Fun

Book Painting Summer Craft [Bookish Craft] 12

 in Books / Creative / Fun by

Book painting crafts are quite a big thing, if you look in the right place! Really talented people sell their amazing designs, recreating covers of popular books and selling them.

For me, I personally wouldn’t buy one because I like the books that I read to be clean, but as a craft I think it’s an amazing idea.

Yes, I did partially destroy a book for this craft, but all crafts I did for the week involved only 2 books, both of which were old, falling apart and second hand. I don’t believe in the destruction of books, but books that have reached the end of their time can get some extra love and be re-purposed for other great things. So if you do this craft, I suggest not getting a new book but going to your local thrift shop and grabbing a book from there. I generally avoid popular novels and religious books!

So, that being said, let’s get started!
Step 1: 

Get your inspiration from Pinterest! It’s a great place to start for book ideas. What you paint doesn’t need to be related for the topic of the book as you probably chose something really obscure! So get some ideas from online.

 

Step 2:

Now, make sure to cover your space with newspaper (look at all those discounts!). I find that that worked just fine to keep my area clean! If you’ve got a smaller child doing this craft, then you may want to…cover everything!

 

Step 3: 

Get your book out. Make sure that you’ve dusted any dust off the cover or any dirt that could be on it. You want it as clean as possible!

 

Step 4: 

Make sure all your painting supplies are ready! For me, I used acrylic paint for this project due to the spine being made out of a material that seemed to absorb paint. Watercolors wouldn’t work because of the dark color of the book as well. So depending on the book, and the idea, you may want a different kind of paint. Think about what your end result will be. Maybe you will be using markers! Or just lettering all over the front. But for my project, I chose to use acrylic paint.

 

Step 5:

Now I’m the least creative person so I was unable to easily draw this wolf. So I decided to print out a silhouette. Since you’re not using this to make money off of, you don’t need to worry about copy right so you can use anything you want. However if you’re looking to potentially sell later, make sure you use free source images from places like Pixabay.

 

Step 6:

To transfer my wolf to my book, I shaded in the back and then traced it on. The shading didn’t work so much as the book was quite dark, but I was able to make an impression in the cover to trace with my pencil once I was done. You can use tracing paper and do it that way, but I find that just shading in the back is just as easy. You need to take your time as it’s not as perfect, but for most projects, the general idea works fine.

 

Step 7:

Now that I had my shape traced on, I made sure to darken the outlining because once I started painting I would loose the clear cut shape. Add anything extra that you want in your picture!

 

Step 8

It’s finally time for the fun part! You get to paint. This I can’t tell you how to do. I personally used a chiseled edge brush to get sharper lines and a larger brush to paint larger spaces. But it really depends the idea you’re going for. The benefit with acrylic paint was that it dried so fast, so as I was painting it was drying and I could quickly start doing next parts!

 

Overall this was an extremely fun project for me. I’ve never done something like this before but I think I’ll do it again, once I can think up what I want to create next! It was so simple, didn’t take a lot of time, and was so relaxing. It’s perfect for those summer days when you, or your children, are at a loose end! Not only do they get to be messy and creative, they get to make something they can be proud of and put on their bookshelf!

You could decide to paint the entire book, including the spine, with multiple designs or keep one theme going. I didn’t do so as I used the book for multiple projects so I needed to keep bits clear. But it is completely up to you!

I hope that this gave you some inspiration! Good luck!

If you do decide to create something, I’d love to see what you make. Either email me a picture or, if you share it on Instagram, tag me @mylibrarycardworeout, or if you Tweet it, share it to @mlcwo! I’d love to see what you make!

 

 

Summer Camp Week 2018 [Bookish Crafts]

 in Creative / Fun by

This week will be summer camp week where I will be sharing, and creating, a bunch of bookish crafts!

A lot of summer camps are coming to a close and kids may have some days that they will be stuck home for, so might as well keep them busy with some of these great ideas!

I’ve been having fun this weekend, and am currently covered in paint, but I can’t wait to share some of my bookish crafts!

Summer Camp Week 2018 [Bookish Crafts]

Fair warning, there is book destruction involved, so it is rated NB for non-book lovers – just be open minded!

Just as a side note about that, all of the books that I used and destroyed were books from second hand shops and were, in my opinion, crappy books. They were either books no one had heard of, a bad edition or were falling apart. I do not condone the destruction of books, such as antiques and vintage, unless the life of the book has come to it’s end and it can get more mileage out of being used for something else.

So, for most of the crafts this week, I suggest going to Barnes and Nobel and go to their second hand section or your local charity shop and look around for some old and…low quality, books!

Stay tuned for the crafts!

Reading Outside: DO IT!

 in Books / Fun / Interesting / Opinion by

You know those summer days when you just want to stay in and do absolutely nothing. You just want to curl up with a good book, maybe some tea (or wine, no judgement) and do literally nothing!

That’s great! Do that! But do it outside! Go and sit outside. Smell the roses!

Well, not literally (or if you got some, go for it!). But do your relaxing activity outside.

‘Why?’ you may be asking me. No, I’m not a doctor. But I pay attention to my body and find things out by trying it.

I love to read inside on my favorite sofa as much as the next person. It’s much cooler inside so you aren’t sweating. But sweating is good for you!

Now, you can go and tan, of course. But you can also go sit in the shade and just get some fresh air.

We spend so much of our lives inside behind a computer screen, or stuck in traffic with petrol fumes around us.

So when you have time to be outside, go out!

The sun is good for your skin. Sure, you may complain about getting burnt, so put on some sunscreen, or find a shady spot. But the sun is good for you. Getting some Vitamin D will make you feel a whole lot better and feel healthier overall. The fresh air is good for your lungs and the breeze just is so relaxing.

If you can’t manage outside, open your windows and read near a window. The breeze is so refreshing.

But just note, if you read outside, make sure that you have sunglasses on. It’s really bad to be reading on your bright white pages with the sun. It can damage your eyes (found that out the hard way – you know, you read in the sun and then look up and you see the page with the words imprinted on everything and you can’t see to save your life).

I find that reading outside for a little bit every day is so wonderful! You come in with a little color on your skin, you got a nice little sweat in which is healthy for your body, got some Vitamin D so you feel healthier overall, and you got some productive reading in. What’s better than that?!

I love going out about 5pm when the sun is low, it’s a little cooler with my drink and a nice book and just relaxing. It’s absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend you try it. Trust me, you’ll thank me later!

The Great American Read by PBS

 in Book Events / Books / Fun by

So PBS is having this awesome thing where 100 books, which were chosen by the public, are going to be highlighted on PBS TV starting May 22, a.k.a. tomorrow (only just realized it’s tomorrow when I was typing this – summer puts you in a frozen time zone).

This is such a fantastic idea to highlight a bunch of books and promote reading. The list is absolutely fantastic (barring 50 Shades of Grey because I think whoever suggested that as a ‘great piece of literature’ needs to get their head checked).

You can find out all the important information here and there’s a Facebook group too where you can meet tons of other readers and chat about what’s going on. Just make sure you set the notifications correctly on Facebook otherwise you’ll be inundated with posts (as it have 10k+ or more members!). Let me know if you’re joining as you might just find me on there!

Don’t forget to watch tomorrow 8/7c on PBS.

the great american read