A Terrible Tutorial...

Recently, I made a wreath made of book pages.  It turned out fine, but rather than trying to teach others how to create such an exquisite piece of craft that can then be posted on Pinterest, I'd like to write out my non-tutorial directions.  Do not follow these directions under any circumstance unless you have a lot of spare time and extra fingers.

1) Decide to undertake the task of making a Book Pages wreath quickly after looking at just one tutorial with vague instructions and a hand model with chipped nail polish.

2) Take a ridiculously long time to mull over the decision to actually destroy a couple of books.  Then, worry about what type of book to cut up and fret over the content on the pages in the case that an actual word might be visible in the finished product. 

3) Cut out the pages of the well chosen books with a dangerously sharp knife, then use an out-of-date circle cutter to make circles of an arbitrary size based on the incomplete directions of the original tutorial.

4) Cut each circle into a spiral incorrectly by making the spiral wider towards the center resulting in cone shape rather than flowers.  Realize your mistake and begin cutting appropriately proportioned spirals one at a time.  Once you're almost done cutting the spirals, allow the knowledge to dawn on you that you could have been cutting several circles at a time.

5) Make sure to now look at other {better} tutorials that will make you feel like you found a wedding dress you like more than the one you already bought.

6) Create about a hundred paper flowers making sure to burn your fingers with the hot glue gun each time.  Make empty promises to yourself that you'll "Do it differently next time!" then do it the same exact way.

7) Wrap the wooden loom with book pages to hide the loom itself.  Quickly come to the realization that it's impossible to wrap a rectangular page smoothly around a curved piece of wood.  Swear a lot.

8) Rub the edges of the flowers with a brown stamp pad to give it an antique/rustic/burned look.  Drop the ink pad at least twice on yourself during the process.

9) Glue the flowers to the loom.  Now, go make about a hundred smaller paper flowers to fill in the gaps between the large flowers.  Make sure to show the unfinished wreath to as many people that will look and ask their opinion...then don't believe them when they say they like it so far. 

10) At this point, start obsessing about the BACK of the wreath that won't be seen by anyone.  But, since glue is visible and the flowers are uneven...find a way to cover it.

The wreath should be done at this point, so put it in a box where you can't see it until it's time to give to the recipient.  Here's my incomplete, poorly focused, photo montage.

That, my friends, is crafting.  Thank you.