10 Pretty Vintage Book Page Christmas Decorations to Make

You can get a head start on your handmade holiday gifts and decor, and recycle some vintage book pages with these easy tutorials!

This little slipper, cone, and top hat ornament were fashioned from vintage book pages and junk mail!

This shadowbox star was crafted from rolled from pages from a vintage prayer book.

If you're looking for a super quick project with lots of impact, this Christmas Tree banner might be perfect.  Use washi tape, or use up your paper scraps!

Here is another quick layered garland, using a recycled Christmas card and book page pompoms.

Always a classic, this Scandinavian inspired woven star is made from folded strips of vintage book pages.

These honeycomb ornaments made from encyclopedia pages look lovely hanging from the mantel!

This Celtic inspired star is an adaptation of the popular Scandinavian or Finnish Star.

If you love a good dollar stare project, you might want to give this ornament tutorial a try.

Here is yet another version of the Scandinavian woven star -- originally made from birch veneer, and containing a light inside, these were hung in windows during the holiday season. Children learned to weave the star from paper, as well, to decorate inside their homes.

Strips of vintage book pages and pretty buttons are all you need to make these pretty snowflake ornaments.

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How to Make a Lace Owl Applique

For this project, I thought I would combine the popular lace trend and the popular owl trend, to create a pretty clothing applique. I thought it would be subtle, but stunning to add a lace owl applique to a vintage lace dress.  Adding it to the vintage dress makes it feel a little bit romantic and a little bit spooky.

This applique would look just as good (maybe better!) if applied to a tee-shirt or even a canvas bag.

Make a Special Bookmark from a Damaged Vintage Book

Earlier this year, I rescued a damaged vintage home decor book. The front and back covers were transformed into a portfolio for my planner. The spine was just too fragile to use for the planner, and had ripped away from the book.

For those of you who enjoy rescuing vintage books, here is a pretty project to make from all those damaged or fragile old book spines. It couldn't be simpler to do, and you can easily whip up several to sell or give as gifts in an afternoon.

Start by gathering up your supplies. You will need:

• An old book spine
• Eyelets
• Eyelet Setter
• Fabric Scrap
• Stickers or text cut from old books -- whatever is handy (I used stickers and a piece of text cut from the same book the spine was taken from)
• Decoupage Medium (I used Mod Podge, that I shared about in this post about favorite craft resources)

If the spine is still attached to the book cover, carefully remove it. Remove any bits of glue or threads from the spine and trim the sides evenly. Cut a piece of scrap fabric to fit the inside of the spine, and adhere with Mod Podge. Let dry. Now add stickers or paper scraps or book text to the book mark using your Mod Podge. You can add a protective layer of Mod Podge to the front side of the bookmark if you would like.

Using a hole punch and eyelet setter, add an eyelet to the top of the bookmark.

Tie on a piece of ribbon and you are done!

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Attic Organizing, Time Traveling, and Cropdusting Adventures

Remember that attic project I've been posting about? The one with piles and piles of boxes? Yeah, that one.

I've been up there since Saturday morning, only coming down to eat or sleep. My husband had a business trip to Atlanta, so I took advantage of the time to come out to the beach house alone and work. Of course, my camera has broken during this process, so I can't share new pictures until I figure out how to download from my little backup camera.

Make a Pocket Planner From a Vintage Romance Novel!

When I was in seventh grade, our neighbor gave me a huge box of 1950's era Harlequin romances, in exchange for babysitting. The books were sweet, unrealistic, and innocent.

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Although I was a voracious reader, I think I loved the "retro" cover graphics more than I enjoyed reading the stories.

Easy Ways to Embellish Paperclips!

It's that time of year when we are filling in and organizing new planners and calenders! I've always loved getting a brand new calender or planner and filling in birthdays and anniversaries and all those other "hard" dates right away. I like to keep several paperclips in my planner to hold my place, or to hold lists or receipts.

I am not into complicated planners -- my system must be simple or I just won't do it.  If a planner adds another layer of complication to my life, I don't want it. For instance, paperclips are awesome, but they need to be easy to see and differentiate from each other and grab.

How to Make Garden Markers From Vintage Spoons!

Here is a lovely gift idea for yourself, or the kitchen gardener in your life!  These plant markers made from vintage silverware are so pretty.

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Through much trial and error, I have figured out how to flatten and stamp vintage silverware. There are probably as many techniques out there as there are people who do this type of craft. I struggle with wrist and elbow and shoulder issues, so after trying several of the different methods for making these garden markers, I realized I would need to work smarter, not harder.

How to Flatten Silverware for Up-Cycling Projects!

Over the years, I seem to have accumulated quite a bit of silverplate!  I'm not sure how it happens... a piece here, then a piece there. We used to be able to find silverplate in thrift stores for about a quarter a piece -- fifty cents, at the most. Now days, you can usually find it for about a dollar a piece.

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It's so hard to resist all the pretty vintage patterns! Some vintage silverware is quite worn and not great for eating from and not nice enough for up-cycled jewelry, but it is charming nonetheless,  and can be fashioned into plant stakes and cheese markers, and key chains, and so on.

