a guide to using books in your home decor

Back to school season is in full swing. While our youth is back in the classroom, hitting the books, I want to share how I love to use books around my home for interior design. I love to use vintage books to decorate around my home, while book pages are fantastic muses for many decorative crafts. Using books in home decor is a fairly easy and inexpensive way to add unique touches around your home.

Although I use books and book pages throughout the year for various projects, I will try to focus on stylings for the autumnal and winter holidays ahead. There are many seasonal ideas, which can be adapted for your home and your personal style.

how using books in home decor is a timeless look

Vintage Books

Vintage books are a wonderful decor element that add warmth, texture and character to home decor. I love the gold foil on the spine and covers of many vintage books.

I also love vintage books that are grungy and have rips and exposed pages. The texture they provide is everything! It just tells me these books are well loved and read with many stories to tell (literally and figuratively😉).

Where to find Vintage Books

There are many sources for vintage books and depending on how old they are, the condition they are in and where you purchase them, will dictate the price. These are my sources:

• Thrift Stores
• Estate Sales
• Garage Sales
• Flea Markets
• Antique Stores | Malls
• EBay
• Etsy

New Books

I also use new books around our home, which are all focused on our areas of interest. We have decorating books, gardening books, baseball books, books about Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn plus other idols we have over here. I will share about decorating with these books in a subsequent post since I have so much content to get through in this post.

altering books is a great way to compliment decor

If the books you have do not compliment your decor you can always alter them to fit you style. You can use new or old books for all these applications since you alter their appearance.

Where to Find Books to Alter

• Dollar Tree
• Garage Sales
• Thrift Sores
• Flea Markets
• Local Library Free Rack

Painting and Stamping

Painting and | or stamping your book covers is a great way to coordinate them to your decor and theme. I shared the tutorial in the following post {halloween spell books}, which is just in time for the upcoming holiday.

Here are other examples of bools I have altered, using the paint and stamp techniques. You can use any colors, designs, words, etc. to fit the mood.

Wrapping in Fabric or Paper

Another super easy way to alter books is to simply cover your books using paper or fabrics. There are so many different styles and pretty patterns to choose from.

Above you can see a script linen fabric I used. Below I used paper printed with sheet music and trimmed with tape measure fabric ribbon.

Naked and Stripping

Simply by removing the cover and exposing the spine adds nostalgic type of texture.

I know some folks might have a hard time ripping apart a book and this might not be the project for you, but I am very particular about the ones I choose to do this to.

I also use the covers in other projects, which I will share at another time.

books pages are a great muse for many home crafts

Fall Crafts

This leaf garland using book pages was a favorite project I created a few years back.

A decoupaged pumpkin using book pages and a Dollar Tree pumpkin is a super easy and inexpensive project.

You can also create a pumpkin out of an entire book. Although, I do not personaly have the tutorial for this project you can find similar ones on my Pinterest board {for the art of craftiness}.

Halloween Crafts

This {Nevermore} banner is super easy to create using book pages. Using a large font run the pages attached to a regular piece of paper through the printer.

Once again, using book pages decoupage a Dollar Tree plastic skull adding glitter accents for the features. So easy and fun!

Christmas Crafts

I have created a variety of Christmas trees using book pages. Each technique is different but they all compliment each other.

Once again using book pages I decoupaged plastic ornaments. By adding glitter and ink it gives them a little depth and texture.

think outside the book box

Use books in new and unexpected ways. A few years back I created a table scape using books, which is not the norm. This would be a great idea for a book club gathering.

Books are my go to risers when I am decorating around my home. Books give you the flexibility to make the riser as tall or low as you wish or need.

Also books are great fillers when you are creating a vignette. They fill in gaps, while providing texture and character.

My mother always preached that all homes should have plants and books. I follow that mantra as well. I hope this has inspired you to use books in your own home as well or if you do already, maybe in a new way.

More seasonal decor coming your way soon. This is my favorite time of year, and I love decorating and celebrating all the festivities from now until the end of the year. We dropped off my daughter at college a few weeks ago, while my son goes back for his senior year in college in a couple of weeks. Time marches on!

get the book home decor look

other book related posts you might be interested in

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

Stephen King

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sharing @ between naps on the porch