Recycled Book Pumpkins

Pumpkin Decorations Made from Recycled Books

I found this at http://craftingmom.com/pumpkin-decorations-made-from-recycled-books/

MATERIALS

• Old paperback books
• Sticks
• Orange ink pad
• Orange acrylic paint
• Large mixing bowl
• Exacto knife
• Hot glue & glue gun
• Sheet of paper
• Scissors
• Green felt
• Brown Cloth Stem Wire (can be found in the floral section of any craft store)

DIRECTIONS
On a blank sheet of paper, draw and cut out a pumpkin shape (keeping in mind the size of the book you will be using and that the book will need to be able to stand up, so don’t make the bottom completely rounded). Pull the front & back cover off the book. Open the book to about halfway through, and then trace the shape onto the book pages. Use an Exacto knife to cut out the pumpkin (you may have work your way through the book doing this, cutting several pages at a time).

Once your pumpkin shape is cut out, it’s time to give it some color! Decide which method you want to use (if you’re making more than one, you may want to try a different method of adding color for each one):

Rub the edges with an orange stamp pad. This is by far the quickest, easiest and least messy method, but it just gives the edges color, so a lot of white will still show through.

Dip the edges in orange paint. Water down orange acrylic paint to dilute it and put it in a large mixing bowl or other container. Test the orange color by dipping a sheet of paper in – add more water or orange paint to make it the color you like. Then, just close the book and dip the cut edges in. You can dip as little or as much as you’d like – the deeper and/or longer the book gets dipped in the paint, the further the color will soak up into the pages. If you want the book pages to be entirely orange-tinted, dip the whole book in the paint (this produces a really cute look, but it took almost 2 days to dry completely!).

Once the book pumpkins are are completely dry, it’s time to make the stems and leaves that will attach to the top. Cut out a few leaf shapes from green felt and hot glue a small length of the stem wire to the back of each. Use some more of the wire to create little curly spirals that will also stick out of the top of the pumpkin by wrapping it around a pen or pencil, then just sliding it off.

Open the book so that the first and last pages and the core of the spine are facing up. Use the hot glue gun to glue a stick (the stem), along with the base of the wire “curlies” and the leaf into the top of the spine of the book. Zig-zag hot glue all the way down the spine, then just open the book completely so the pages are all spread out.

 Once the hot glue dries, the pumpkins are done!