Sheet music is beautiful to look at, and you don’t have to understand how it works to enjoy the aesthetics of those pretty sheets of paper.
Whether you’re a musician or just love music, you can get a lot of joy from using sheet music within your decor. I’ve found a few easy ways to repurpose sheet music from a songbook I found, but you can print specific beloved songs off the trusty internet, or find a book of gently- aged favorites. So grab your music of choice, and let’s get some harmony in the house, shall we?
1. How to Make a Sheet Music Rose
These are lovely as singles but extra amazing as bouquets. I like making these to place on wrapped gifts. A pretty handmade paper rose always adds that extra something. It’s a thoughtful little thing that the recipient can always turn into their own home décor, too.
Your first rose may challenge you, but they’re super quick and easy to do after that. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Sheet Music
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Hot glue gun
- Wire
- Wire cutters
- Toothpick or paperclip
First, cut the sheet music so you have three 4” x 4” pieces of paper. A paper cutter is always best if you have one at your disposal.
Next, fold each square in half diagonally to form a triangle. Do that again. And again, until you have three wee triangles.
Next, you need to cut the triangles, marking them beforehand like I’ve done in the pic below. This just helps the ol’ scissors stay focused. Snip the most folded corner, plus you’ll need to cut through the triangles like a petal.
When you unfold them, they should kind of look like flowers.
Now, cut out one petal from one flower, two petals from another and three petals from the third flower.
Next, get out the glue gun. Unfortunately, a glue stick won’t cut it for this project. Grab one of the flowers, and bring each end toward each other, overlapping by one petal. Glue the end petals on top of one another to form an enclosed rose-like flower. Repeat this for the other two flowers as well as the three-petal cutout.
If you don’t have a toothpick, I found that an undone paperclip works just as well. The point is to curl the rose ends back using the toothpick or unfolded paperclip. When you get to the one-petal cutout and the two-petal cutout, just curl those entirely, vertically, until they look like little cones.
Get out the hot glue again. Glue the smaller pieces inside the bigger ones, careful to mix it up so that the petals aren’t matching up on top of each other. Before you know it, you’ll have an awesome paper rose, like this one:
Next, cut your green craft wire to the length desired. I folded the top of the wire over (so as to prevent it from going all the way through the flower) and shot a little more glue on that end. Glide the wire up just enough so it’s in there but unseen. Wrap another wire around the current wire for extra stability.
Enjoy your new sheet music rose! Place in a vase, glue to the corner of a picture frame, or decorate a gift box with it.
Want more? Here’s four more easy-peasy ways to have harmony in the house
2. Mod Podge onto Photo Frames
Find a plain wooden frame (or three), cut your sheet music in little rectangles and use Mod Podge to affix them accordingly onto the frame. I did this and placed some family vintage pics inside. I love the way it turned out!
3. Make a Mobile
Fittingly, I used the center of a seven-inch record to draw a circle and cut lots of sheet music in that shape ‘til I had about 20 circles. Then, I hot-glued two circles back to back, placing twine in the middle.
Repeat this step every four inches or so until you have a long strand of sweet sheet-music circles. Use as garland around a Christmas tree, let it dangle from a ceiling in the corner of a room at home, or use it as a fun banner to decorate an archway or a wall.
4. Mod Podge onto Shelves
You can do this on inside the shelves, or down one side like I’ve done.
5. Use as Gift Wrap
Once you start wrapping presents with sheet music, you may never stop. It’s just so darn cute.
What song would bring the most harmony in your house as sheet music décor?
Kelly Rae Smith writes about thrifting, crafting, vintage fashion and anything else where she can be nostalgia obsessive for eBay. For all you non-musicians, you can find sheet music for your own project here. Connect with Kelly on Google+.
