from age if you can, it just adds more dimension. You need Mod Podge, a foam brush, and (not pictured) black craft paint, little paint brush, and sealer.

Rip pages out of the book at the spine, then rip the pages at random places.

Use a sponge brush to apply Mod Podge to one side of the page.

(if you follow me on FB, this is why my daughter got the stuff in her hair)

Then stick the page glue side down on the tray at random. I did try to make sure the pages were going at different angles and the text at different directions from the ones immediate to it. Also, don't go from one side the tray to the other, because then all the pages will be on top of each other on the same sides. (does that even make sense?)

I covered over the handle openings completely, then waited for it to mostly dry. Cut a line in the paper covering the hole.

Then use more Mod Podge to wrap the cut pages around the opening.

This is how it will look when you've covered the whole top side. I stopped here, but I think it would be a good idea to cover the sides as well.

The next step is to add an image. This draws attention away from what could be awkward page placement, and just adds a bit of fun.

I used this bird image from picnik.com, printed it out in a 4x6 size, and cut out the bird.

I traced around the bird on to the paper tray with a pencil.

Fill in the outline with black craft paint (or any color you wish).

The last two steps are to finish it off. First, after letting the bird image dry, use your sponge brush to apply Mod Podge over the entire surface of the book pages. This is harden it and add a great finish. Don't do it too thick that the pages wrinkle. Allow it to dry.

 The final step is to apply a sealer. Even after it has dried, Mod Podge can be tacky and if you leave things resting on the surface for very long, they can stick. Sealer will prevent that from happening. And since it is a serving tray, you most likely will have things resting on it!

 And there you have it, an awesome Book Pages Tray.

Then you can add stuff, like these party favors:

And that's just awesome!

The Book Garland

I am in no way saying that this garland was an original idea by me. I got the idea, supply list and how to from Martha Stewart. But for as awesome as Martha Stewart is, her online how-to's are not always very clear. I like a lot of pictures, and she has more text instructions. So this here is how I made my version of her book garland.

First, I'll show you how we made the books. Instead of going out to buy various shades of pink, we decided to just use the scrap-booking paper I had on hand in a variety of colors. We kept them all soft colors of pink, green, purple and brown so they went well together.

I cut the scrap-book paper the dimensions Martha suggested of 4" x 7". 

The description of how to fold the spine confused me, so here is how I did it. Place the paper wrong side up, fold over the right half of the paper so the right edge is 1/2" inside the left edge. Press the fold firmly. Open it up, and fold the it mirror image. (So the left edge is 1/2" inside the right edge.)

Now you should have a 1/2" spine, like this:

The next step is to glue in the book pages. We used an old book of mine. We found that the pages weren't quite wide enough for the 7 inches, so we cut a bit into the text on the left side of a page, and then glued two pages together with a glue stick. Cut the page to just under 4 inches tall.

To glue the pages in, I found it easiest to apply glue from the glue stick right into the 1/2" spine, and attach the pages there. For ease of folding, I made sure that the page seam was inside the spine.

I trimmed off the over hang on either side.

This last step is optional. We left half alone, with just the two folds. The other half, I folded the book into the center to meet and make a more prominent spine. It also holds the book open more. It was nice to have half this way and half without the extra folds, because it gave it more variety of both open and closed books.

And there you are. Make a bunch! Overall I think we used just under 50 for our garland.

Now, for the flowers. I went to the dollar store to find inexpensive flowers for this. I was just about to give up and walk out when I saw the "Luao Party" section, and these leis.

I brought them home, cut the string and pulled off the flowers!

This one lei got me about 70 flowers and a handful of leaves. I threw away the plastic spacers.

Here's the result of tearing apart 6 leis. Over 400 flowers!!

I used some left over black nylon twine I had from crocheting a purse a few years ago for the string. I used a yarn needle and threaded right through the center of the flowers onto the string. Despite my plethora of flowers, I only ended up using about 60 or 70 flowers and a few of the leaves.

Lena tied the string to the curtain rods on one side and we taped the string with masking tape on the other wall. See the flowers all bunched up? We just spaced them out after the string was secure.

The last step we took was to add the books by hanging them with little clothespins. Martha Stewart also had ribbon flags and star shaped cut-outs glued to her string; but we thought that would be overkill, especially with how densely we packed in the books and flowers.

Here's the end result! It was a huge hit. 

The Library Baby Shower

Once upon a time. That's the start of an awesome book, right? Well, it's also the start to an awesome baby shower! 

I have some friends that I have known since we were 8 years old. In 5th grade, I went to a different school, yet somehow, we managed to stay friends all through Jr. High, High School, and into college. Now we are married and having babies!

I jumped the gun (I guess), so Talina is the first of my friends from way-back-when to have a baby, and it's a girl! I co-hosted with our good friend Lena and we decided on a library themed baby shower. The goal of this shower is to give the mom-to-be a good start to her children's library! 

It was a lot of fun to make the invites. I staged the picture, then edited the words right on top using picnik.com. Do you see Hero's addition? He's really into Pokemon right now.

