painted books.

Published on by Quandie

It’s been a while since I’ve painted some books.  Unless you’ve followed me from the beginning, or gone back and read to the beginning, you probably haven’t seen my painted books.

The first batch I painted were all done in Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Typewriter, then stenciled in a pale grey acrylic craft paint and finished with some hemp oil.

Then I branched out and added some grey books (painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Trophy)…

and some pale minty green books.

For a while now I’ve been thinking it would be nice to have some white painted books.

So I pulled out some old hardcover books (find them at your local thrift store for as little as .15 ea when they are having a sale) and started by painting the covers with Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and sealing them with The Real Milk Paint Co’s Dead Flat.

Then I pulled out a bunch of my stencils.

Don’t worry about the stencils being larger than the books.  I think it just adds to the look to have the design running over the edges.

This is a great way to get a bunch of decorative books to fill up some shelves on a budget.  Displaying things en masse always has more impact.

It seems that the Drop Cloth goes particularly nicely with some old ironstone.

The painted books also make great props for furniture photo shoots.

If nothing else, it’s just a fun project for a cold winter day!

 

21 thoughts on “painted books.”

  2. I like the idea of “saving” some obscure books from the shelves of the thrift store in order to make something nice for your home. These look great! I wonder if you painted a bunch, in sets of three, how much you could get for them. If you have furniture painted a particular color, a set of the books on a tabletop across the room would look great! And for $.15 plus a small amout of paint…pretty good profit margin. Great idea and execution.

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    1. Actually, I did do that. Most of the sets pictured were eventually sold. But they didn’t fly off the shelves and in the end I quit painting books to sell. Now I just paint them for myself!

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  5. I just got back to my office from a drapery install. While there we were discussing accessories. On my drive I your painted books came to mind. Then I see you did a post on them today. Wow what synchronicity! Dang I wish we could beam things across country like in Star Trek!
    I would take the white ones.

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  7. I did this! Got the idea from you and loved it of course and I painted some black with the French stencils and I use them all the time in my staging. I get so many amazing ideas from you and your blog is my absolute fave ever! Don’t ever stop. ;))

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  9. They really look great. I think I could do that. I have got just the bookcase for it too.it is so good to get wonderful ideas from you.love to Mom and Sis. Betty from rainy Ontario

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  10. Just wanted to take a minute to say THANK YOU for arranging (paying) to eliminate advertising on your blog. You owe it to yourself after putting in all that time and effort. Just tonight I unsubscribed from 2 blogs I’ve been following, as the ads make them literally impossible to read. It’s beyond annoying. Life’s too short for that. I always (always!) enjoy your blog and appreciate you. Thank you, my Sensei.

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