Paper Flower

I love to craft.  I love to craft and I love to blog stalk.  These two things lead to me seeing tons of fun things I want to try and having a folder on my desktop that is filled with craft and art inspiration... well, not as much as there used to be because my computer crashed a while back and I didn't think to back up those things... but that's another story. I saw this on one of the many blogs I read and right away decided I had to make it...  this is partly because it was so cute, but also cuz I had a really bad book that I didn't know what to do with.  Honestly, it was bad.  So bad I'm going to provide you with that link to the amazon review.  Just read the first one, it be funny.  Here's how I did it.

You will need:
A book that can have the pages torn out
a piece of cardboard (I used a cereal box)
coffee or tea
and an exacto knife
craft glue

First, make up the tea or coffee (to age the pages) and let it cool ( I used a tea I wont drink cuz it tastes nasty)
Then, trace down the middle of the book with the exacto knife to remove the pages

Get a good stack of em

Then dip the pages into the tea

Then place on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 350F

I also sprinkled a little hot cocoa on some of them to distress them a little more....
Pull the pages out of the oven once they are completely dry

See how the pages look like they are from a really good, well used book, instead of the one my husband got for free, walking into the college library one day, that he read the first few pages of and then left to rot on our bookshelf.  On top of that I felt like I couldn't give it to Goodwill, because they have a whole book shelf with this book on it in Corvallis.  It was not a hit with the college students, we love free stuff, but some free stuff is just not lovable.

Anyway.  Roll the paper and glue to that piece of cardboard you were inspired to cut a hole in because I forgot to tell you to do that.
NOTE: You will want to make the hole bigger then your fist, mine wasn't very big and that caused a little bit if a problem when putting the pieces together.
ANOTHER NOTE: Layer the rolled tubes like they are dancers that have to have a window to look through.  I dunno how else to say that.  It will help it to look fuller and lay better if you can understand what I meant by that.

Then allow it to dry and, tada! you're done!  Then you can hang it on your wall!