Lena was in charge of location (it being at her house) and the food. Which left the fun decorating to me! (Thanks, Lena, for letting me have free reign on this.) We are not the game-playing type of shower-throwing people, so I put a bit more effort into the decorations to really make it special.

I searched for "book shower" on the internet, and discovered that Martha Stewart had this great book garland idea for a "Once upon a baby shower"! Wow. I'm cool like Martha Stewart, having a book shower... We decided to make it a bit more colorful, rather than the all pink that the original suggested. Lena and I spent a night ripping apart an old book and making these little ones.

I'll post more about the making this later.

I made a few more items, too. It turns out that ripping up books is very satisfying. So I made a wreath, a tray, and a canvas art piece.

I spent an good amount of time hunched over my glue gun (about 4 hours) making this book wreath, using this tutorial. I made a few changes to it, and will post more about that later.

The tray and the art were made with an old book, Mod-Podge and a little black paint. I also made more of my baby food jar party favors, this time adding the round magnets that hold so much better.

I'll show you exactly how I did these two items in later posts as well.

Here is Talina with all her new books! She got so many great books, as well as the usual and useful baby clothes, blankets and burp cloths.

It's amazing to me that we all met 18 years ago, and now we are here. Congratulations, Talina! I can't wait to met your sweet little girl!

Some Past Due "Thank You"s.

I have only been doing this craft blog for a few months now, and sometimes I feel like I'm just sitting in a corner talking to myself. It's like I'm in high school waiting for the cute guy to notice how awesome I am.

And when it does happen, I am a dork and forget to say something back. "Take Luck!" and "You, too!" and whatnot.

Can you see the visual?

 So that is what this post is about. Catching up on it all. First, check out on the side bar I have a few places that have featured me. AWESOME!!! Some I sent stuff to and asked if they'd share. But some I just got emails/comments saying they'd already done it! WAHOO! I am also listed on AllFreeSewing.com and CraftGossip.com. Thanks to those who linked me up there.

And lastly, I was given some awards by a few of my fellow crafty bloggers a while ago and kept meaning to follow through on it, but alas, I'm still just a dork... :o)  

These three (maybe only 2 since 2 have the same name...) awards were given to me by The Sassy Crafter and Bree at My Crafty Crap.

     

 The conditions of all these awards are:

1) Thank the person

2) Share 7 things about yourself

3) Nominate 15 newly discovered blogs

4) Let the award winners know

So, let me start with THANKS MRS. SASSY CRAFTER AND BREE!!! I feel loved. Maybe I'm not talking to only myself and my dad. HI DAD!

Next, 7 things?

• I was team captain of both the basketball and volleyball teams back in high school, and boy to I miss that body!  Back then it was accepted right away when I said, "I play volleyball and basketball". Now they look at my nearly 60 extra pounds and say, "really?" No, not really, I'm just a pathological liar trying to impress you. YES REALLY!

• I didn't wear the color pink until I was a senior in high school (then it was my sister's old dress...) because I was told red heads can't wear pink. Whenever my mom got my sister and I matching clothes in different colors, hers was pink and mine was purple. Because of this, I'm not a fan of purple, but currently own at least 3 pink shirts (I have a rather small wardrobe).

• When I'm pregnant, I have no mother's intuition. I was sure Hero was a girl and thought Pretty was a boy. My husband, however, was right about them both.

• I'm not a great housekeeper, even though I have worked as a custodian in the past. Knowing how to do something well doesn't mean I like to do it. I feel the same way about counted cross stitch. Shoot me.

• I enjoy doing laundry. The clean scent. The warm clothes. The crisp folded piles. But then I hate putting it away...

• I took a ride on a homemade zipline this weekend and slipped off right at the end, landing on my tushie. I currently have an ugly bruise on my right butt cheek.

As for the 15 blogs. . .

Oh, wait one more thing about me.

• I hate chain mail. If I get an email with a really awesome motivational story in it that I love, but at the end it tells me I have to pass it on or I will "lose my true love and I must hate puppies and kick small children daily", I delete it. If I decide to send the story to a few people I know will like it, I delete the bottom part. Mostly, though I just delete it.

So knowing this, I will still list a few people. You can take one (or all) of the awards and enjoy it without having to pass it on if you don't want.

Aud's and Ends

Made by Heidi

Ruby in the Dust

Make it a Wonderful Life

Kitchen Corners

KCWC: signing up with elsie marley

I've had this button on my side bar for about a week now, I don't know how  many of you noticed it:

Click on over to check out the official-ness of it all, but basically, by signing up, you are committing yourself to sew for 1 hour each day working on clothes for the kiddos! At the time of writing this post there were already 335 people signed up! 

I have a few projects in mind, and I'm going fabric shopping tonight to pick up some things for it. I'm excited! I will be sharing my progress through out the week, even if it's minimal. (You may end up staring at pictures of me cutting out patterns. . . I hope that's ok!)

But before that all starts, I have a project I'm going to work on tonight that will help with this upcoming frenzied week of sewing. I'll get it posted as soon as it's done!