Diplomacy: College Collage Style

So I’ve got these college diplomas. Yes, diplomas. As in more than one. I’ve always wanted to showcase them, but like any mature adult, my diplomas lived in a safe place, you know, like the tube in which they were mailed to me.

Everyone said I should hang them up at work, but since I’m a cube-rat, that didn’t strike me as a smashingly good idea.

And then a glorious thing happened. I repainted my downstairs hallway. AND I took everything off the walls and patched the nail marks. (read: I hired a drywall man and a painter and it was ambrosia.)

So I had a lot of wall space to fill. Which brings me to this delightful frame collage. Of college diplomas.

Making things look purposefully yet not purposely arranged is actually quite hard. Technically, I believe its called making a “gallery wall.” And yes, I have multiple degrees but still find things like hanging pictures difficult.

First, I had to actually find frames that fit everything. And then wait for said frames to go on sale and/or have a coupon. Because I refuse to buy anything without a coupon.

Next, I laid them all out on the floor and arranged until I had the frames just so. Then, I called in back-up for a second opinion.

So, how do you get the photos from the floor arrangement to the wall without messing up the arrangement?

Simple. Look it up on Pinterest, because Pinterest tells you how to do everything in life.

You flip the photos over, lay out wax paper, mark where the picture hangers are, then put the wax paper up on the wall and nail in the wall picture hangers. You can see the pin where I first saw how to do it here.

Victory.

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When you give a girl a party…

She’ll have to craft everything in sight.

Old book pages + gluesticks = victory.

Well…technically I’m throwing myself a party…although it’s really not for me…its more of an excuse to get together with friends and show off try out some DIY project’s I’ve been wanting to do. I keep calling these paper pinwheels, although they’re really not pinwheels, more like flowers.

Pretty easy to make, once I got the hang of it and got over the fact that I need to make MANY MANY book flowers before Saturday. The original idea comes from a Better Homes & Gardens post which can be found here.

First, you’ll need an old book. I grabbed a copy of White Noise that an ex-boyfriend had given me. (Just like the ex, this book needed to go…) While the BHG post recommends using a vintage book with thicker pages, I like the thinness of the paperback pages better–easier for making accordion folds.

Fold, trim, tie, glue!

You need two pages (or one page cut in half) to make the book flowers. After you make the accordian fold, you can trim the edges off to give it a more flower-y look. Then, tie the two halves together (this is where had serious #fails…) and glue the pages into a circle! Luckily, the book I choose had some interesting title pages, which is what gives the light/dark effect above.

After making about eight of these, I got smart accidentally discovered that if you fold one page over the other before tying with string, it cuts down on the glueing. The picture below shows what I mean.

And then I got smart...linking the edges together eliminates glueing.

Also, depending on where you are going to hang your book flowers, you may want to leave extra string on the ties.

As for me, I have 14 of these bad boys finished and many more to go! I’m planning on glueing buttons to the centers to complete the look. Wish me luck!

Ta-da!

One of the best parts of this endeavor was that I already had all the supplies I needed–so the project cost me $0. It’s eco-friendly and a great way to recycle books into something new.