Rose Covered Book

Have you ever been given roses, only to throw them in the trash after they've wilted? Why not save some of the petals for your sketch book, journal, or even a postcard? This post on Craftbits demonstrates how it would look if you used dried rose petals but I opted for fresh ones, just to see how it would turn out!

Start by gathering your supplies. You'll need:

1. Rose petals 

2. Mod Podge or craft glue

3. A foam brush (or you can use your fingers)

4. A notebook/journal/book/etc. to cover

Start by removing the petals from your rose. I found 1 rose = a 6"x8" book.

Place glue on your notebook where you want the petal to sit.

Place your petal and push out any bubbles that might be underneath it. Then apply the same glue to the top of the petal, securing it in place.

Now place more glue and more petals. Do this over the entire book cover. 

Yes, you'll have a lot of white glue but don't worry, if it's not applied in thick globs, it'll dry completely invisible. Here's what it looks like when I was done covering it...

...and here's what it looked like after just an hour!

I let mine dry overnight (about 12 hours) and here's how it turned out. You can see that some of the glue, where it was the thickest, was still visible so I just glued some more petals over it.



Now it was interesting to see how the petals changed over the next few days... the color faded but the texture stayed the same.

 The last picture was taken 5 days after the petals were first glued on. If you want your book to be covered with bright red petals forever, you're better off getting some fake petals from the craft store!

TOTAL COSTS: $3.50
$3.49 for 4oz. of Mod Podge at Michael's
Rose petals and journal prices vary per person

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 20 minutes + overnight
20 minutes to add petals to 6"x8" cover
Overnight to dry

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
If you know someone who loves to write or paint, this would be a nice handmade gift for them - it's something they could use daily for their personal work but would think of you every time they saw it! It's quite easy so if kids wanted to make these for their parents, they definitely could, however I would recommend adult supervision because it can get quite messy!

Movie or Book Cover Matchboxes

One weekend I meandered into one of LA's independent bookstores in the oh-so-trendy/hipster heaven Silver Lake neighborhood. I passed the register and came across these unique matchboxes, some with old movie posters on them and others with old book covers. "These are so cool!", I thought. "I wonder how much they're charging." If you're like me, you'd assume somewhere in the ballpark of 50 cents. That's reasonable, right? Ha, silly me... this is the city of overpriced everything so make that $2/matchbox. Seriously. So why not make your own and pick your OWN covers to boot?

Here's what you'll need:
1. Matchboxes (I bought mine without matches in them)
2. Mod Podge
3. A paintbrush
4. A ruler
5. Scissors
6. A computer and printer

I decided I would do my sister's book, "Giant Dance Party", since I could scan the front, side, and back of the book (and hopefully not get sued). For the others, I decided to take old book covers and their corresponding movie posters and match them per matchbox (examples here include "The Great Gatsby" and "A Clockwork Orange"). Now while you don't have to paint the matchbox beforehand, you're certainly welcome to if white isn't your neutral.



The hardest part of all of this is measuring the darn matchbox. I used Word to measure and print the photos. To save you some time and frustration, here's what I figured out:

If you just want to cover the front and the back and not the sides, have your photos be 2.06" x 1.37" (or 1.38" - you can always trim it if it's not perfect). If you want to include the side like it's a book, have the spine be 2.12" x .6"

See this photo? Don't do this

After your photos are measured and cut out, take your paintbrush, dip it in your Mod Podge, and put a very thin layer on the matchbox. Put your photo on top and again with your paintbrush, put a thin layer on top of the photo to protect it. I emphasize doing a thin layer because if you lay on the Mod Podge thick, it's going to a.) take longer to dry and b.) you could have some uneven glue on the box itself. Not very professional or attractive. Trust me on this, I found out the hard way. 

It shouldn't take too long to dry and voila! Your boxes are ready to be filled!

Maybe the dancer in your house has bobby pins that need wrangling...

Or you have some coins that need to be put in a safe place...

Or heck, maybe you just need a place for your matches!

In any case, have fun make something creative that speaks to you and save those $2 for something worthwhile!

