Twinkling Paper Studio: Keeping Christmas Blog Hop and Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

I am here today with a project for the Keeping Christmas Blog Hop and the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. There is a lot to see today so here we go!

I wanted to really think about what I wanted to do, so I didn't have anything in mind right away. As we were making the short drive to my daughter's on Thursday for Thanksgiving Dinner, I did a search on Pinterest for 3D Papercraft projects. When I ran across one pin, in particular, I remembered a project that my mom had made when I was a little girl out of a book and I knew this was something I wanted to do, only mine would have a Christmas Theme.

My Mom's was something like the photo on the left, only it had been spray painted in Gold. What a cute turkey made from a Reader's Digest (if I remember correctly). As I was showing my daughter a few of the pins I had saved, she thought they were super cute. So when I got up yesterday morning, I began working on a particular one she had liked. I started by following the links from the pins to see if there were any folding instructions online. I found a few but I'm going to share some close-ups of what I did so you can see in case you'd like to try one of your own.

The first thing you have to do is find a book that is the right size and dimension. This particular book was a paperback book around 7 inches tall and 4 inches wide. If you can find something that is about 150 pages, this will be perfect. Usually, books are a lot more pages than that so you can plan to get a couple of projects from each one. My book was just over 300 pages, so I got two projects out of it. It's pretty hard to keep folding once you get 75 pages (150 sides) done so that's why I opted to make two projects from one book. You can also use magazines for larger projects. Another important consideration is how the pages lay when you open the book and start to work on it.

The book on the left will be harder to work with the more pages you fold while the book on the right will be easier because it flattens out. Especially if you are looking through the books at a thrift store or Dollar Tree Store, you will want to check and see how the book lays. If it doesn't lay flat, you will probably want to consider a different book. I know in the past I have seen books at Thrift Stores for 10 cents and more, but not usually very much at all.

You can also use hard backed books for a different type of decor piece and in fact, I made a trip to my local Dollar Tree store this morning to pick up a few more as I plan to make additional projects with them. Things like old Hymnals would be perfect for this, but I haven't lived here long enough to know where any thrift stores are to see if they have any. I only had one book in my possession that I was willing to part with, simply because I also happen to have it in a hardbound edition. Since everything at Dollar Tree is literally only $1.00, I figured it was worth a look. I found four books about the right size. Two were hardbound and two were paperbacks. They had plenty of bigger books to choose from if you wanted something even larger. Thicker paper will require fewer pages.

For now, I'm going to focus on today's projects. I started by removing the front and back cover of my book. The instructions I found showed two ways to fold, so I'm going to show you both of them. A Teflon bone folder was very helpful with this process but my book was about 15 years old and the pages had become quite brittle and lots of times the bottom corners started breaking off. So for my second project, I did a different fold. You want to take the page and pull the corner to the center of the page and fold it with a nice crease.

Then you want to do that again which makes your fold about four layers thick. Turn that section just like you would if it was a regular page and flatten/crease it with your bone folder. Do the same thing to each page until you have 150 or so pages. Because I was making an angel, I opted to do the second type of fold where you also fold up the bottom corner, making it completely flat on the bottom. Without the extra fold, it looks like a Christmas tree. I have plans to make one when I get to it, so I picked up two more cans of spray paint this morning for those projects while I was at Walmart; one in gold and one in silver. They didn't have a can of glitter spray in the color I wanted (Iridescent) so I ordered that from Amazon this morning but I'll also be experimenting with some glitter I have while the paint is wet to explore all of my options.

This photo shows the one I'm planning to use to make a Christmas tree. By adding an additional fold, you can make yours flat on the bottom which is what I did for my angel.

Here is a picture showing how to add another fold for the flat bottom like I have on my large Angel. By folding up this additional corner, (or trimming it off), you can get the bottom flat all the way around.

Since I was planning to make mine into an angel rather than a tree, I wanted it flat all the way around so I did the extra fold. This was actually better because my pages were so brittle from age. I am anxious to work with a book that still has nice white pages! If you were ever into scrapbooking, you know that most paper has Lignin in it which is what causes it to turn yellow and become brittle as it ages. If you are a scrapbooker, it's important to know what paper products you are using and whether or not they are Acid and Lignin Free. I knew I was going to spray paint my particular project, so it didn't matter for this project.

By now, I am ready to spray paint the first part of my project with Silver Krylon Spray Paint. I like this particular brand because the nozzle has an airbrush type of sprayer which helps to prevent getting drips and allows for more even coverage. I use a large shallow box to spray outside when the weather is nice enough. Today our high temp is 74° outside. It was a little colder yesterday so I worked in the garage with a couple of puppy pads for extra protection in case of overspray.

