A trip to my local junk shop's book sale this morning had me thinking of all the creative possibilities that could come out of the piles of beautiful but mostly decrepit old books overflowing from the shelves. Many were missing pages or had pages falling from them— the perfect kind for good book art!
Now, I'm fully aware that many of you will find this book defamation business to be downright immoral, and I'm by no means advocating going out and ruining perfectly intact books. But as a rummage sale and thrift store junkie, I can assure you that there are plenty of good bad-shape books out there that are just calling out to be made into something new and beautiful. And here are just a few new and beautiful ideas...
•1. For my friend Ruth's wedding last year, her very talented sister/artist, Lucia, created a branch with book page leaves to hang over the entrance to the reception. It was so fitting for their very literary family.
•2. The talented Erin of Dandelion and Grey added a little nostalgic romance to her chandelier with vintage book pages.
•3. UK based artist, Veronika, of Sarah & Bendrix, made these beautiful book page hearts out of an old encyclopedia.
•4. Country Living has a great tutorial for turning old books into 3 D art and "vases." which you can check out here (slides 8-11).
•5. Old book pages would also make an interesting wallpaper alternative. According to Country Living (slide 6), you can apply them with conventional wallpaper paste.
•6. Craft Kellie made a beautiful ribbon curl wreath with old book pages, perfect for the holidays and beyond. Check out her tutorial here.
•7. We love artist, Tamar Morgendorff's beautiful book page decoupaged birdhouse sculptures.
•8. Matthew Meade's book centerpiece is similar to the Country Living exhibit above.
(Images: 1: Leah Moss, 2: Dandelion and Grey, 3: Sarah & Bendrix, 4,5: Country Living, 6: Kellie's scraplog, 7: Tamar Mogendorff, 8: Matthew Meade)
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Comments (10)
I'm a book lover, but like you said, there are plenty of ruined books out there. All of these are really cool and beautiful ideas. I'm definitely going to try some.
It might be a good idea to talk to local used bookstores and see if they could hold damaged books for you. My local one takes books from customers to sell in exchange for book credit. They ask if people want the books back if they won't accept them and a lot of people would rather not get them back, so they would probably keep those for someone who requested it.
What charming ideas! I know there are people who would be outraged at the thought of turning books into an art or craft project, but if the books have fallen apart or been damaged, why not put them to use?
Like what would you do with a very outdated encyclopedia (not a set, just one book from the set) that you can't use?
Might as well recycle the pages and make something beautiful from them, right?
I love the wallpaper idea, perfect for a library room or nook at home!
Inspired by someone who papered their den with dictionary pages (they liked the pen and ink drawings), I did my kitchen with cookbook pages. I wanted to do Joy of Cooking as it has such great pages--but was not willing to sacrifice an actual Joy of Cooking! The newer editions, unfortunately, are all done on computer and the justification on each page meant that when I put them up they were not charming and fun, but rather like telephone pages. So, I sacrificed pages I would never use from my "Joy", took the pen and ink drawings from other pages, and used pages from other cookbooks which had illos. I added pen and ink drawings from my kids, printed up recipes from my computer...it looks amazing now.
I've had my eye set on one of Veronika's pieces for a little while now... One of these days... :)
xoxo,
-maria
makes me want to take back the origami how-to set i gifted my niece. i wonder how long it would take to curl the itty bits of paper for that wreath...also, i got distracted by that cute purple stencil over the door...love it. sorry to divert, but looking forward to a possible post on stenciling??
Thank you for including me in this inspiring group! I really love the branch with the book page leaves {perfect for a wedding!} and the mini birdhouses are darling, too!
Great ideas here.
sdrouble- I love that too, it's actually a decal from Harmonie Interieure (in their kids section) not a stencil.
WOW! These are amazingly creative ideas. Our home decor team was recently inspired by covers of antique books. The designs are part of a Country Living line at Kmart, which we call Faded Antique. It's kind of like "what's old is new again".
http://www.kmartdesign.com/video_gallery/home_design/?bcpid=44140049001&bclid=63781661001&bctid=68050713001
Has anyone seen these wreaths on etsy? They are so beautiful. I wish there were pictures of the back so I could see how she made them!
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42484909&ref=sr_list_5&&ga_search_query=book wreath&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title