Literature Inspired Ornaments

I had a classroom set of very old, falling apart To Kill a Mockingbird books. They were in too poor of condition to resell or donate (many were missing pages). Some of the pages we used for a blackout poetry project. But with 100+ of these books, I wanted to find another easy way to repurpose my favorite novel. 

BOOK QUOTE ORNAMENT (Glued on outside of ball)
I was inspired by images on Pinterest of so many book crafts; one that caught my eye that I knew I would be capable of making was an image of a holiday ornament made from pages of a book. I gathered up some old plastic colored balls and grabbed my Modge Podge glue and scissors and started cutting and gluing.

I quickly realized that my strips were too wide. If you are gluing the pages on the outside of the ball, cut the strips into two- or three-line strips. The skinnier the quotes, the easier they are to wrap around the ball. I found wrapping them vertically rather than horizontally worked best. 

But this way does take a long time. I also found out NOT to glue your favorite quotes first, because chances are, they will be covered up. The first layer of quotes will probably not show, so feel free to glue blank pages first, then your favorite quotes after.

It took me several hours just to complete one. The more I made, though, the faster I became. Picking out the quotes probably took the longest.

They were pretty but needed a little sparkle. I purchased some Diamond Dust, clear glitter, and clear "vase filler" baubles that looked like little ice pebbles and figured I would experiment with each and see what I liked best.

Make sure to let the ornaments dry completely overnight or for at least 12 hours before adding any embellishments.

I found my favorite look was to glue the ice pebbles near the top, then sprinkle the diamond dust on top and down the sides. I didn't want too much because I wanted to be able to read the quotes through the dust and glitter. 

You can experiment with the amount of bling you wish to add. 

BOOK QUOTE ORNAMENT (Filled clear balls or other shapes)
I really love the look of the glued strips on the balls, but not the amount of time they took. So I purchased some clear balls and present shapes and decided to fill them instead. (This ornament is FAST and so easy!)

I took the quotes and wrapped them around my pinky, then stuck them in the balls. Most of them retained their shapes. I experimented with wrapping them around skinnier objects like a colored pencil or just rolling them into a spiral helped keep their curls better.  

While just the book quotes looked nice, they tended to just roll up together into one big curl. So I realized I needed another element inside the shapes to keep them from doing that.

I added a mixture of the diamond dust, clear glitter, silver glitter, and some of the little ice pebbles. This worked well. Adding another paper element that wasn't rolled into a curl, however, worked the best. I had some crinkles--I don't know what you call these things, but they are like shredded paper folded in zig zags--left over from a gift, so I added some of those, and they worked. They kept the quote strips apart and added some color, too.

There are so many possibilities you can try with this type of ornament. As long as it fits in the ball, you could add charms, beads, and anything that fits inside relating to the novel.

I hope you enjoy this little craft and are able to repurpose your own old novel sets into beautiful ornaments.

Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments.