Making a bookish holiday wreath

I said there would be crafting this Christmas. Nobody believed me. Well, hold on to your hats, bitches, because yesterday I TRIMMED A WREATH.

Isn't there something so Austenian about the idea of trimming a wreath? Eliza could not respond to his proposal because she was absorbed in the task of trimming a wreath. We queued up Christmas carols and had hot chocolate and trimmed the shit out of this wreath. It's my awesome bookish Christmas snowflake wreath, and I am insanely proud of it, like a little kid with a misshapen clay jug. LOOK MOM LOOK MOM SEE WHAT I DID!

Would you like to follow along at home?


You will need:

• A wreath
• Ribbon
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Book
• Gold paint (optional)

I chose to work with Diana Gabaldon's Dragonfly in Amber, the third(?) book in the Outlander series. I know David is hyperventilating at the thought that I did harm to a book, so I want to be totally open about the fact that this book was already missing a chapter owing to a tragic bathtub accident and was destined for the recycle bin. (And I have another copy, so no worries).

Step 1: Tear pages from book. Cut into squares of varying sizes. Make snowflakes. There is a tutorial here.

You can pull pages at random, or you can seek out certain passages that you like. For example, in this particular project, I flipped through to find pages from as many of the sex scenes as possible.

Even warmer than the skin of his belly, his penis was silken under the touch of my stroking thumb, pulsing strongly with each beat of his heart. [p. 530]

Because nothing puts me in a holiday mood more than the thought of a silken penis. (Also, I think we might have just discovered why I own multiple copies of this book.)

Other books that would make a similarly festive statement: Tropic of Cancer, Portnoy's Complaint, Lolita. Anything by Alan Hollinghurst.

Step 2: Make snowflakes for a while. There's really no set number you need to have. James and I cut snowflakes for a while and gossiped, and as we worked and gossiped, sorted our snowflakes into three piles: pretty, OK, and abomination unto God. When we had about nine or ten in the pretty pile, we moved on.

Lulu was very helpful in disposing of the other two piles.

Step 3: Paint snowflakes with the optional gold paint. Use a light touch--you want the words to show through so that holiday cheer and your own ingeniousness may be spread unto all.

Step 4: Affix snowflakes to wreath with hot glue gun. There are, sadly, no pictures of this step, as I was too busy dealing with my $2 glue gun, which decided to leak copiously all over the floor, my hands, and my hair. Like a very overactive silken glue-gun [see above].

Step 5: Put salve on burn marks. Attach bow to wreath.

Step 6: Hang wreath on door. Admire handiwork. Wait in hallway, primping branches, until neighbor comes by to check mail. Clear throat and very pointedly wait for them to acknowledge your beautiful, spangly wreath. Then be all nonchalant, "Oh, thanks, yeah, I made it. Isn't it great? NO, REALLY, ISN'T IT?"

Step 7: Repeat Step 6 for UPS man and food delivery guy.

It's not perfect. I'm not opening an Etsy store anytime soon. But still, it makes me ridiculously happy.

Fahoo, fores, indeed.