DIY Book Page Bird Nests

Happy Monday! I have Jennifer Z. here today from Town and Country Living with a great project ! If you want to find a way to craft with old or vintage book and love spring crafty ideas with cute little birds, make these  DIY book page bird’s nests!

Hi All! It’s me again … Jennifer Z over at Town and Country Living. I’m thrilled to be back here at Jennifer R’s place with my 2nd contributor post. If you follow my blog you know I love natural elements, things clipped or picked up from the yard and brought indoors to beautify my home. One thing in nature I have a penchant for is birds and eggs. I have several decorative eggs on hand and decided they need a few nests to rest in. So I grabbed an old paperback book and got to work creating DIY book page bird nests.

Paired with an evergreen branch, the book page bird nests make a cute vignette.  Fir supplies, you’ll need an old book (hint if you don’t like to cut up vintage books, get some new ones from the Dollar Store.), scissors, glue dots or white craft tacky glue.  Here’s how you make them :

1. Cut thin strips of old book pages using scissors or a paper cutter.

2. Cut circles of various sizes from cardstock (I used the cover from the paperback book).

3. Put a ring of glue dots near the edges of the circle and gather about 4 book page strips with ends staggered. You want the nests to look a little messy.

4. Make a circle with the book page strips and press the edges down onto the glue dots on the cardstock circle. It’s okay if you need to smash small parts of the strips onto the glue dots to make them stick. A bird’s nest is a little messy, after all.

5. Next, line up three to four book page strips together and place glue dots in several spots, making sure the glue dots touch more than one strip. Overlapping the glue dots onto more than one strip will keep the strips together.

6. Take the group of strips and carefully adhere them to the first circle of strips on the nest, making sure to place this group of strips slightly higher than the first set. This is how you build the sides of your nest. It takes a little careful finessing. Leave loose ends sticking out – you can trim any ends that are too long though.

You can line the inside of the nests with leftover book page strips, using glue dots to adhere the skinny strips to each other. To make bigger nests, just create a bigger circle for the base.

I found an evergreen branch outside to use as the foundation for my little bird nest vignette. Then I took a quick trip to the Country Naturals store to find some new cute birds to go with the book page bird nests. If you don’t have any pine trees in your yard, you can pick up a few faux branches at the craft store.

I don’t know which I like more … the little birds or the nests.

If you’re not particularly crafty, you can stuff a small pot with the book page strips to imitate a nest, just make them a little wild looking when you put them inside. I folded the strips accordion style before stuffing into my pot. Then simply place a bird or decorative eggs on top.

If you love using vintage books in crafts, see how to make these fun paper mushrooms!

This is a fun vignette to pull together for a dining table. You can make additional nests for each place setting and add a name tag, if desired. Or simply place the DIY Book Page Bird Nests anywhere in your home where you want to add a bit of whimsy!

You might also like some of my other projects …

DIY French Papier Mache Boxes

Cocoa Pink Cuplets Recipe

How to Make a Paper Fan Garland

I hope you’ll visit my blog over at Town and Country Living.

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