How To DIY Decorative Colorful Books

Difficulty Level: Easy

BUDGET FRIENDLY PROJECT

I finished decorating my Bookcase see my post 7 Easy and Affordable Tips To Style a Book Shelf but it didn’t have enough of the colors that I wanted to incorporate. The main colors that I wanted to blend into my office were light pink, turquoise and gold. I thought books would be a good way to incorporate the colors that I wanted. I looked online and found books that you can buy in custom colors but it was a little expensive. This inspired me to find a cheaper way. At pretty much every estate sale we went to I found a ton of super cheap book sets like Encyclopedias. Once I had a few uniform sets of books I decided to paint them to the custom colors I wanted.

Items I used:

Encyclopedia sets from Garage sales
Paint leftover from other projects
Metallic Spray Paint
Painting Tarp
Foam Paint brushes

Finding The Books

The first thing I did was I found three sets of encyclopedias/book sets at Garage and Estate Sales. I picked three different sets. I made sure that each set was a different size.

Picking the Colors

I decided on three colors that I wasn’t to use. I had leftover turquoise paint from other projects. I bought the pink paint in sample size. I really liked incorporating a gold detail so I used metallic brass spray paint.

Dividing The Books

I divided each set of books by three since I picked three colors. I picked 1/3 of the book sets to paint turquoise, 1/3 of the book sets to paint pink and a little over a 1/3 of the book sets to paint metallic. I had one extra book so I chose the metallic color for it.

Painting the books

Some of the books had a really unique gold design on them that I wanted to keep. I added a little water to my foam paint brush to thin the paint so that the original design would still poke through. This gave it a more antiques weathered look that I was going for. It kept the old feel of the book while giving it a new twist.