Giving New Life to an Old Book

While perusing Pinterest, I came across some cute decorating ideas involving pages from old books.  I thought these ideas would work perfectly in my classroom.   

                      

Source                                                                        Source

So, I headed off to the thrift store by my house in search of old books.  I found two old books that would do the trick.  I also picked up some jute at Hobby Lobby.  

To make the stars, I made a star template out of some cardstock.  Then, I ripped out pages from the book.  (I felt a little guilty for destroying a book, but I got over it.)  I used the template to trace out stars on the book pages that I ripped out.  I held several pages together so I could cut several stars at one time. Once I had the stars cut out, I cut lengths of jute.  Next, I stapled two stars together with the jute in between them.  I figured once they were hung up, you wouldn't even notice the staples.  Plus, stapling the stars on the jute took a lot less time than gluing or taping would have taken.  

Here they are all hung up.  Pretty cute!  

To make the banner, I cut triangles from some ripped out pages.  Again, I held several pages together so I could cut out more than one triangle at a time.  Once I had my triangles cut out, I cut a length of jute long enough for the length of the wall in my classroom.  Then, I simply used a piece of masking tape to attach each triangle to the jute.  

Here's the banner!  

Pretty easy and pretty cheap!