TOTAL COSTS: About $14

$4.99 for 30 matchboxes from Amazon

$8.99 for 16 oz. of Mod Podge from Michael's (I used maybe 1 Tablespoon's worth)

Scissors, ruler, paintbrush and printer/computer already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 20 minutes

10 minutes to measure, print, cut out, and glue on

10 minutes to dry

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy-5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

As I said, the hardest part is just getting the measurements right and if you're a perfectionist, this might drive you up the wall. However, it's really not that hard, given the measurements I provided and the rest is just to cut and paste! Take that Hollywood hipsters!

How to Make a Hollow Book

After seeing this post on How2DoStuff's blog, I thought a book safe would be a great project to attempt. Lesson learned: do not attempt if a.) you have arthritis or b.) you don't want to get arthritis. I'm not even 30 and my right hand and fingers feel 10x larger than they should.

You have been warned.

For this project I stopped by Goodwill to find a book I could hollow out. The winner? Book 7 of the Harry Potter series. It was cheap, quite large, and considering I've never read any of the books (::insert gasps of horror from Harry Potter fans::), I don't have any emotional ties to the series.

Step 1: Instead of making that glue mixture he suggested, I say go with Mod Podge. It has the perfect consistency. When I tried to make the glue mixture, I ended up wasting half a bottle of glue because I put in way too much water.

Step 2: When drawing your lines, I recommend two things -
     a.) draw with a pencil and
     b.) do not draw near the 1/2" closest to the edges.

By that I mean, do not draw your lines all the way to the end of the pages. If you do, you may accidentally cut the top, which is what I did below. You want to start your cut 1/2" in, not from the edge.

Example of what NOT to do - cut starting at the edge of the page

Step 3: Box cutters might work better than an x-acto knife. I used a Fiskars Precision Knife and could only cut through a few pages at a time. This project will take quite a while so if you're not patient, the more pages your blade can cut through, the better.

After 1 hour of cutting

Step 4: Be patient and be prepared for a mess. It took me 1 hour to get through approximately 115 pages but as you can see, that hole wasn't nearly big enough to hold anything. Also, the original post says, "Dump out all the little paper fuzz" but kids, there won't be a little. There will be a lot of paper fuzz. Big pieces, small pieces.. and they'll get everywhere. On the floor, the table, your cat's paws, your socks, everywhere.

Prepare for lots of clean-up!

Step 5: I didn't see the need to save a page at the very end of the process. I suppose that's meant to give it a clean look but considering my hands hurt like the Devil and I hacked the book to pieces, 1 page was not going to salvage it. Besides, the page I saved by not cutting it was the chapter page, "A Place to Hide" ...clever, no?

My husband suggested lining the inside with velvet but I kinda like how you can see text. However, after 2 hours of cutting page after page, no, it does not look as clean cut as the original. Maybe if you have a smaller book or more patience to cut one page at a time, it will be cleaner.

2 hours to cut 1 1/4" deep

TOTAL COSTS: $3.50
$3.50 for book from Goodwill
Fiskars Precision Knife, Mod Podge and brush already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Approximately 3 hours, 10 minutes
5 minutes to initially glue the sides
30 minutes to dry
2 hours to cut out pages
3 minutes to glue sides again
30 minutes to dry

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 4 out of 5
Even the healthiest of adults will get tired and, if using a very small precision knife, will get hand cramps. If you have the patience, go slowly and do this projects in shifts. Do not try to do it all at once!

Comic Book Shoes

Now this is something every female comic lover can get behind - comic book shoes! I found this fun post on Flashsolver.com and as soon as I saw they were going for $70 on Etsy, I knew I could easily make them for less.

I stopped by my local Goodwill and picked up a pair of Steve Madden's to transform. The next question was - what should the comics be? Well, I decided to go with female supervillians on one shoe and female superheroes on the other.

