Back to School Apple Craft

Hello, friends!  I hope you had a nice Labor Day weekend!

We ran away to Palmyra, NY to visit the temple, see good friends, and have a few last beach days before we really, truly go back to school for good!

Near the end of summer, however, we made this little apple book craft. I was itching to make something and to make some memories with my kids (who are no longer babies) in the process!

Here's how it's done:

1. Grab an old, thin paperback.

2. Remove the front and back covers.

3.  Sketch a pattern like I did below (looks like half an apple) on one book cover. 

4.  Trace it on to your book pages and carefully cut with an exacto knife.

5. You'll end up with a big mess of page scraps, but stay with me.  Heat up your glue gun and add a line of glue to the spine, then manipulate the pages so that they come together to look like an apple.  Play with it until you're satisfied with the look and shape adding glue as needed. During this step, we also added a small twig.

6. Finally, using red and green watercolors, paint the edges of your pages to look like an apple, and add a small leaf-shaped cutout to resemble a leaf.

And voila, you have a sweet September decoration or a nice teacher gift.