Thursday, July 10, 2014

Crafty Thursdays: Wrapped Present Ornaments


Every Thursday in July we are doing advance Christmas crafts. July is a bit early, but think of all the preparation and procrastination time you'll have.

Last week we made ball ornaments filled with curls from book pages and mapsToday Kerry Hammond shows us how to make a book page present ornament... 


Here is a different sort of book page ornament, one that looks like a mini wrapped gift. You can also leave off the twine used to hang it on the tree, and put several under a mini or tabletop Christmas tree as faux gifts.




Materials You’ll Need:
Scissors 
Glue Gun
Clear Tape
An Empty Box - any size or shape you’d like (I find that jewelry boxes are just about the right size)
Pages From a Book - I think the yellowed ones look best, more antique (you could use any kind of paper)
Ribbon - I used a thin burlap because it complements the book pages
Twine



Step One: Wrapping the Box
Open the box and use the book pages to wrap the top and bottom. Act like you’re wrapping a very tiny gift and tape the pages to the inside of the box and lid where they won’t show. The bottom of my box was larger than one book page, so I taped two pages together, making sure to keep the seam in the center of the box so it would be covered up by the ribbon. 




Step Two: Attaching the Ribbon
Put the lid on the box and cut two pieces of ribbon just long enough to wrap around the box and meet in the center of the lid. Use hot glue to secure each end to the center of the lid. Your bow will cover where the pieces meet, so don’t worry about any glue showing or ragged edges of the ribbon.



Step Three: Making and Attaching the Bow
When you make your bow, it’s hard to tell how much ribbon you’ll need, so don’t cut the ribbon off the spool. Instead, just take the end and make your bow (took me 3 or 4 times before I got mine right) and then cut it when you’re done. The bow is made of a bunch of loop ears. You will loop each part around to make an ear, and always join it back in the center where you started. 




First, hold the end of the ribbon between your thumb and first finger. Make one loop and bring the ribbon back to center and over the top of the end you started with. Repeat this step allowing each ear to sit at an angle to the last, until you have enough to make the bow look full. You can use hot glue to secure each ear in the center as you pass the ribbon through, or you can make the whole bow and staple the center. 

Once you have enough ears and have stapled or glued the center, cut the ribbon off the spool – but leave another inch or two from where you last passed through the center. You will loop this extra into a roll to make that circular center of the bow. Once you’ve cut it, loop it around and glue it in the center to hide your staple or glued pieces. 

Now that the bow is finished, hot glue it to the top of the box. 


Step Four: Attaching the Twine
 Thread the edge of the twine underneath each piece of the ribbon on the sides of the box and tie it at the end. It can be as long or as short you you’d like. It all depends on how low you want the ornament to hang.


Viola, you have a cute book page wrapped ornament. It takes less than 10 minutes to make.








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