Make Fancy Wire Ornament Hangers -- It's Easier Than You Think!

Are you looking for a less humdrum way to hang your special Christmas ornaments?  Those little wire ornament hangers you buy by the package are okay, but why not step things up a notch for your really special ornaments?

These fancy beaded wire ornament hangers are so quick and easy to make. You can literally make dozens in one evening!  You don't need a lot of special supplies, either.

Make Gorgeous Spun Cotton Icicles With Paper Towels!

Do you love vintage spun cotton ornaments? Me too! The problem with actual vintage ornaments, of course, is that they are difficult to find and they can be expensive.

I love the look of a Christmas tree that is just dripping with icicles, but I knew I would never be able to find dozens and dozens of spun cotton icicles -- and even if I did, it would be too expensive to buy so many vintage ornaments.

That's when I ran across Emi's vlog on making icicles from paper towels!  Basically, it's a paper mache process, using diluted white glue and towels. Brilliant! I loved the idea, and decided I could adapt the process to make them look like vintage spun cotton ornaments.

My technique is slightly different than Emi's.  I began by grabbing a "select-a-size" roll of towels, and pulled off towels in the smallest "half-sheet" size.  Then I grabbed some white glue and diluted it with water.  I diluted mine about half and half, but I would probably make it a bit thicker next time. You want your glue to be thin enough to easily soak into the towel fibers, but thick enough to harden well when dried.  I spread the glue mixture onto the sheet of toweling.

Next, I folded the sheet down about one-third of the way, to achieve the desired icicle length. Leave the extra material, because it will add bulk to the top of your icicle.

Because I wanted a nice taper on my icicles, I tore off some toweling from the lower corners to remove even more bulk, and added that material to the top and middle portion of the icicle, gluing everything as I went along.

Now, it's just a matter of rolling the towel to form the icicle.

After rolling them, twist them a bit and play with them, squeezing out excess glue as needed, and smoothing and coaxing them into the shape you like. I put mine in the oven at 180 degrees overnight to dry.

In the morning, I inserted wire hangers into the tops, and secured with just a bit of hot glue. If the icicle is too hard to insert wire into, you can ream it out with one of those tiny screw drivers (the kind you fix your eye-glasses with), and then your wire should slide right in. I'll share how to make these pretty wire hangers in a later post.

While you have the hot glue gun out, you may want to drip a little hot glue around the top -- it gives a pretty effect!

Your icicles will be pretty enough at this point to be done, as you can see in the picture above; or, you can gild the lily. I decided to paint mine slightly off-white, then applied glitter glue all over them, including on the hangers.

I could not be happier with how they turned out!  Even my husband (who is normally oblivious to this sort of thing) thought they looked striking hanging en masse on our tree.

This is a project that can easily be done using paper towels and glue and wire from the dollar store!

This would be a fun "cookie alternative" project to make and share with friends and neighbors. It's easy to make several dozen in a couple of evenings, and you can get your kids involved.  Wouldn't it be lovely to receive a set of handmade vintage inspired icicles as a gift?

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to subscribe to House Revivals, so you won't miss any of the fun tutorials we have planned. Please feel free to share this post on social media. Check out the sidebar to see other popular posts.  If you enjoy dollar store crafts, you might really enjoy this project, or this project.  Go check them out -- you'll be glad you did!

Make a Pretty Snowflake With Book Pages and Vintage Buttons!

I love vintage buttons, Christmas, and vintage book pages, so of course those loves often intersect at this time of year!

Here is a simple way to use old book pages and buttons from your stash to create pretty snowflake ornaments.

These ornaments are simple to make, using the humblest supplies. They would look pretty hanging on your Christmas tree, or they would make a special gift for an ornament exchange.

Because so many people are on a sugar overload at this time of year, or have health issues that don't allow for sweets, I often make a "batch" of ornaments for Christmas gifting. Who wouldn't want to receive one of these sweet little vintage book page snowflakes?

To make your own snowflake ornaments, you will need to rescue an old book. I used an old Reader's Digest diverted from the landfill. Since snowflakes have six sides, you will need to put together six sections. Each of my snowflake sections consisted of three loops of strips. The strips were the length of the book page and one-half inch wide. Each loop consisted of three strips of paper stacked together, for a total of 54 strips to make one snowflake.

Glue your stacks together to form loops, then bend two of the loops, as shown, and glue the three pieces together. Create six sections, then glue the sections together.

After all the sections are glued together, go back and secure any wobbly sections with more glue.

I glued a small piece of scrap paper to the center of my snowflake, to make it extra strong (a glob of hot glue would also work). I also added glitter glue to the edges of the strips.

To add a special touch, I went through my tin of vintage buttons, to decorate the center of the snowflake.

The buttons were secured with hot glue. I stacked two or three buttons together and glued them to both sides of the ornament.

The ornaments turned out really pretty!

To see another ornament idea using vintage book pages, click here.

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