Happy Fall!

It seems like we just celebrated Halloween and suddenly I realize it is the 13th of November?! Time flies. We've already had the first snow at my house and I'm getting excited for the holidays.

I don't have a lot of Thanksgiving decor. I put up some leaves, a pilgrim or two, a little village my mom gave me long ago and call it good. It's kind of a nice change after all the Halloween spookiness and before the massive Christmas decorating.  But this year, the wonderfully talented ladies at Scrapping Girlfriends in Twin Falls, ID had shared a fun fall craft with me made from old books. It turned out to be a great addition to my fall decor and I even shared it with my stamp club. So here goes:

Altered Book Pumpkins

Get an old book from your library book sale or the local thrift store. The Rebellious Ward is perfect! Harlequin Romances seem to be the perfect size for this project--you don't want more than about 250 pages per pumpkin. Not to say a bigger book can't be used, you just may want to divide the book into multiple sections instead of just two (a student dictionary ended up making three pumpkins). The more pages the more unwieldy it gets as you work. 

Remove the cover and carefully divide the book into two even parts by cutting down the binding with an Xacto knife. Draw a half circle on the halves. Remember to leave a flat piece on the bottom so your pumpkin will stand.

Using an xacto knife, carefully cut into the half circle shape. 

Now ink your edges. I used chocolate ink and inked the edges really well every few pages.

Taking two pages at a time, crumple the pages. Don't be shy about this but don't get carried away and rip the pages out of the book either.

You should end up with two halves that look similar to this.

Next, apply hot glue down the binding and glue the two halves back together. 

 You should end up with something like this. Now, it's time to accessorize!

Here we have The Rebellious Ward all dressed up for Fall!

And here she is with her friend, a student dictionary!

Happy Fall!