Paper Chandelier & Book Quotation Necklaces

Published by Kristen on March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

My friends had the fun idea of having a dress up murder mystery party at our house where all of the characters were from literature. We love to host parties at our house, but our living room is not big enough to host a large number of people, so we end up using our garage since it can accommodate more people. The biggest challenge with this party was trying to make a garage feel warm and inviting and like an old study.

We managed to capture that feeling with the use of drapery, lighting, furniture and some really fabulous decor. My friends are really talented and they contributed all of the decorations except for my one contribution. My crazy idea was to make a multi-tiered chandelier out of the garage door opener, cellophane, and MANY graduated sizes of circles of paper.

All of the pieces of paper were cut from old books that had been de-commissioned by the library. My friend had about 30 books that she had received this way, and my absolute favorite that I used was “Let’s All Convert to the Metric System!”. I only used the pages with text, but the drawings of people from the 50s were so awesome. The paper also had a great weight like all older books have. All of the circles were cut out using the Sizzix Big Shot and Scallop Circles Framelits and then the rows were stitched together on my sewing machine. The original plan was to have them hanging from an embroidery hoop, but it proved to be easier just to tape them directly to the wall and light.

My other contribution was the prizes for the winners which was photo necklaces of the part in Alice & Wonderland that says “Prizes, Prizes!” I thought it was hilarious, but in retrospect, I probably should have put a Bible verse so that people would actually want to wear it. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t want to go around wearing a necklace that said “Prizes, Prizes!”, but I was really sick right before and during the party, so I was probably pretty loopy.

Everyone said they had a great time, and it was so much fun to host a large ladies only event!

BTW, I went as Belle because we ran out of characters since so many people wanted to come. I didn’t mind getting to dress up as a princess though! This dress is partially home-made and partially purchased items. Let me know in the comments if you want details, since I spent way too much time and money on it! :)