DIY Books

In the past I’ve been one of those people who HATES when someone defaces a book. Whether that means annotating in a book, or folding pages, or (God’s forbid) DRAWING on books, I hated it! My opinion has changed drastically within the last few months, so much so that I have quite a few bookish DIY projects to show off!

The very first DIY project that I did was this cover of A Court of Mist and Fury. I saw iLivieforbooks do a tutorial video on this cover and I loved it so much that I wanted to see if I could recreate it! I think I did a pretty good job with this cover, but it was only my first attempt and I want to get better! Next time I decide to do something like this I’m definitely going to use a ruler because freehanding it was a little messy.

I then decided to try my hand at painting the edges of some books. I figured that I would test it with Throne of Glass, and while I wish that I had chosen a lighter purple to better match the cover, I think it turned out alright! I then got the painting bug and also painted the edges of Crown of Midnight, and I really want to do the entire series as I don’t think that I would ever get rid of these books.

Then I decided to try my metallic silver paint, and I thought what better book to do silver on than Crown of Feathers? I think it goes perfectly with the silver gray background of the book, and the photos don’t really show it very well but the edges are in fact metallic, so if you chose a paint like that it should show up that way. I’m hoping that I can get more metallic colors and do more edges this way because I like it a lot more than the regular colors!

After I painted all those edges, I wanted to go back to drawing on the front of the books. I mentioned that I want to paint the edges of the entire Throne of Glass series, and I also want to put designs on the front of them all as well! So here is the design I put on the cover of Throne of Glass.

Then I saw someone on Twitter (I’m so sorry I don’t remember who!) who showed off their AMAZING gradient edges of This Savage Song and Our Dark Duet, and I knew that I needed to try it myself. I knew if I could even do it half as good as she did, it would be amazing! (If you know who it was that posted the photos of this, please let me know so I can give them credit!) I then also did a design on the front of This Savage Song with the lyrics of the creepy lullaby thing that they sing about the different types of monsters. I don’t know what I want to put on Our Dark Duet yet, but I’m hoping to make them a matched set!

And there are all the books that I currently have that I’ve painted/drawn on! Do you have any books that you’ve defaced like this? I’d love to see them!