Believe it or not, holiday project #1

Every year I have a long, long list of projects I want to get done for the holidays.  You know, the big holiday, Christmas.  I could probably do a project or two a week starting on January 1st and still not start/finish all the projects I have supplies ideas for.  This year, well it is the year I'm going to finally get a few of them done.  Starting with this one.  And this one is hands down, the cheapest least expensive project around!  Including glue, glitter and ribbon I estimate it cost about .50 cents total.  Yep... TOTAL!

I love all the items people make out of old books, sheet music and any other paper ephemera they come across.  The vintage, slightly discolored paper combined with a bit of glitter is just perfect in my dining room.

Last year I purchased two of these wreaths made out of sheet music.  They looked pretty simple and of course there's a million tutorials and how-to's out there to follow for inspiration.

So yesterday I broke out the .10 cent Readers Digest that I used for this project already.... I never thought .10 could go so far, and got started!

I cut out a stack of pages and folded the ends up to make the pages a bit more square.  Plus I thought that a double layer of paper might roll into the necessary cone shape a little cleaner... after all this book has seen its day and the pages are a bit brittle... not to mention that the paper was pretty cheap stock to begin with.

I rolled approximately 32 cones out of the full size sheets of paper.

I knew I wanted an "inner circle" of cones as well.  To make them smaller I cut the pages in half and folded just a little bit up on each sheet.  Rolling them into cones as well.

Of course, I did need something to glitter.  I cut a circle out of a piece of lightweight cardboard, fortunately recycling day is only once every two weeks so I had  a good supply!  I spread the circle liberally with Martha Stewart glitter glue and poured my German glass glitter on top.  I worked on a piece of tin foil so that I could pour the excess glitter back into the little bag.

German glass glitter does not like to have its photo taken... all my shots came out slightly blurry (oops).... but it looks so pretty as it "ages" and gets a bit of tarnish.

I also cut a larger circle out of heavyweight cardboard.  It was about 8 inches in diameter so that it would support the cones well.  I covered it with two pages from the book for a finished backside.  I also glued ribbon onto the large round BEFORE I started gluing cones.... I almost forgot this step which would have made it rather difficult to hang when finished!

Now, time for lots of glue.  I think I used about half a bottle of plain old Elmer's White Glue.  Of course, this also meant that the drying time was a bit longer than I anticipated.  Like well over 24 hours... it was a lot of glue but those babies aren't going anywhere!  In fact, I originally thought I'd use "watching glue dry on a Sunday" for the title of the post....

And here it is, with my purchased wreaths from last year....

Hanging on the built in china cabinet.  I kept the other wreaths out from November until about March last year... I plan to keep this one out too.  It adds a little something to the cabinet and isn't too bold.

Well, except for maybe the glitter... but a girl can never have too much glitter.

So the little .10 cent Readers Digest?  I think I have enough pages left for about 12 or 13 more wreaths... I'd better add them to "the list."

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