During the summer vacation I have enjoyed working with old books. The paper texture is great and I love to upcycle 🙂
I went to the thrift store, bought a bag of old books for 50 kroner (approx $8 for 10 old books). They were not vintage or antique, but I picked the oldest books they had. I ended up with mainly books from the 50ies. So I did not feel bad at all cutting them apart…:-P
My first book project is this cute and versatile Heart Garland:
Does it not look pretty on my hallway shelf?
I started by cutting out book pages, and spreading them out. I then gessoed a page and quickly added a little acrylic color and a generous sprinkle of glitter, as you can see most of my pages were painted in shades of pink:
I’m trying to show you how they sparkle (they really do, a l-o-t, but for some reason my camera does not pick up on that very well…):
I then had lunch, came back and painted the flip sides too. I let them dry overnight, then punched out hearts with my Martha Stewart Heart Punch, I even collected the debris (will tell you in a later post what for!):
If you don’t have a heart punch, you can use most other punches you have available: how about a flower, star, or even plain circles or squares. You could also hand cut hearts or other shapes for this project.
I then thread my sewing machine with white on top and red underneath, this is a kewl trick to sew “bakers twine” style… and used the longest stitch setting for fast action…lol
Feed the hearts into the sewing machine, and in just a few minutes you have several meters of sparkling Heart Garland 🙂
Look how the hearts sparkle and shine:
Use the Heart Garland on shelves like I did, or as gift wrap ribbon, or hang them in a window to blow in the wind:
The Heart Garland only counts for a few pages from my old book, are you curious to see what else I made from it? Stay tuned, more posts are coming in this series 😀
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Glad to have you back! Your posts are always so much fun!
Awww, thank you so much Hunny, comments like this is what makes me want to share my whimsies…lol
Very, very lovely. They are so cute, but at the same time so delicate. You have a prodigious imagination to create all those things!
Curious that I have a project in mind in which I applied old children’s books illustrations.
I usually buy used books from an English website. They have cheap prices,
See the link below:
https://www.awesomebooks.com/default.aspx
Kisses
Alexandra Roldão
Thank you for lovely comment Alexandra 🙂 And thank you for the link, although the postal costs will make purchases from that site too expensive for me 😦 I’m happy using thrifted books, the kind that other people would throw away 😀
I think I have read most of your blog now, it is sooo beautiful, and I have added it to my blogreader so I can keep up with you 🙂 Are you using the graphics for crafts to?
Love&Light
Gunnvor Karita
Adorable!!! And sparkly! :OD I have never heard that double thread to look like baker’s twine trick before, I love it! (Now let’s hope I remember it when I need it, LOL!)
I am an eager Pinterest-er, and this is one of the tricks I picked up there 😉 I have not seen it used much, so I thought it was worth sharing again with ya’ll 😀 xoxoxo
Hello there,
So great to have you back home here in blogand again hun, and what a wonderful project you have to share with us today. A bit funny actually as I´ve just exactly been playing with old books here too with my 2 youngest granddaughters last week-end. The oldest of them had been taught some in her artclass in school about folding old books and wanted to try that, so we went for books too in the thriftstore and have been folding away here all week-end ha ha ha. I know, she´ll be thrilled, when I show her this when she gets back here next week, and my guess is, that we´ll be making some of these too then, if I know her right ha ha ha, so thanks a lot for the idea.
Hope you had a wonderful time in the cabin this summer too and enjoyed the peace and warm summer we´ve had this year, and hope you´ll enjoy the next weeks here too if you´re still on vacation. Take care.
I’m back at work, no more vacation for me this year. The girls and I had a wonderful stay up in the mountains 🙂
The Book Crafts was my first project in the new Studio, you can tell I’m painting pages on the floor since I still don’t have a proper worktable in place…lol
But I went overboard on Saturday when I visited a local antique store with my sister, and bought a fabulous large vintage table. My brother is meeting me there with his truck on Thursday to help pick it up 😀 I’m sooo excited to get it installed 😀
I think indeed you should try making book page garlands with your Princesses. If you don’t want them to sew the thread, they can also staple the hearts to (bakers) twine, I’ve done that before with these 😉 Let them pick their favorite colors for the pages, and their favorite shape punch, wow, wish I could be with you guys…:-)
Did you take any pictures of your book craft? I’d love to see it, maybe it will inspire even more book crafts here…:-)
Big hugs!!
Hi hun yes we do have a few pics of some of the work the girls did here, and I promisse I´ll get them uploaded for you to see one of the nexxt days, but it´s been a bit hectic here the last days as my new grandson has been at the hospital so the bigger kids has been here and lots going on, but nore of that later. But no worries nothing serious or bad, just small problems keeping his food ibnside, but here things been a bit hectic, but I´kll be back I promisse.
Have a wonderful day.
I hope your vacation was wonderful. It is nice to get away, and I am glad that you were crafting as well. The heart garland is darling! Two colors of thread in the machine turned out super! I am looking forward to seeing what else you have created with the books.
Joy in your day!
Marcie
Thank you for the lovely comment Dear Marcie 🙂 We had a great, relaxing time. Relaxing for me, that is. The girls were swimming in the river all day, so they were not still one bit…lol! More book crafts are coming, but I need to put finishing touches, so this will be a series over a couple of weeks, me thinks 🙂 xoxoxo
I love your whimsical heart garlands with the sparkle. They are so precious that who wouldn’t love them? Thank you for sharing. I am going to try them with the two colored threads.
YAY!! I’m so happy I inspired you to try 🙂 I’d love to see pictures of your version, so make sure you document…lol!! xoxoxo
Yes!!! This was how my package looked, exactly like this. So pretty and clever! I will post about it soon on my website! I love love love the book, the heart garland, the create banner, just everything! I’m so thankful! Thank you dear Gunnvor!
xox
Ingeborg
This IS your package Hunny 😀 I’m very happy that you are enjoying the content 😀 😀 😀 xoxoxo