Make your own book pumpkin!

Fall is getting closer and along with pumpkin lattes and Oktoberfest beer with a cinnamon sugar rimmed glass (yum!) comes fall crafts! I saw this super cute pumpkin on Pinterest and I wanted to try my hand at it for my desk area at work.

Things you will need:
-A piece of paper
-Pencil
-An old book you don't want to read ever again
-Hot glue gun
-(Optional) acrylic paint
-Xacto knife

I used an old Nicholas Sparks book that I read once and didn't love, so I figured I would put it to good use!

 

Step 1: Carefully peel the cover off of the book, make sure the paper binding on the spine stays intact (that will be your stem.

Step 2: Create a pumpkin shape that will appropriately fit on the size book you are destroying using. Make sure that the bottom is pretty flat so it will sit flat on the table.

Step 3:Use your knife to trace around the pattern. Make sure when you cut you hold the knife flat on the page (bottom picture), don't try to use just the point to cut (top picture), because it will cause the pages to rip a little rather than cut smoothly.

Step 4: As you go you'll want to rip the pages one by one from the binding. Again you want to make sure that the glue stays on the binding because that will be the stem (see photo 4 above).

Step 5: Once you have all of the pages cut out you want to use your hot glue gun and glue the binding together so it starts your circular shape. The pages won't evenly distribute right away, you'll need to "fluff" them. Also use your glue gun and arrange the stem the way you'd like it as well.

Step 6: (optional) The original picture just left the pumpkin plain, I decided to spice mine up a little. I put some water in a bowl and put a LITTLE bit of orange acrylic paint in it so it was really soupy. Then I pulled all the pages together and brushed the color over the edges to give it a little pop. Then I painted the stem brown.

Step 7: In order to "fluff" your pumpkin up go through and crinkle every single one of the pages. Its kind of tedious but A) it keeps the paint from making the pages stick together and B) it makes it look full.

Step 8: Keep fluffing and add a little bit of your own style. I decided I wanted more color so I cut out a little leaf, painted it green and attached it to the stem. Maybe you want to make a tag like the original picture, maybe you want to tie dye your pumpkin, maybe you want to bedazzle the stem... its yours so do whatever you want!

Here's my final pumpkin! Obviously I have some more fluffing to do but I was tired and wanted to get to bed!

I also asked my boyfriend to help me take a picture while I was ripping the pages out.... and while uploading these pictures I found this super angry selfie of my Grizly Adams.

My next post very well might be "how to shave your hairy boyfriend while he sleeps"! Just sayin....