Happy Bookish Holidays!

I hope you are having a great holiday season! If you are looking for craft projects featuring books, or a bookish ornament you can make for the holidays, I’ve got you covered! Happy Bookish Holidays to you!

Happy Bookish Holidays: Crafts and Ornaments

Updated for the Holiday Season 2022-2023!

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Are you looking for a way to incorporate your love of books into your Christmas decor?

Here are two different ornaments that you can make:

Clear Glass Ornament Filled With Book Pages

To make this super-easy but very pretty Book Page Ornament you need:

An empty glass ornament ball and some book pages. That’s it!

The ornament balls cost about $1 and you can get them at a craft store, a dollar store, or online.

You can also use a plastic ornament ball if you have kids or pets who have been known to knock ornaments off your tree.

First, open the ornament and drop in some cut and curled pages. Yes, books were destroyed to make this craft. Mine were torn from a book sampler (ugh- hate them!) but you can use a book that you accidentally dropped in the bathtub (whoops!)

Or a book from a thrift shop, library sale or yard sale.

You curl the paper just like you’d curl ribbon, using the side of your scissors.

If you like, you can add a little bit of glitter snow – so easy!

Put the top back on. You can hang your new ornament with a metal hook or a piece of ribbon. I used a hook and then glued a tiny bow on top.

Tiny Book Ornament

You may have seen these on TikTok and wondered how to make them. This Tiny Book Ornament took a bit more skill – but I did it! It also uses things you probably have around the house: paper, ribbon and a glue stick or glue gun.

I will teach you two tiny book folding techniques: the accordion and the hot dog.

Here’s my easy and foolproof way to get a tiny book, with step by step instructions.

All you need is a sheet of paper (printer paper works just fine, but you can be fancy), a piece of thin ribbon, string or even dental floss, and something to make a cover. You could repurpose some wrapping paper, or print out the cover of a favorite book.

Step one: decide what size book you want.

This green paper underneath is a full-sized piece of 8.5 x 11 paper. You can use a half sheet of paper, a quarter, or an eighth. The process is the same!

If you use half of a piece of paper, this is how big the finished book will be (about 2.5 inches high and 2 inches wide).

If you use one-eighth of a piece of paper, this is how big the finished book will be (about 1.25 inches high and 1 inch wide).

Tiny book accordion fold method

Step one: Take your chosen paper size and fold the paper into eighths, like this. I’m going to use a large piece of paper because it’s easier to see. The neater and more even your folding, the neater the book will be!

Step Two: Cut the paper down the middle the long way, so you have two pieces. Again, the neater your cutting, the neater the book. But I’m not that neat, so don’t worry!

Step three: stack one piece of paper on top of the other:

Step four: fold the two stacked papers up:

Get it all as even and you can and then, to make it extra-neat, trim all the edges EXCEPT the folded one on the left.

Tiny Book Hot Dot Fold Method

The hot dog fold is faster, but takes a few tries to get it right.

Step one: You fold your paper the exact same way as in step one above.

Step two: Fold the paper in half across the short way. Then cut it across the fold halfway across. Like this:

Step three: Here’s the hot dog part. (I have no idea why it’s called that.)Pull the paper apart to make a diamond shape, and then bring the the two two sides of the paper around and down. (It’s hard to describe in words, so if you don’t get it, watch this short video.)

Step four: Your book should look like this:

If you want to make a patterned cover, flatten out the book and measure it, cut the patterned paper and fold it in half, and slip it over the book.

You can use glue stick (or a glue gun) to glue the folded parts of the pages together or tie a piece of ribbon around the whole thing. In my finished piece, I glued the pages together and then looped a piece of ribbon between my cover and the pages and glued that together. Like this:

Another fun variation: go onto Goodreads and copy the covers of some favorite books.

To print the cover the right side, measure your pages.

Then go into Canva and select “create a design.” Switch the toggle to inches and input the height and width of your tiny book. Hit “create new design.”

Then upload your book cover photo and drag it into the design.

That way when you print the cover, it will be the correct size. You may need to adjust your printer settings so that your printer does not change the size. In my printer, I had to choose “custom” so that it would retain the size I wanted.

And … voila!

I hope you enjoy making bookish crafts. Tell me how yours came out in the comments OR tag me on social media! My Google Web Story on Bookish Holiday Crafts is here.

Whatever you’re celebrating (or not) this month, I hope you have a happy holiday season!

If you’re looking for Bookish Gifts, check out this post!

Looking for the best Netflix Holiday movies to watch?

Need the perfect book to give as a gift? Pick a mood board, I’ll pick you a book!