5 Ways to Decorate for the Holidays With Old Textbooks

By Allie Mitchell on November 27, 2016

Textbooks can be, of course, very helpful to students, and they can also be a major pain in the butt. The fact that you will probably never get your money back for books you may not even use is a total letdown when it comes to buying textbooks.

If you are like me, you don’t really use textbooks all that much unless it is highly required, as in, you need to do problems out of it for homework. If I don’t really need it, I buy it for a lot cheaper from someone else. Most textbooks come all wrapped in plastic so you can’t ever give it back to the bookstore because they won’t take it back without the plastic wrap. It is a total and complete downer.

You are in your room, sitting amongst the books you paid a good chunk of change for, and you have no idea what to do with them. The options are slim really. You can try to sell your books yourself, which can be a hard way to go. People want the price in their mind and they don’t care about the price that you personally had in mind. You can’t go slightly under what you paid, you have to go drastically under what you paid. The only time you can go kind of close to what you paid is if you have some sort of code or online companion that goes with your books.

The second option is to use them around your space. Add them to your bookshelves for some sort of smart décor or find some cool way to use them in decorations that you found on Pinterest to make it seem like you really didn’t waste a good bit of your refund on these books.

And with the holidays coming up, decorating is a must! Here are some ideas you can use in your textbook decorating plans.

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1. Page Ornaments: It may seem weird to just start ripping pages out of your textbook, but as of now, that book has brought you nothing but trouble so why not rip out those pages with a vengeance? Rip out those pages and fold them in interesting shapes and add a hook to your creation.

You can make a DIY ornament in less time than it takes to buy ornaments from the store. You get to see your books put to good use, which is always a good thing. You can pack these away for later and use them time and time again. And depending on the shape they can be used for other decorations as well, not to mention this DIY project can be done for any celebration regardless.

2. Clear Ornament Fillers: Unlike the above idea, this is an even quicker way to decorate for the holidays. Sometimes clear ornaments can seem boring and they need a little something. You can rip out pages in your textbook, but instead of making them into ornaments you can put crumbled up pieces in the ornament or shape the pieces in cute little designs and place them inside the clear ornaments.

This idea is elegant and quite adorable when you truly look at it. You are using your old textbooks in a smart way during the holidays, and your idea is reusable.

3. Wall Art: You can make all types of shapes with book pages along your walls. For the holidays, you can shape trees, snowflakes and more. All you really need to do is use glue or that sticky blue adhesive that helps keep things stuck to the wall. If you aren’t willing to get yourself a Christmas tree and you love reading, making an on-the-wall book pages Christmas tree would be the perfect option for you. It is both creative and smart.

4. Wreath:  Okay, this may seem a bit weird, but bear with me. You can get a normal wood/stick wreath, but take out the pages of your textbook and use glue, hot glue, or mod podge and stick them onto the wreath. Decorate it however else you like, but you can add that book-ish nerd feel to your home with a decorated book wreath.

Or to make your life super easy, just roll each page and then stick them together to make a vintage like wreath. Your textbooks will never look better than when they aren’t in book form.

5. Small Decorations: For the small places, like tops of side tables and coffee tables, these small ideas can be perfect. You could use the pages of your old textbooks to make tablecloths, you could make a book planter (i.e. cutting out a large square from the center of your book and planting a plant on the inside, or make small Christmas trees out of your old textbook pages topped with cute stars. Just add some glitter and little holiday elements and you have a gorgeous decoration your friends will ask about.

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