Rainbow Rowell's 'Fangirl' Inspired Book Earrings

Hey guys! Today I have a craft project for you that is partially inspired by Karen Kavett’s DIY Book Necklace video on the Wonderly Channel, and also partially by my desire to do something to show my love for Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. Fangirl was just SO GOOD that when I finished it, all I could think about was doing a craft inspired by it so other people would know they could talk to me about it.

I played around with a few ideas, but kept coming back to Karen’s adorable necklace. So I decided to try her technique for a pair of earrings. Karen's original necklace was much more involved- actually binding together pages and so on, which turned out BEAUTIFUL, but this is a much simpler version.

For the majority of the book, I used old business cards because I just ordered new ones and am trying to work through my old ones. If you don’t have any business cards to use, I’d recommend cardstock or any other heavyweight paper, but not as heavy as cardboard.

Other than that, you’re going to need earring wire, jump rings, some basic craft tools (pliers, ruler, X-acto knife, glue stick & hot glue gun) and a printed out, scale copy of the book cover you want to use.

My first step was to cut my pages out of business cards. I measured my mini book cover and came up with 1.75 cm x 2.25 cm, but yours may vary, so double check before you start cutting. I cut out 10 for each earring- again, based on the size of the spine on my cover, so play around with it.

Step two is to put the cover together. Cut out a tiny scale replica of the full dust jacket, including the inside flaps. I actually had to scan and piece together my cover, but there are tons online if you are doing a different book. Using your regular glue stick, glue the cover to another business card and cut it out.

(Don’t forget you’re going to need two of these if you’re making earrings)

Flip that over, and score on the back where your folds should be to make it easier to construct. Then, press your folds and use the side of a pencil or a spoon to really make the folds crisp.


Once your cover is all folded up and looks how you want it to, you can put that aside and turn your attention back to the pages.

Since my book is going to be so small, I wasn’t concerned about it being open and being able to see pages. I took my glue stick and just made a stack of my little cut out pages.  This was probably the most time consuming part of the whole project, but it didn’t take me more than 10 minutes to glue together two tiny stacks of pages. Set those aside to dry thoroughly.

While you’re waiting, use the tip of an X-acto knife to poke a hole near the top of the spine where you want your earrings to dangle from, and then use pliers to insert a jump ring. By the time both are done, your pages should be dry.

To insert the pages into the book, start by hot gluing the little stack directly to the inside spine/middle of the cover. Hold the pages upright for a few seconds to let them set. Then do the front and back, one at a time pressing and holding before moving on. Let that dry completely cool before adding the earring wire to the jump rings.

Once you’ve got the earring wire on, you’re done! You could, instead of the earring wire, also just slip it onto a necklace chain, put it on a keyring, make a ton of them and hang them from a bookshelf… Oh man, so many ideas for this project!



I wanna know- what book would you be most likely to wear as an accessory? Let me know here, or on twitter @techni_moments! And, as always, if you do this project, I wanna see it!  

Good luck, &stay crafty :)

PS: Video tutorial is here, if you’d prefer!