Looking for crafting ideas

[Kadana Sorano]

I'm a volunteer at Hospice.  Recently, someone donated a whole mess of books to the local office.  These are sample books, filled cover to cover with wall paper samples.  The books are huge, around 2 to 2.5 feet long and 2 to 2.5 feet tall, and anywhere from 1 to 2.5 inches thick.  There is a ton of very nice patterns in there, and the VC (Volunteer Coordinator) wants them all removed from the books, to use for crafts.

The problem is, there are a lot of books, and a ton of samples.  And only a very few crafting ideas.

Atm, I am in charge of removing the pages from the books, and some other volunteers have been making homemade envelopes for letters and note cards with them.  They look beautiful.  But there are only so many envelopes you can make, without them losing their novelty a bit.  So the VC asked me to try and come up with some other craft ideas to use them for.  I told her I would ask you guys for ideas, as I can't really think of much of anything, except maybe making picture frame borders with them.

So, here I am, asking you guys for ideas.  Any suggestions would be appreciated very much, and will be passed along to the VC.

As a side note, in case you wonder what these will be used for, Hospice sets up mini booths at fairs, carnivals, and any other event they can get permission for and sells crafts the volunteers make.  Since they are a non profit organization, the money from these helps out a bit.

They also use some crafts as gifts for patients and their families.  And sometimes, as gifts for doctors offices etc, depending on the craft.  

[Sunchaser]

Perhaps Origami?

[Kadana Sorano]

Ohh you know I always wanted to learn how to do that?  Can it be done with thick paper?  These samples are quite thick/heavy, but yet not paper-like at all, they feel more like cloth and vinyl.

I'll be seeing her tomorrow to pick up some more books to take apart, and I will mention it to her

Thanky Sunny *huggles*

[Sunchaser]

no problem! *huggles* I belive it can. it would just be different. I know ive seen things made out of towels that are basicly origami but not <.< like what they do on cruise ships? those are really thick :-p

[Kadana Sorano]

cruise ships lol something else I know nothing about XD  it sounds nice though.  The oragami AND the cruise ship rofl

I'll give her the idea tomorrow when I see her, and she can run it by the other volunteers.  Maybe one of them knows how.

And man, I need to go to bed.  The built in spell checker thinger had this entire post underlined in red!  Fixed most of it now, I think.. gah when can I do my door again?  I want night nights lol

[PonyMama]

Cover cans and or jars (with rounded edges) that can be used to store things in (the little girl I babysit has an old paint can covered in paper and ribbons to put some of her little keepsakes),  You could even cover old shoe boxes, old laundry detergent boxes or anythign else that size, for recipe cards, bills, photo and other stuff storage.


Bookmarks, use ribbon to top them or even fancy scissors to edge them as well.  Cut 2 of them, place a 6 inch piece of very thin satin ribbon between the 2 pieces, at the top and glue them together...Ta-Da!  A bookmark.

Cards.  You coudl get some plain white cardstock and glue some wallpaper to them and there you go a premade card that can be for any ocassion.  if you can get someone to do a bit of scrapbook flair that could make them better.

that is just a few things I would do, I have some wallpaper too and I let me kid craft with them and I scrapbook with it, but that can't really help you unless you also want to put some together as craft kits for grandkids to play with.  Put some glue and some other things with it for kids to make stuff with.

[Kadana Sorano]

Thank you PM   I'll give the ideas to her later when I go in. 

I also just was thinking when I woke, how nice some of those pattens would look as book covers.  I'm wondering how easy/hard it would be to make some.  Only thing is, books come in all shapes and sizes, so not sure how good an idea it is..

[bewilderness]

How about making collages?  You can add some found objects too, like bits of ribbon, lace, old keys, stuff like that.

ATCs (Artist Trading Cards)--You can find lots of info on them online, they're really cool.  They're the size of baseball cards and you trade them with people.  It's a great way to collect miniature artwork.

[springacres]

I was going to suggest collages!  hehe!  Wallpaper samples are also great for scrapbooking, or you could use them as matting for poster displays.

[Silvanon]

Mm, this site seems to have a lot of good ideas:  http://www.angelfire.com/ia/barbspad/wallpaper.html

[Kadana Sorano]

Thank you everyone for the help

I found some old wrapping paper rolls, that were never finished (and in some cases never even opened), I'm going to use those as well

[sera]

It is possible to do origami with heavy paper (or even cloth), but it tends to be very difficult.  ^^;;

i would suggest covering boxes. . . lol  There's Japanese tea boxes which are usually covered in rice paper, though i've heard of them even being covered in cloth.  i can't seem to find an actual tutorial on Japanese tea boxes, but here's something else you could cover!  lol

http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com/2009/09/guest-blogger-fabulous-tutorial.html

[JBGarrison72]

Not to get too much off topic, but the mention earlier in this thread of using the wallpaper samples for "ATC's" really evoked my curiosity.

So I googled searched ATC; artist trading cards and did some research on the subject.

I have to agree now, if I had wallpaper samples I'd want to try my hand at using them to make ATC's... what a cool idea!