Chic on a Shoestring Decorating: Huge Book Page Wreath Tutorial, Guest Post

Hi...I'm Millie.

I am a frugal decorator, a wall art painter, a bit of a poet, a dreamer, a meticulous organizer and a debt free extreme couponer. I am a hair designer and after working and teaching the art of beauty for 33 years in the beauty industry, I finally retired 6 years ago. I am now devoting 100% of my time in making my home a beautiful place to live in.

My blog is called:

http://frugaliciouschick.blogspot.com

I hope you all can visit me sometime.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Kate for giving me the platform to display the beautiful wreath I completed this last Tuesday. I hope you all like it.

In this post I have included a complete tutorial on how to make my wreath.

My wreath is very large but you can make yours a lot smaller if you wish.

Here are the items that you will need to make your wreath.

For my large wreath I used...

1 - 20x30 flat Styrofoam sheet

Hot glue gun

Lots of glue (I used 52 glue sticks)

Book pages

Note...you can use a them like mine "Romance books...like Harlequin Romance books", that's why I called my wreath the Love wreath.

(Other Examples of papers to use...music sheets, story books, cook books, etc.)

The pages depends on the room decor...take your pick...you will need lots of them...I used 8 smaller story books and 4 large books.

1 round piece cardboard (cut out for the center)

Fabric to cover the cardboard

1 piece (10 inches long) heavy duty wire & wire scissors

and regular cutting scissors

Lets go by steps:

1. Cut an even circle off your Styrofoam. I used a string and a pencil to make a circular level for a perfect circle. Tie the string on the eraser end of the pencil, then place the eraser part on the center of the foam sheet and then trace counter clock wise a circle all the way around the foam while holding on to the eraser part on the center of the foam, then once the circle is completed cut it out with scissors.

2. Have the glue gun on very hot and start making your large cones first by making them wider on the top and smaller on the bottom like the ones on my wreath. Place them around the circle starting from the outer edges and work yourself around the circle until your first later is completed. Get two or three nice layers all the way around the circle by bringing each layer about a 1/2 an inch lower from the previous one.

Here is an example of a second layer being placed. I glue them apart to make sure ever cone was even, then I filled the spaces in between them with more cones,

As you can see how my cones are slowly closing it self towards the center while making sure the wreath looks even all the way around as you start another layer, check it often.

3. Once you have come to this stage check and see which side of the wreath will looks better to be the top part of the wreath that will face upward on the wall...(If you have a friend have her place the wreath on the wall for a better look).

Once you decided which side is going up take a sharp knife and punch two holes about 5 inches apart from one another in the center that is not covered in cones (that is where you will make the holes)...then string your wire through the holes...twist the 2 ends of the wire together on the back of the wreath tightly ( you can turn your wreath upside down for this...this will not damage your wreath, then to close the hanger well and to prevent the wreath from falling off the wall use your hot glue gun and glue the wire edges by the holes you strung them through placing a small piece of cardboard over the glue to seal the holes (just don't press hard on the cardboard after gluing the holes and the pieces of cardboard back there...you don't want to crush he wreath), do this to the front part of the wires also where you strung the wires through. Just like my photo below...I also covered the cardboard with a page from the book I was using.

4. Hang your wreath on the wall you are planning to hang your wreath on. Now this is where your creativity really comes to play here...after you hang the wreath on the wall step back and take a good look at it. Look and see if its round, if not then you must fill in certain areas to make it even...here is what you need to do, slowly going all around the wreath, circle the wreath with more cones to even the wreath out, you can glue more cones in between cones, you can glue cones inside other cones to make that area wider or longer, or you can make smaller cones to fill in any empty holes that you see around the front part of the wreath or around the outer edges.

Once you have even your wreath well now start going towards the center with tighter fitted cone shapes like mine. So you are gradually going from large wider cones, to medium cones and then to smaller cones made from the smaller books. Like my photo below.

Once you have put 2 layers of smaller cones all the way around the center closing up the center hole then pin with a long pin the fabric covered cardboard onto the center of the wreath. Step back and check the wreath to see if it is centered properly. If it is centered then glue the center down. Then slowly make lots of smaller cones and tuck them in between the other edges of the fabric center...make more cones and begin filling in nicely empty spaces around the center to make the flower look like a real flower. As you do this continuously step back and check your wreath to make sure it is even on every angle around the center. Also finish filling any more holes that may be all around the wreath. Make the sizes of the cone necessary to fill in the spaces an glue them in place.

With cutting scissors trim any little edges that you may need to trim down in order to even out the wreath.

My wreath was made from old story books that had brown edges on them and my center is upholstered in a chocolate brown fabric.