31 days of warming up to the holidays: {day 12} book page angel wings

This pin has been popping up all over the Pinterest boards lately.  I couldn’t pin it fast enough when I first saw it…I loved it.  What’s not to love?  Book pages, twine, and Christmas décor all rolled into one beautiful picture.  The only problem was that I couldn’t find an original source for it anywhere!  I spent about an hour searching through Pinterest and the internet to no avail…so I thought I’d make my own tutorial. 
I completed this project with all things that I had at home.  I made my angel wings using a flattened cereal box, Mod Podge (I used regular Matte and Sparkle), book pages, and a little bit of ribbon.

I searched around for a wing template online that was similar to the wings in the pin.  I couldn’t find one so I sketched my own pattern right on the cereal box.
If anyone is interested in the template leave a comment and I’ll scan it and update this post with it.

I started to tear my book pages, but liked the straight edges of the book pages in the original.  I cut up 8 or 10 pages in different sizes.  I covered the “front” of the box with the pages so the back of the wings would be the cardboard color.
Using an old paintbrush, I brushed the Mod Podge on the cardboard, adding a square of book page, and covered the top with Mod Podge.  Repeat over and over until the wings are completely covered.

Once it was dry, I turned the wings over and trimmed all of the extra paper.  You could also wrap the paper around to the back, but I wanted a cleaner look on the back (in case anyone ever saw it).
After I trimmed the extra, I added another thin coat of Mod Podge just to give it a little more strength.  Following that coat, I added a coat of Sparkle Mod Podge for a little shine.

I found it helpful to prop the wings up in between two Mod Podge bottles to dry so it would be less likely to crack when I folded the wings in half.  I should also note that I made sure, when creating my pattern, that I lined up the fold on one of the actual folds of the cereal box.  If you were making this out of any other material, you might score that fold line before you add the book paper.
Once everything was dry, I tied one end of my ribbon around the back of the wings. I wrapped the rest of the ribbon and tied it off at the end to leave a loop to hang them by.  If you wanted it to look more like the original, you could use twine or crochet thread here.  I just used what I had in my stash!
I think they turned out great!  This pair is pretty large…I’m thinking that a few pairs of wings on a smaller scale would look beautiful hung on a Christmas tree.