(Not that it matters but the four supervillians I went with were: Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Mystique. The four superheroes I chose were: Wonder Woman, Storm, Black Widow, and Silk Spectre)

So with my Mod Podge in one hand and a shoe in the other, I got to work. Here are steps that I didn't take that I should have:

Step 1 - Cover your work area. This is going to get very messy so be sure to put down at least a paper towel or newspaper on your work space.

Step 2 - Choose what you'd like to put on the shoes and try to plan where you want them before you glue them on. This will save you time and frustration down the road.

Step 3 - Make sure your shoes don't have a rounded toe. Go for a pointy or flat toe. Rounded toes make it very difficult for the paper to lie flat.

Step 4 - When you're ready to apply, put Mod Podge under AND over the cutout. This will help ensure it has been applied securely.

And that's it! If you're worried about all the white glue on the shoes (see right), don't worry, it'll dry clear.

TOTAL COSTS: $10
$10 for shoes from Goodwill
Mod Podge and Brush already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour, 40 minutes for gluing only 
It took me 1 hour for 1 shoe and 40 minutes for the other shoe, as I had gotten the hang of it by then. Note that additional times will vary depending on how many images you use, how difficult it is to find them, how long it takes to cut them out, etc.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
Strategically placing the images so the color of the shoe wasn't visible was not easy. The original post cut out very small images AND used colored shoes, which you might want to do for your first try!

Literary Jewelry

Did you go to an 80s party once (or did you live through the 80s?) and still have those horrible, tacky, thick bracelets? Or maybe you have a headband that's a bit worse for wear? Never fear, your favorite book is near!

I saw this book bracelet by larking on Etsy and thought, "If I could make one, it could be a great holiday gift!" Yes, it's time to start thinking about winter shopping, I hate to admit it. Instead of spending $25, though, this was a cheap and fun project and straight from the heart. The hardest part? Finding the right book.

Before shot

So since I don't have that many thick bracelets hangin' around, I decided to buy the cheapest one I could find on Amazon, since I knew I'd be covering it up anyway. Our lucky contestant? A pink and black/brown/orange zebra print 1.25" wide felt bracelet. Eww.

Next, the text to cover it up! Since my sister Betsy Bird just recently came out with a children's book (do you have a kid and do they love to dance??), I thought that a bracelet made with her own words might be something unique.


SUPPLIES NEEDED:

1. Bracelet/Headband/whatever it is you're decorating
2. Paper (printer paper, cardstock, parchment, etc.)
3. Scissors
4. Mod Podge
5. Foam brush (optional)

Now here's a list of mistakes I did so you don't follow in my footsteps:

#1 - Don't try to cover up felt. Make sure your bracelet/headband/whatever it is you're covering is something non-porous - plastic, wood, etc. I learned this the hard way - I tried to cover up felt and not only did the paper rip but showed pink through. Bad plan.

#2 - Print out your text in Word single-spaced and cut out each line of text before doing any gluing. Since I used a 1.25" wide bracelet, I had my text only be 2.75" long so I could wrap the text around to the bracelet. The bracelet was 10" long, which equaled to a page and a quarter of text (Times New Roman, Size 11). You can use regular printer paper but I went with Southworth Parchment Paper so it looked a bit more like the original posting.

#3 - Use Mod Podge and either a foam applicator to apply or use your finger but wear gloves. I used my finger to rub Mod Podge on top of and underneath the strips of text, but halfway through, my fingers were very sticky and it took a while to eventually get it off my nails. When you're adding the text, remember to not leave any spaces showing! And don't worry about the inside not being perfect, no one is going to be seeing that once it's worn.

After shot

TOTAL COSTS: About $11
$1.99 for the bracelet from Amazon
$8.99 for 16 oz. of Mod Podge from Michael's (I used maybe 2 Tablespoon's worth)
$.99 for 2" foam brush from Michael's (that I ended up not using)

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 2 hours, 15 minutes
1hr. 15 minutes to print out text, cut it up, and glue to bracelet
1hr. to dry

EASY-PEASY SCALE: 2 out of 5
Not hard at all, just a bit time consuming (especially if you have to type out the text yourself) but overall, half the price of what's being offered on Etsy and more personal too!