Elley the Book Otter: DIY

I recently won a box of ARCs, and while I'm super grateful to have won them, I'm also a bit at a loss as to what to DO with them. Of course I'm going to read the majority of them (duh!) and pass along some newer ones to other bloggers for review. But then some of them are ARCs for books that were published in 2015/2016, so I don't really feel right about passing them along, but I can't really just throw books in the garbage...

Edited to add: I've seen several authors put up posts PLEADING with reviewers not to pass on ARCs to schools/readers etc. These copies are meant for review purposes and are NOT "real books" (even though they're masquerading as them in pretty covers) and are filled with typographical errors and in many cases are missing entire scenes and things. One point brought up was that it does the reader a disservice to read an ARC instead of the finished, polished copy of the book and that these books are for REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. ARCs are not the best version of the book, y'all. You are missing out on some glory and beauty by reading only the ARC and not the final version.

This is where you come in, bookish webiverse! What do you do with old ARCs? I know they're just draft copies in fancy covers, not meant to be forever books. (Don't let the cover fool you! These are not "real books!")

I have mighty aspirations to turn the pages into craft projects. Here are some of the ideas I found so far. Since the holiday season is approaching, you can see my mind kind of went hard in very Christmas-y ways... ;)

Bookish paper ornaments

I love this adorable monogrammed paper star ornament from Jaime Costiglio - check out her blog for step by step direction.

These book page star ornaments are also really cute - you can find the how to guide over at Harbour Breeze Home.

I must just be into star ornaments right now... this 5-pointed origami star ornament tutorial can be found over at Homemade Gifts Made Easy

And if you want to get a little fancier with your paper folding, this tutorial over at Krista Sew Inspired for (yet another) paper star ornament is glorious.

Bookish wreaths

This Christmas book page wreath is gorgeous, and you can find the tutorial over at Sparkles of Sunshine.

Another variation on the book page wreath is to use rolled pages fanning outwards. Vintage Paint and More has a good tutorial on how to get started on this type of wreath.

Origami & papercraft

I could always use book pages as origami paper to make things like lucky stars and flowers, and even if I turn out to stink at the art of folding paper there are non-origami ways of making paper flowers too.

Do you have any good ideas about what to do with ARCs for books that have been published for a while? Is it OK/good/better to pass them on to other readers? Should I try to "upcycle" them?

OK, so I've wanted to do a Christmas advent calendar type of thing since before I ever even conceived my first child. (For those of you that know me and know that I had a bookcase filled with children's books in the nursery before I had any other furniture or before we'd even conceived our son, this likely does not surprise you.)

I decided that this is the year I fully commit and finally do some of the bookish Christmas things I've wanted to do forever. Since today is December 1st, I started with a book-a-day advent calendar.

The idea is to wrap up 24 books (I went with all Christmas/winter themed Children's books) and starting December 1st you open one book each day. When you open the final one, you know that tomorrow Christmas is finally here! I've seen several posts on Facebook and the rest of the interwebs that have a whole plethora of ways of doing this. I went with wrapping them in shades of green paper and stacking them into a "Christmas tree" (which you may or may not be able to tell from the photos, haha!) My plan is to let my sons (James age 3 and Link age 1) open one book each night at bedtime, and we'll all read the story together as a family.

I think it's pretty cute, and since we don't have an actual tree up yet the boys think it's pretty neat too!

Some other cute ideas are to wrap the books (in the same paper or many colors) and put them in a cute basket. Either number each book, or let the kids pick out which one to read.

Rebecca over at Here Come the Girls made this cute advent Snowman out of books and DVDs:

This person kept it classy by just stacking the books and tying them with a ribbon so they look like one big present!

For this next one you'd need a lot of space on your mantel. This would not work with my boys! But maybe if you have older children (who are better listeners) this would work for you!