Three Dimensional Ornaments

This week's craft is creating three dimensional ornaments using recycled paper. As a former librarian, I especially love books, but have found that I can obtain books that have been weeded from libraries, are samples from publishers (cannot be sold), or books that have been damaged. Also, I pick up inexpensive books from thrift stores and tag sales. Sometimes the books are selected for the paper type: old and weathered, thin paper like a dictionary, shiny, thick and other characteristics. Other times books are selected based on content: maps and atlases, language, location, sentimentality, color...

Materials:
Books/paper
pattern
pen or pencil
ruler
stapler
glue stick
twine or string

We started with selecting books that could be used for our holiday tree at work and some that could be used for home. Our samples are made from a student dictionary that had water damage.

Next we searched online for Christmas ornament pattern templates and looked for symmetrical patterns. We copied the patterns onto oak tag and cut out a bunch of each for our craft time. We drew a line in ink down the center of each pattern to help with placement.

Depending upon the thickness of the paper, determine how full you would like your finished ornament. This might take a bit of experimenting until you obtain the desired fullness. Our ornaments are made with 20 sheets of paper each (four sets of five sheets each).
Tear out the pages from the book (it might be painful-but for a good cause & good for the book to have a second life). What we found to be helpful was to fold the sheets of paper and staple one fourth of the total number of sheets on the fold line. Next, trace your pattern onto the set of prepared paper. Use the guide line on the pattern to align with the fold line on the recycled paper/book pages.

Cut out the stapled sheets together and then punch a hole in the top to be able to hang later. If you cut just inside the pen or pencil line your ornament will have a cleaner look once complete-or you can trace your pattern on what I consider the back (the bottom of the staple) and it will not show at all once glued together.

Burnish or rub with your nail, the edge of a coin or with any other object the "back" side of your cut set of paper. This will assist you with "fluffing" later.

Using a glue stick, glue two back "mirror" sides together of two sets of the pattern. Repeat with the second two sets of the pattern.

Next you need to glue the two "halves" together with the glue stick.

Fluffing comes next. And depending upon the consistency of the paper it might take a while. This can become frustrating-but I suggest folding, burnishing and going all around the ornament. Once you have obtained your desired "fluffiness"-add a string or wire to prepare your ornament for hanging.

Enjoy-until next week!