{friday feature} book page wall hanging

I have the honor of serving as the Creative Activities position for my local MOPS organization.  It has been such a rewarding experience to use my time and talent to plan, prepare and lead a group through the creation process.

This year's focus has been "a fierce flourishing" with one of the sub topics being embrace rest.  At yesterday's meeting we watched a short video about creating a space of rest.  The speaker, Hannah Kate Flora, described her approach on making her apartment/house a home and how to incorporate style into your space.  She mentioned her passion for DIY projects including taking furniture and unique items and re-purposing them into something functional with style. She referenced how wonderful it is to start and finish a project especially in this season of child raising. The video was a perfect introduction to today's creation: a wall hanging created out of old book pages that we were able to begin and complete during our meeting time.

Below is a tutorial for creating this masterpiece.

First, you will begin by preparing the book pages

You will need three different size squares

I cut:

30  4.5 inch squares

20 4 inch squares

20 3.5 inch squares 

Next, you need to create the base for gluing the paper cones

To create my circle, I traced the lid from a container 

It measured 5 1/4 inches in diameter

I used a ruler and marked a circle one inch in from the outer edge as a visual on where you will be gluing the outside ring of paper cones

Use a hole punch to create an opening for where you can add twine or a hook for hanging when complete

Locate your hot glue gun and find some glue sticks 

Make sure you have a safe surface to place your glue gun on while you work

Gather all your supplies and get ready to create something beautiful!

You are going to begin with the 4.5inch large squares

Roll your paper, one sheet at a time, into a cone and add a dot of glue at the corner
press paper together to secure

(when viewing the photo above, the glue would go under the corner shown by my finger)

If you are struggling at rolling the cone shape, think of an ice cream sugar cone

Keep one corner at the bottom and roll the sides in and secure with hot glue

You will begin gluing the paper cones onto the cardstock circle

Place the first cone on one side of the hole so you do not have glue seeping through and you are able to access the hole for hanging when complete

The photo above shows the back of the cardstock circle

As you begin to glue your paper cones, you want to focus on how close they touch on the wide cone end that are away from the cardstock.  You want them to be cozy close to each other first and then follow to the end to see where to glue onto the base.  Do not let the outer circle go past the pencil line. When you are gluing on the cardstock, you might find that some paper ends are glued directly onto the cardstock but some ends might be glued onto each other.  What matters is how it looks when it is extended from the cardstock circle.  This project is very forgiving and all the raw edges and gluing space will not be visible when complete.

 After completing the outer circle, you will switch to the 4inch size squares to do the next inside row. The technique of rolling the cones does not change, just the size of the paper. You want to place the new cones in the seam created by the two outer edge cones.  I lined up the top point of the new cone with the bottom opening of the cones along the outer edge. Then follow the cone down to the end to determine where it needs to be glued.  You will find that some ends may be glued to the cardboard and some may be glued to other paper cone ends.

I like the describe that you might have to make the paper 'sit up' by creasing the bottom when you glue it down as the more paper cones you add the fuller it will be.

Once your second row is complete, you will then switch to the 3.5inch squares to complete the inside rows.

To complete the middle, I took a paper cone and ripped off the bottom since there was very limited space for gluing the end of the cone down.  Add a line of glue across the bottom and place in the middle as far down as possible.  You will more than likely be gluing this piece onto another piece of paper since getting down to the cardboard is very difficult due to the fullness of the paper.

Once complete, admire your work!  

Job well done on creating a DIY re-purposed masterpiece!

And I'm sure you will begin to brainstorm how and when you can make another creation. 

If you do decide you want to make a similar project, you might consider creating a colorful dehlia and add it to your spring decor.  I know I love having mine on display!