Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Because my two kids, a boy – 7 and a girl – 3, share a room, our decorating scheme walks a fine line between girl and boy, between little kid and big. I’ve been a little weary of hanging much art so far, finding everything too one way or the other. But I also get tired of blank walls very quickly, so this week I decided it was time to tackle the wall above their beds. We needed color and fun and something they each loved. And in the end, their favorite books seemed like a good place to start. I should also say that this decision also happened to come about after picking up the dustcovers from those favorite book off the floor one too many times.

If your kids are like mine, they have very little use for dust jackets, and since I try to buy hardback copies of books that I suspect will get a lot of use, we have a lot of them hanging around. Sometimes they stay on the books and gradually disintegrate, eventually being sucked up bit by bit through weekly vacuuming. Sometimes I pull them off right away and tuck them in a cupboard where they sit, taking up space. This is, I think, a better solution than either of the two.

Here’s what you need:

5-6 sheets of scrapbooking paper in coordinating colors (and coordinating with your dust jackets)
Book dust jackets of various sizes
Old frames in various sized
spray paint
foam
Mod Podge
Sewing machine
Ribbon
Paper cutter

Start by matching your dust jackets to frames, deciding which look best where. Paint the frames to match the color scheme of the paper you have chosen and/or the bedroom decor. You can either keep the glass in the frames or choose to leave it out all together. I choose to leave it out, just in case jumping on the bed led to pictures falling on the floor or heads!

Cut a piece of foam core to fit into the back of each frame snugly.

Trim the dust cover neatly so that you have an even rectangle or square of just the front. Reserve the scraps.

Cut and piece the scrapbooking paper so that it covers the edges of the foam core just slightly more than the gap between the dust jacket and the edge of the frame.

Using Mod Podge (I’ll refer you to our own Mod Podge Amy for her excellent tips) decoupage the paper and then the dust jacket onto the foam core.

Once dry, pop your new art into the frames, securing with a staple gun or tape.

With the remaining paper and the scraps of the dust jackets, help your children cut even triangles (or, if they dont feel like a geometry lesson, you could do it yourself). Cut two lengths of ribbon for the beginning and end of the bunting.

Help your children decide on an order for the triangles to fall in the bunting, stacking them from first to last in a pile.

At your sewing machine, place the end of one piece of ribbon under the starting edge of the first triangle and start stitching using a straight stitch and a 1/4 inch seam allowance. As each triangle is done, run the next through, leaving only a few stitches between each. Sew the second piece of ribbon to the back of the last triangle and back stitch to secure.

Using the ribbons as hangers and arranging the art and bunting across the wall, hang your new kids art and stand back to admire. When your kids fall out of love with one book and in with another, or you just need a change, you can decoupage a new dustjacket right on top of the old ones, creating an up to day display of their reading habits.

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