Thursday, July 24, 2014

Book Page Christmas Balls with a Chocolate Martini




Today both of the Hammond sisters join us for Crafty Thursday and they decided to mix it with a Chocolate Martini...so read on.


It’s still Christmas in July, so grab your cut out book pages to make another holiday craft. These ornaments make great gifts for book lovers, or you can keep them for yourself and make your Christmas tree a literary affair. Warning: this ornament is messy to make, but don’t worry, it’s worth it. We recommend you don’t get your nails done right before attempting this craft, though (Kim learned that the hard way). Let’s just say, the Mod Podge is very sticky.



Supplies Needed
Scissors or Paper Cutter
Book Pages
Styrofoam Balls
Twine
Tidy Pins
Mod Podge
Paint Brush

Optional Supplies
Paper Plate
Pencil


Step 1: Book Strips
Cut the book pages into strips with scissors or a paper cutter. You are going to wrap a lot of these strips around your Styrofoam ball, so don’t worry if you have different thicknesses or if you’re using scissors and the strips aren’t cut perfectly. We cut off the tops and bottoms after making the strips, to reduce the amount of white space. You really want just the writing to show as you wrap.


Step 2: Twine Hanger
Tie a knot in your twine to make a circle. Take a tidy pin and push both ends into the Styrofoam ball (straddling the twine). This will be your hanger and you will cover the pin with book strips so that it doesn’t show.


Step 3: Mod Podge
You can stick your paintbrush right into the Mod Podge jar, or you can pour a puddle of it onto a paper plate like I did. Take your paint brush and paint one side of the book strip and then stick the strip to the Styrofoam ball. Don’t worry if they don’t stick really well at first. The Styrofoam is very porous and it’s hard for the strips to stick. As you add more, though, they will end up sticking to each other as they overlap. If you cut the book pages lengthwise into long strips like we did, they wrap around the ball farther and will overlap quicker.

Paint strips on until you have the whole ball covered and you’ve got a pattern you’re happy with. Take your paint brush and paint more Mod Podge on the outside to seal your strips. This will dry clear, so don’t worry about gooping it on. I still tried to brush it over the paper evenly though, just so it would dry smoothly.



Step 4: Dry
Hang your ornament somewhere where it can hang free and not touch anything. I used a pencil and a cabinet to hang mine. Give it a good 24 hours to dry so that it’s no longer tacky.

One of the key elements in making this craft was the fact that we first made a Chocolate Martini to sip on while we worked. 

Chocolate Martini
1 part Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
1 part Vodka
1 part Kahlua
Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup


Chill your glass with ice water. Mix the 3 ingredients in a shaker and shake well with ice. Pour out the water chilling your glass and line the inside of your martini glass with Hershey’s syrup. Pour  from the shaker into your chocolate lined glass and enjoy.

Kerry Hammond
Kim Hammond
You can find our other Christmas in July posts here

1 comment:

  1. This was a lot of fun and the martini in no way impaired our glueing ability. In fact, I think it helped.

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