So far....

This year I'm making Mother's Day gifts. It's so hard to find something they will need/like/want so this seemed easiest. Well, kind of. The making part of it is the less easy side of it. The picture below is my inspiration....I decided to make paper rose wreaths.

I think the wreath in the photo is made of newspaper, not positive. I considered a lot of options as far as the paper source and knew right away I would recycle something rather than buying paper. There were going to be a lot of paper roses so buying a ton of paper wasn't something I wanted to do. I liked the idea of the newspaper and the black/white color, but newspaper is messy and too fragile. I have some old books I got at an estate sale for making cards and decided that's what I'd use. And when I say old, I mean old. Not old enough or interesting enough to be worth anything (I think they were .25 cents for each book), but interesting looking due to the aged color and texture. So I started making paper roses out of the pages. Here is what I have so far.

My roses are rolled tighter than the ones in the inspiration wreath and I like mine better. I like how the edge of the old paper is aged and has a slight bit of color to it...it's actually a pinkish hue so it works well for the roses.

It's time consuming to roll each one and then glue the rose so it won't unroll, but it's mindless work and relaxing. It took 55 roses to cover an 8 inch straw wreath. The straw wreath is covered with strips of paper from the book so if any space that shows between the roses wouldn't look bad. This is the back.

Next I'll have to get some antique lace or ribbon to make a bow and possibly add some antiqued glitter. Since the roses are made out of old paper, I'm going with the vintage look. I showed it to Greg and he said it looks like a lot of work....it is, so I hope the Mom's like them :)