Beautiful Covered Books

I have this dust catcher shelf in my double story foyer that has been neglected and ignored for the past 10 years. I decided it was time to take a go at it since I was hosting an “At Home” party for a friend of mine who recently started selling for that company.
I ordered a few things for the shelf, and am waiting for them to come in, but I couldn’t wait to get started.
My Dad recently cleared out some items from my Grandmother’s basement and gave me an old coal box and an old glass water jar.
I had planned on using mod podge to cover some boxes with paper to give the required “height” to some of the accessories; however, when I was at Hobby Lobby the other day, I found the cutest fake books that I decided to cover instead.

They had all of this lovely paper on sale for 50% off, so I picked up some textured pieces. I love the way they feel.
First, I painted the “pages” of the book with a gold paint.

Next, I very carefully used algebra to compute the exact equation necessary to cut the paper down. Naw, I stuck the book in the paper, folded it over and used a pencil to mark where to cut.

I cut the paper down on my paper cutter, making sure I left enough of a lip to turn back up to cover the inside of the book.

Then, I put mod podge on the paper. Make sure to cover your counter before you do this…I used an old placemat from IKEA. It worked great because I could just wash the mod podge off the place mat.

After that, I place the book on the paper and folded it into place.

Notice how I snipped the paper at the curve? You need to do this so it will lay flat. Snip it down to the book and press it over.


You will also want to cut a piece off the corner to miter the corners.

This helps it to lay flat. I did three books of graduated sizes and I really like the way they turned out. I did put a coat of mod podge over the two on top, but I left the one on the bottom alone because the paper had a raised velvety material and I didn’t like the way it looked with the mod podge on it. I bought the matte finish, but you could do whichever you like.

Here is how the “pages” look.

The shelf is still a work in progress; however, this is how the books look up there.

I really like the way they turned out. I’m going to try this with real books next.

I’ll post another picture when I get the rest of the stuff up there. But, not bad if I say so myself.
I’m linking this project up to the following linky parties