My Book Wreath Project

I've seen book page wreaths on lots of decorating and crafting blogs, and really wanted to make one of my own.  Don't worry, this isn't the five-thousandth tutorial on how to make a book page wreath.  If you want to see how I did it, go here--I mostly followed her tutorial, using a dollar store wreath form and a 50-cent, slightly-torn-up book from Goodwill.

I will give you a few pointers, however.  First, the wreath is going to be HUGE!  Remember--you're adding twice the length of your pages to the diameter of your wreath form.  If I'd thought about it, I probably would have cut my pages in half horizontally to make more "square" pages.  It would've still been PLENTY fluffy!  Second, you WILL stick your finger in the hot glue.  Use a low-temp glue gun unless you plan on taking up a second career as a cat burglar and need to burn your fingerprints off.  

This is also a very "deep" wreath front-to-back.  If you're using a foam wreath form, cut it in half--you'll get two identical, thin wreath forms and your wreath won't stick out quite as far from the wall.  Something I did that I didn't see mentioned on any of the tutorials was to flatten out the wreath some by pressing it, then hot-gluing some of the groups of pages together.  This helped it look more like a wreath and less like a half-sphere that someone forgot to finish.

I hung it from a ribbon in my foyer, added the floral arrangement I used last fall in the foyer, and was horrified.  The flowers by themselves looked okay last year, but combined with the wreath, it looks something like my curly hair on a bad day!  Way too much round poofiness!

I made a lower arrangement that fit farther back in the corner, and behold--the decorating version of a poofy hair disaster is averted!  (At least, I think so.  Any comments?)