Have you seen the gorgeous book ornament that’s book floating around Bookstagram and BookTok? I just had to make it for myself! I take no credit for the idea, and wish I knew who made it first to credit them. By the time I decided to make these I’d seen countless Reels of other people doing it, but I haven’t seen anyone credited with doing it first.
The directions are pretty simple, and I’m sure they’re all over the Internet at this point. But I’ve seen SO many people in my Instagram stories painstakingly resizing the book images in Word, so I’m here to offer you a drag-and-drop Canva template to speed up the process an incredible amount! It took me 20 minutes this weekend to get 230 book cover images ready to print, as opposed to the hours it would take to copy, paste, and resize in Word. It’s going to take me longer to write this post! If you’re new to Canva, I’ll explain how to use it below.
Book Ornament Template – Canva
This is a Canva book ornament template that will allow you to drag and drop book covers to assist in the DIY Book Ornament project, as described in my blog post. You are not purchasing a finished ornament. For directions on how to best use this template, refer back to the blog post.
Upon purchase, you will receive an email with the link to the Canva template. Please check your spam or junk mail.
You will need to log in to Canva to use this book ornament template. I am not able to see your login information, and the account is free to sign up.
Refunds are not available on this product.
Obviously, you don’t need to buy the template to make this ornament. You can lay out the images however you want on an 8.5×11 sheet, print, and you’re good to go.
Getting Started
There are a few different methods floating around, so I’m going to let you know what worked for me and what I’d do differently. I originally purchased foam sheets and sticker paper. When the foam sheets arrived, I realized they actually were stickers themselves, so I saved the sticker paper and just printed my book covers on regular 8.5×11 printer paper. If you already have non-sticker foam lying around, you definitely can buy the sticker paper and go that route!
The 8.5×11 foam sheets were out of stock when I went to make my purchase, so I bought these mini boards. If you’re using my template, they fit 25 books each (a quarter of a piece of paper). I actually think these were easier to handle than an 8.5×11 foam sheet would have been. I could easily see myself misaligning a larger piece of paper and wasting materials.
Supplies
In addition to printer paper with your book covers printed on it, you’re also going to need the following:
Scissors or paper cutter
Ribbon/string/something to hang it with
If you’re following my tutorial directly and planning on buying your supplies on Amazon, I’d love it if you purchased your supplies through these affiliate links! No cost to you, I just get a small percentage back from your purchase.
The Basics
If you’re crafty, this project is super simple. The basic steps are as follows:
- Paste all of your book covers into my template or your own document
- Print on regular printer paper (print each book cover twice)
- Stick one side of book covers onto foam
- Cut out individual books
- Cut out backs (the second sheet of the same book covers that isn’t on foam)
- Stick backs onto foam
- Fill ornament and tie a pretty bow!
For more detail, keep reading.
Filling out the template:
If you’re using my Canva template, you’re going to need to sign into Canva to use it. You can start a free account if you don’t already have one. Don’t worry–I can’t see your login information.
When you open the template, it will look like this:
Each of those book covers is a placeholder for you to drag and drop your own image.
If you use Goodreads or Storygraph, the easiest way to do this is to open your 2022 Reading Challenge (or whatever shelf you want to make–maybe it’s your five-star reads of 2022 or a different personalized list) next to Canva like this:
And drag and drop each cover into the “uploads” area. You can also select “upload files” and bulk upload if you have the book images saved to your device. Once you have all of your book covers uploaded, drag and drop them over each book cover on the template:
If you need more than one sheet of book covers, click on this duplicate icon in the upper right corner to add another page. I recommend doing this BEFORE you start filling them all in, because it’s a lot easier to keep track when all the placeholders are the same. There are 100 books in this template, so hit duplicate right now if you need more than that.
That’s it! Once you have all your book covers filled, save the document as a PDF and print it on 8.5×11 paper. Print two copies–one for each side of the book. *If you’re outside of the US and need an A4 template, let me know!
Assembling the books:
I wasn’t planning on doing a tutorial, so I took all these pictures at night…please excuse the quality, I’ll post better ones next time I make this craft!
For each book, you’re going to have a front and a back. They’re the same book cover printed twice (unless you want to get really crazy and print back covers–that’s on you). For simplicity, the “front” cover gets stuck on the foam, we cut out the books, and then we put on the “back” cover.
Cut out a swatch of book covers that is the size of your foam sheet. If you bought the ones I linked, this will be a quarter of the 8.5×11 paper:
Peel off one side of the foam backing, and stick the book covers to the foam sheet. It doesn’t need to be perfect; you can trim as you cut out the books.
Then cut them out. I really recommend a paper cutter–I don’t have one, so this was the most tedious part for me. I’m going to buy one before I make this again.
Next cut out the paper “backs”. These are the same images on regular printer paper. Stay organized–you’re going to have a bad time if you have to play mix and match with 100 tiny slips of paper.
Now you’re ready to finish assembling! Peel the backing off the stick foam and attach the corresponding back cover. Repeat for all your books!
After that, the rest is pretty straightforward. Fill your ornament, add a pretty ribbon, and display it proudly! I have to purchase ribbon this weekend. I’m also going to add a dot of hot glue to the top and bottom of the ornament. The seal on the ornaments I bought isn’t the strongest, so I want to reinforce it for when pets inevitably mess with my tree. The last thing I’m going to do is label the ornament with the year I read these books!
What size balls should I buy?
I’ve read 230 books so far in 2022, and I originally wanted one ornament per year. I can fit all 230 in one 4″ ball, but as you can see it’s pretty cramped. I can’t shake around the contents to see the books in the middle. For this size ball, it seems like 75-125 books is the sweet spot. Fewer than 75 might look a little sparse, and more than 125 gets cramped. I’m going to split my books into first and second half of 2022 and do around 125 books in each. Count your books and size up or down accordingly based on how you want your ornaments to look.
Happy crafting!
Please let me know if you have any questions. If you make it and share on Instagram, I’d love to see! Tag me: @howdidthatbookend
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