I started with an idea with the girls' room. The last two pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has the word "sister" in it about five time. And it talks about the hopes and dreams of seeing her grown sister sitting and telling stories to future children. Could it be any more perfect? Swoon.
Want to watch us build it (and mess it up) on YouTube. Good! Click Here!
I'm quite aware of copyright law (hey, remember those multiple English degrees?), so I knew that Alice in Wonderland was well out of copyright. Especially since you can find scanned complete copies of the work on online libraries (like here at Google Books). They can do this because it has been over 50 years since the author and illustrator's deaths. Making the works out of copyright and free for use. (Note: DISNEY'S Alice in Wonderland is a whole other ballgame and is NOT out of copyright.)
I knew this.
Staples did not.
I had to go to war with them.
Not really. It actually wasn't too terrible (especially because I made Cor do it...). I needed to print out something that included the copyright situation and include it with my order. I went ahead and used one of the copyright pages listed in a Google Books copyright page, and they happily printed my pages. (And I informed them that I would also planning to do similar projects with other out-of-copyright materials, so now we both know what's up.)
We got an Engineering Print in the largest size Staples prints (36" x 48"). I just scanned a book page and it came out clear enough. I've done photos too that have turned out great! Cor took the file in but you can also order it through their website and preview it.
The entire 36x48 page was only $7.29!
Once I had my giant pages, they sat in my garage for ages... Kidding... Yeah... Kidding. Once I finally got my crafty bug back, I went to work. I used this spray adhesive to attach my large pages to a piece of .205in X 4ft X 8ft plywood underlayment from Lowe's. The whole piece of wood was around 16$ and I had some left over for a few other projects.
I placed a really large desk top on top of my papers to give them so weight while they dried on the wood. The adhesive gave the paper and wrinkly sort of texture, but I was cool with that. It makes it look like old pages. You could staple gun the pages tight to the board if you want to avoid the wrinkled look.
Cor then cut the pages down to size. If you're making more than one page, make sure you make your pages even (if that's what you're going for). That meant we had to have a little more white space on one of our pages.
Then we took some 1 1/2in X 2in X8-ft wood and stained them with this walnut stain. We did math... And did math again... And messed that up and mathed some more (Hey! I teach ENGLISH, folks!) and finally got them cut right to fit as perfect(ish) little frames on our large book page. (We actually mathed so wrong that we ran out of wood for the frames for the second book page... So, that's why you only see pictures of one. Project: To be continued).
Then we used a nail gun to shoot through the back and attach the frame pieces to the book page. We made sure to remove the baby before this step ;) . Gorgeous!
We used these D-Ring Hooks and attached them to the back of the frame on both sides. Then we hung it above Ay's bed, and admired our genius. Boom.
It's one of my new favorite things. I can't stop sneaking away and hiding in her room.
Sorry-not-Sorry.
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