Deconstructing Jane Austen (Literally)

So,  few weeks ago, I was scouring through etsy to try to find things for the wedding, when I came across a listing by anovelamore of confetti made from Jane Austen's Emma. I thought to myself, "What a great idea!" I had it all planned out that I was going to buy hard cover copies of The Time Traveler's Wife, a compilation of Jane Austen's novels, and a compilation of the Bronte sisters' novels. The pages would become confetti, and the covers would become flower girl baskets, in the spirit of some book purses I've seen around the internet. Well, some people weren't so sure about the baskets, and I started to wonder if it was worth the money to buy all three books, so I started to rethink things.

A few days later I went to work at the bookstore and saw that we had received this lovely edition while I was out. The actual cover is white, so I might can use it for something else, and it's thick enough to theoretically make enough confetti. Even if it doesn't, by the time I've punched every page out, I'll be tired of it. The best thing about it of course, was that it was only $7.99. Of course, I felt bad buying the book under false pretenses, if you will, but since I already own almost all of the novels in there, two of which I still need to read, I decided it was better to use this cheap book than the others.


So, for several weeks,  the book just sat on my coffee table collecting dust and what not. The closest Michaels is about 20 minutes away, so I just never really made the time to get over there. I figured I had plenty of time before the wedding, and even partially assumed we'd just do this as a group the week before once everyone was in town and in wedding finishing mode.


Anyway, yesterday we ended up near the store anyway, so I stopped off and got two heart hole punchers, one jumbo sized and one regular. I have to say I was semi confused because jumbo was the second smallest size out of like five different sizes. I guess they slowly expanded the line and didn't feel the need to rename it. Once we got home, I sat the stuff to the side, figuring I'd get to it over the weekend. After a while however, I got kind of bored and thought, "I might as well." So, I grabbed the necessary items, two punchers, the book, and a shoe box to keep the confetti in.



Thomas decided to help me so he took the smaller one and I took the larger one and we went to work. By the way, if you plan on doing this yourself, I'd say the best way seemed to be to fold one page in half, until it was small enough to get two rows of hearts punched out. If you go thicker, than it's too hard to punch, let alone fit in the little slit the puncher allows for paper. Also, you get more hearts for your punch. Oh, and you might also want to make sure they aren't sloppy folds, or you'll end up cutting on the fold and making weird shaped flower-like double heart things.

The first rip. Gasp!             Accordion hearts        I loved this bigger one.

Probably about thirty minutes later, though I really have no clue how long it was, we figured it was time to stop. It was after about one in the morning, so we were pretty tired and ready for bed. To the left is how far we got, 71 pages into Sense and Sensibility...so I guess we got roughly 35 pages punched thoroughly. However many it was, I know it was about a grocery bag worth of trash.

To the right you can see just how little confetti was made from all of that work. It's probably more than I figure since the pieces are so small. All I know is we have quite a bit left to do. I'll try to do as much as I can during the day when I take breaks from work to watch a TV show or a movie. Speaking of, I better get going so I can work.

Cheers!

P.S. These pictures all came from my phone because my camera wasn't charged enough. I think it worked out pretty well. I do have a droid so it is relatively good quality. Thomas did "judge" me a bit for documenting the whole thing.