Book Art

I am a major fan of the book page crafts. I have several versions of "book page wreaths" that you can find hanging throughout my house. However, working with all of these pages from books got me thinking, "what about the book covers?" I quickly started to realize my book covers were laying useless, and I could just not let this be!

So, here was my solution to that problem...

(Now before you cringe, I also have a solution for all of you book lovers out there. Trust me, my husband wouldn't just let me murder good literature for the sake of artwork. We simply reattached the book jackets to the classics, sans hardcover, and they are still very much readable! Mostly only the dictionaries and thesauruses will be used for other crafts later.)

Here is how I did it. I started with about 20 books, most of which were judged by their cover, so that they would look good in my dining room and/ or living room. (Though I did choose about 4 favorite titles to throw in the mix to make it a little more meaningful for our family.) I then simply removed the covers with scissors as seen below.

I used an $8 piece of birch wood from Lowes as the base. I chose this wood because it was light weight and would be easier to hang.

I did NOT glue anything down yet. I went down the side and around the perimeter to make certain their were no edges or gaps of the wood being seen.

When the entire perimeter was complete, I still did NOT glue anything down, but then made a second and third layer to give the piece more visual interest. I was happy at this point that I had not begun gluing, because I had to rework the layout SEVERAL times to make it look the way I wanted it too. I was after an appearance of the books coming out towards you at the center, so the thickness of the hardcover, mixed with its texture had to be played around with a bit.

Once I came up with something that worked, I began gluing down each cover, starting the corner and working my way around the perimeter again in the original pattern I had followed.

To hang it, I simply used picture brackets I also got from Lowes for about $2. I just measured three inches in from the top corners and screwed them in. Then I connected a thin gauge wire between the two brackets.

It only took about 2 hours from start to finish (minus finding the perfect place to hang it!), and cost less than $30.00 for all of the materials. In the end, I was pleased with how it turned out. As soon as I hung it on the wall (without waiting for Matt to help measure it out...oops...) I was pleasantly surprised to see how the piece seemed to bow at in the middle just like I had hoped. It looks great on the wall. After moving from its original place in the living room to the dining room, I have no intentions of taking it down any time soon!

I have been struggling with what to call it. I guess it would be reclaimed art of some kind. I have found myself in the past few days trying to tell people about it and saying, "well, its, uh book sculpture for the, uh, wall?" Makes no sense to me either, don't worry. So if you come up with something better, comment and let me know!

This week I will be linking up to the CSI project. Stop by and take a look!