new life for old books

i love books as decorations. i love books period, but they are also so easy to come by. but, sometimes, the books i want just do not have covers that match my decor. so, i decided to recover some of those books that just don't work for me.

i love brown paper bages, so i used a heavy brown paper drop cloth for some of the books, and i used some really beautiful lawn and leaf bags that i found at goodwill for $1 each:




can you believe someone decided to make such pretty bags to put your lawn waste in? theses colors are exactly what i want to work with in my bedroom. and the best part is that they are double layered, so if you split them along the glue lines, you get twice as much paper! (though the inside lining is just plain brown.



all you need for this is your books, your paper, some mod podge or elmer's or other no name white glue (i think it works just as well as the mod podge), a sponge applicator to smear the glue around, and some newspaper or something to protect your working surface.

i covered these books in the leaf paper, and then added a plain brown paper square to one of them, in case i want to use it as an art journal later so i can label it!



this one i covered with a bunch of strips of brown paper i had, just to see how it turned out. i really like the layered look and the varying directions of the lines. i only covered the front cover and spine with the strips, because the back of the book was blank with stripes of some colors i liked.




basically, you are only limited by your imagination.







now this big ole book i'm going to use as my idea book, to house all of my magazine clippings, etc. i'm excited about that one. :)

v



here are a couple of pieces i made with scraps to glue onto the front of one of these books, or to use for a card or something later.




and here they all are together:



if you make your own, please share the results! i'd love to see them!