Old book pages stars wreath

I am soooooooooooooooooo far behind on my Christmas craft projects!   In fact, I’m wondering if maybe I shouldn’t just take everything that I’ve finished in the last week and ‘pack it away’ for NEXT year!?!  (which I HAVE been know to do in the past.)   It’s such a nice surprise to pull out a box of craft supplies and find a bunch of projects already DONE!  Plus, I always seem to come across a bunch of really cute Christmas craft and decor ideas the week before Christmas, which is entirely too late for the current year, and I’ll have forgotten about them by next year . . . so I make up a few and stash them for next year!

I guess this next project isn’t necessarily Christmas themed, but it has a Christmas ‘feel’ to it.  Here’s the ‘inspiration photo’ from Pinterest:

And below is MY rendition:

I did a few more layers that it looks like the original one had; and I made my stars in four sizes, and some smaller than on the original.  Here’s how I did it:

While it’s really a very simple looking wreath, and easy enough to figure out ‘how to construct’ on your own; it was MUCH MORE time consuming than I had anticipated.  Putting it together is fairly ‘quick & easy’, but the PREP work is very labor intensive!  You have been forewarned!

:: First you have to hunt down for of five different shades and prints of book pages, and tear out a bunch of those.

:: Then go to your scrap cardboard stash  (What?!?!  Doesn’t everyone have a stash of cardboard scraps?!?! Mine are mostly cut up cereal boxes) and find some good size pieces of cardboard.

:: Next, it GLUING TIME!  Grab your bottle of tacky glue (regular school glue is a bit too ‘wet’ and will cause your paper to warp more) and start gluing your paper to your cardboard.  I spent well over an hour doing this.  *** (IF you are using reclaimed cereal boxes, BE SURE to glue your paper to the PLAIN side, not the printed size; as the pictures may show through some of the papers.)  Put your glued pages under a stack of heavy books to dry and flatten over-night.

:: The next day, or however long it takes your glued pages to completely dry and harden; find a star shape you like and trace out a cardboard template.  I used a plastic star ornament to trace, then cut a few down to smaller sizes.

:: Now that you have your templates, START TRACING!  Trace as many stars per page as you possible can, and be sure to make each star size out of each paper pattern.  I did enough for multiple projects, so not I have a stash of ‘ready to use’ stars whenever the creative mood strikes!  I also always do my craft project prep work ‘assembly line style’.  IE trace out ALL the star pages, then cut out ALL the stars.

::  Which, coincidentally is your next, and the most time consuming step; cutting out the stars!  I ‘pre-cut’ each page of stars by cutting away each one so that I can ‘detail cut’ them one at a time.  Then once I have my pile of individually ‘rough cut-out’ stars, I go back and cut along the lines.  Since the ‘points’ tend to get bent up easily, I just went ahead and rounded the tips of all of mine.

I ended up having to ‘press’ my cut out stars under those heavy books overnight again.

NOW FOR THE FUN PART.  I didn’t look at the inspiration picture until after I was done, as I did not want to ‘copy it’; but mine did come out very close to the same!

:: This next step WOULD have taken me an additional day (to make and let dry) if I hadn’t had a stash of them pre-made and ready to use.  I cut up circles of corrugated cardboard, glue two together, then glue strips of paper bag paper around it to make it nice and strong.  Press under heavy books overnight.

:: I put ‘stripes of glue’ all the way around my circle wreath form; added the biggest sheet music stars, evenly spaced out first.

:: Second layer of dictionary page stars between the sheet music ones.

At those two layers, my star ends started curling a bit for the moisture, so I decided to stop and re-press under those books overnight.

:: Next were the smaller sizes of stars and I wanted to be ‘raised’ a little.  I cut up small squares of scrap corrugated cardboard and glued them to the backs of the small stars before I glued them to my wreath.

:: Gluing on the raised stars.  I’d glue a few, then step back and look at it.  Add a few more and step back again.  this is the best way I know to prevent ‘over embellishing’.

First layer of ‘raised’ stars complete.

Adding a few more ‘layers’ of smaller raised stars.

Close up.

LOVE the vintage Japanese pages!

I think I’m done!!

One last peek at the inspiration photo.  So I need to add a bow to mine too?

EDITED TO ADD: Someone asked how I hang these; and since it took me several ‘trials and errors’ to come up with this simple way to hang my flat cardboard wreaths; here is how I do it:

I attach a piece of jute BEFORE I add the stuff to the front of the wreath.  I glue it in place, then glue (tacky glue) a few strips of paper over the ends to be sure they don’t pull out.