Book Art

I really like the look of old books, minus the covers, used alone or stacked as part of a display.

For part of a Christmas display I thought it would be fun to dress up one of these old books for the holiday.

This is a super easy and inexpensive project that only requires a book, a color printer and glue (and embellishments if you choose to use them).

Take an old book (can be easily found at thrift stores) and remove the front and back covers.  Make sure that the book's front page has no printing on it.

Carefully remove the blank front page.  You are going to print on this page and glue it back on the book so you want the page to be intact.

Find a Christmas image that you like.  For my book I used a Christmas Word Tree Printable that Tara @ Just Devine Style created for all of us to use for our holiday projects.  Thanks Tara!  Tara has a wonderful blog full of great projects and printables, make sure to check it out.

I sized the printable to fit my book page (a lot of the sizing is trial and error) and ran a copy on a regular sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper.

Once I had the size I wanted, I aligned the book page over the printed area and taped (with as little tape as possible) the book page to the printed sheet.  With the book page secured, place the sheet back in the printer and run a copy.  The printed image will now be on the book page in the exact position that you wanted.

  Carefully remove the tape (the old book pages can be brittle so take your time removing the tape).  Run a line of glue (I used a glue stick) on the spine edge of the printed book page and glue back on the book.

With the image printed directly on the front page of the book, you've created a nice illusion of having an old Christmas book.

At this point you can leave the book as is or embellish with ribbon, tags, etc.

I had some vintage red seam binding and simply tied it around the bottom of the book.

Here's another one I did with an image from The Graphics Fairy.

This idea would also work well with a family photo.  In lieu of a frame, run a copy of a favorite family photo on the book page and reattach to the book.  Just a different way to display a photo.

I'm linking with a few parties tonight:
Debra @ Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday
Linda @ A La Carte for Junkin Finds Friday

Christmas is rapidly approaching!  I'm not finished with my shopping and haven't even begun to wrap.  Family starts arriving this Sunday so I guess I had better get busy.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Jane