I used sweeping up and down sprays to cover as much as possible between the pages. I also left it flat on the backside so that I could attach the "wings" to my angel on the backside. While the spray paint dried, I worked on the wings.

Using my large Scor-Pal, I took a 12 x 12 inch sheet of silver and white cardstock and scored it every ½ inch on the front side. Then I turned it over to the back and scored every inch for the folds that would go in the other direction. My paper was thick enough that even the half-inch folds were somewhat difficult to do but I didn't have anything in a thinner paper that would work. Once it was folded accordion style, I bent it in the center so that I could put Scor-Tape down the center to adhere them together.

Laying it in my box, I put a thin layer of Glitter Spray over the wings and the angel's dress then sprinkled it with these tiny gold stars I found at Target earlier this year. This particular glitter spray isn't very glittery, so I was primarily using it as an adhesive for the tiny gold stars. Once that was dry, I attached the wings to the back of my angel using Hot Glue.

Next, I took a sparkly ornament made from styrofoam and cut a slice from the end where the hanger was to make a flat spot where I could glue on the head. I fashioned a halo from a piece of gold wire and tucked it in between the wings and the dress, leaving it a bit higher than the head. I also added some iridescent stars one at a time with hot glue all the way around the halo. The iridescent stars are pretty small but the gold ones are teeny tiny. They added a nice touch of gold sparkle here and there. It was pretty messy adding that touch, but once the glue was dry, I tapped off all the excess and put it back into my container. The final touch was the ribbon I tied around the neck to hide where I attached the head.

To keep with the light "Frosty" color palette, I chose to create a lightly colored snowflake card with the word Joy on it. I die cut a Bold Borders: Flurries from White Cardstock and attached it to a lightly colored brushstroke watercolor background with some silver and white snowflakes. You can create your own brushstroke backgrounds by mixing white or gold shimmer sprays with re-inkers or watercolors. The secret is using a very good quality, super smooth cardstock for this purpose. The Neenah Solar White stays pretty flat and is very smooth but I still run mine through my die cutting machine in an embossing sandwich to flatten it out further. The "Joy" sentiment is part of that cover die set.

Once I had my card assembled I took a few photos for you to see the whole project together. My daughter loves this madly and you know I will give it to her for sure. Her Christmas decorations are Silver, Sapphire, and White I am planning to try a few other projects along these lines and will be sure to share them with you when I do.

I also wanted to show that you could do a smaller version of the angel for a card front or a tag. In this case, I took one of the small ornaments and cut it in half so that I could put the flat side against the back of the card or a tag.

I used the image from Pinterest on the right as my guide for how to do the smaller version with just paper and no books involved. You can make small ornaments as well. My smaller angel was made with 8 x 8 paper but I ended up chopping off about 1.5 inches so it would fit on an A2 card front. You could also make a bigger card or a smaller Angel. To adhere the two pieces together, I used Scor-tape along the long side down the center. and adhered them together. For the wings to spread out, I used Scor-Tape along the short side only and then pressed it into place to the long side.

Here is a close up of the small angel on an A2 Sized Card/Tag. I cut a slit in the top crease of the back side to slip the ribbon through and then stuck the ribbon to
the card base with Scor-Tape as well as then putting the two sides together with Scor-Tape as well. With the double thickness, it is very sturdy. In this picture, you can see some of the glitter detail that I added to the angel before putting it on the card base or tag of your choosing.

Additionally, I found these cute angels that were made into ornaments but I was trying very hard to use supplies that I already had on hand which was paper, ribbon, adhesives of various sorts and glitter. I think the ornaments use jewelry making elements for the hangers and I could really go to town with all the foiled papers and Vellum that I have around. A friend and I used to make Christmas Tree Angels using Battenburg Lace doilies and this was pretty similar to that. I'm sure that I could whip up a tree full of these in no time at all. I am definitely planning to check out the jewelry section next time I am in Joann's or Michaels to see what types of things could be used to make the ornaments. Ribbon always works as well and I know lots of us have that in our supplies.

I hope you enjoyed this two for one post. I always try to include as many details as well as my thought process for my projects so you can figure out if they will work for you. Find an idea and adjust the instructions accordingly for the way you like to work. Now I'm off to fold up another book to make an angel for my best friend and one for myself as well. Then there's the tree that is already folded up and ready to be spray painted and decorated.

Here are all the stops along the hop for the Keeping Christmas Blog Hop that we do on the 25th of each month excluding December. I can't wait to see the other ladies' projects.

Vicki Finger (You are Here)

Nancy Guse

Thank you so much for stopping by today to see my projects! I hope you'll come back often to see other projects that I share. I am happy to say that except for just a few cards that I still need to mail, I am completely finished with my Christmas Cards and have sent most of them on already.