Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Making a Bibliophile Christmas Tree

Christmas.

It's just around the corner.

Time to get crafting.

Last year, I put up a 7' slim artificial tree in our finished basement and decorated it entirely with paper ornaments. Over the years, I've made a variety of paper ornaments and tiny little books, and several people have sent me paper ornaments as gifts, so the tree had plenty on it and made me happy every time I went downstairs during the holidays.  (I spend a lot of time downstairs and positioned the tree so I could see it from my craft desk.)



That tree was so satisfying, in fact, that I've decided to buy a somewhat smaller artificial tree to decorate with a more specific theme than just "paper ornaments." It's going to be a Bibliophile Tree! All things bookish will make there way onto this tree. The possibilities are endless...from more tiny books, to bookmarks, to stamped scenes of books, to library cards and pockets, to writing implements (feathers, too!), to ornaments made out of old books (yes, I will cut up old books when they are bought expressly for that purpose!).

And here are the first ornaments I've made for the new tree. Aren't they delightful?!?!


Here's another picture of them on a green background.


Which photo do you like better? The ornaments pop better on the green, but y'all know how much I like white.

Anyway, these were made with Papertrey's All Booked Up set. And yes, I used eyelets! Wow. Haven't used those in forever. But they do finish off the holes for the strings so nicely, don't you think?

Of course you do.

So, do you have themed trees in your home for the holidays? What sort of themes? Do you change them up every year or stick with one theme year after year? Inquiring minds...and all that.

Please share!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey All Booked Up
ink: Hero Arts red royal, VersaMagic tea leaves
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: white eyelets, small circle hole punch, eyelet setter and hammer, string, corner rounder


9 comments:

  1. You are SO my hero! I love both of your tree ideas. The ornaments lose a bit of their 'innocence' on the green, but I guess they do pop a bit more. Hmmmm....our tree is the same one every year. Ours is filled with things the kids made in school, or church, and most ornaments have a special story behind them. Our house is not large enough for more than one tree, so unless we move, it will stay just one!

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  2. We must be receiving the same psychic wavelength -- I was just sitting here making bookmarks.

    We don't do themed trees. Our trees have ornaments that have some meaning or other that we've collected over the years.

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  3. cute bookmarks. no theme anything around here!!

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  4. We have 2 trees. One has silver and blue ornaments as well as Danbury Mint ornaments from my husband's grandmother and White House ornaments from my aunt and uncle. It's called the "fancy" tree. The other one is for all the other ornaments.

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  5. We don't do themes, but we do change colours each year. Love your idea.

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  6. Lovely little tree ornaments and a super idea! I like the photo with the white background best because the green tones down the ornaments even though you can see the white base layer better. We have one large tree which is decorated with a few 'memory' ornaments but is them Biblically themed. We have a gold glittered wire framed, bejewelled crown suspended on clear nylon thread hanging over the top of the tree. Any slight draught will turn the crown round and round. Followed by the 'star of Bethlehem, Angels singing , cards with Bible & hymn verses relating to Christ's birth, shepherds and kings, musical instruments and then a mixture of ornaments representing God's creation with ornaments chosen each by our son since he was born. We write the year on each of them!

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  7. As Janet wrote above, we don't have any themes here either but I will vary the colours of my christmas baubles every now and then.

    I would really love to turn our tree this year into white and turquise and silver colours but I think the turqoise won't match the green of the tree :-(

    Has anyone ever sprayed a tree with white piant??? :-)

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  8. My husband collected miniature ornaments several years ago. So one Christmas instead of a big tree in the living room we put up a small tabletop tree in every room in the house and used his miniature ornament collections. One tree has a "Candy Land" theme, one tree is full of snowmen, one tree has all nature ornaments, another has all types of Santas. I just LOVE it! It makes walking through the house such a pleasure during the holiday season. I miss the big majestic live tree sometimes but having twinkle lights and trees in every room makes up for it for sure! Love your idea of having the book tree. That might be a good one for me to try at work. Take care! And thanks as always for the great blog and cards!

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  9. Hi, Susan! I mostly use anything with wings for my tree...angels, birds...you get my drift. One year I made a Cajun themed tree, with moss and all. It had little Tobasco bottles, shrimp, crabs, pirogues, outhouses {smile}, magnolias, and the like. That one was fun to do. I love your idea with the books...
    Hugs!

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!