DIY Book Charms

This week for Art Attack (our craft program for teens, 13-19), I gave participants the materials to make book charms.  I looked at a lot of ideas on the web and the ones that I liked best (and looked the easiest!) were made using little dollhouse books, only 5/8x by 7/8 of an inch!

I picked out some of my favorite YA titles, including old and new favorites:

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Divergent by Veronica Roth

If you save the images of these book covers into a Word document, you can right click the images and format them to the exact size of the books, which I bought on Amazon.

I also purchased eye pins to make the clasp on each charm.  I did this step ahead of time: coat the eye pin in superglue and insert it into the spine of the book.  Something about teenagers and superglue did not sit well with me, and quite frankly I got so much on my fingers I probably should not have been allowed to use it either!

Pretty much all of your prep work is done. When the teens were ready to make their book charms, I told the to trim down the cover image of their choice so that no edges were showing, since the image is the exact size of the book.  Next, they applied modge-podge (the homemade kind: Elmer's Glue + water) with a paint brush all over their book. After gluing down their cover, they put on another layer of modge-podge.  Doing these two layers will keep the paper from curling once glued, and give the book charm a nice shiny finish.

Finally, after allowing the books to dry for a few minutes, teens were able to finish off their book charms by adding a chain or cord to make it into a necklace, keychain, or bracelet.  Most wanted to wear their charms proudly around their necks, and one thoughtful brother made a TFIOS necklace for his sister, because "she's obsessed".  Fine by me!