DIY Book Page Art Gallery Wall

Thanks to everyone who voted last week on So You Think You're Crafty! I made it to the next round!!   I think when I did it last year, I didn't make it through week 2 so I'm excited I did this time! 

Week 3's "Summer Bounty" projects are up now! Go Vote for your favorite! 

Now on to today's project! This was my Repurposed Project from last week. Did anyone guess it was mine? :) My close friends might have guessed because of all the gold. I kinda love gold-decor, jewelry, anything. 

Anything made out of book pages has been a very popular "repurposing" project for a long time. While I love the book page wreaths and mod podged items, I've always loved book page art.

 I desperately needed something on the walls in our guest bedroom, and there is nothing cheaper than DIY wall art. 

 I used stencils to create art on the pages of William Shakespeare's plays and the pages of H.G Wells' "Outline of History". Both old books I bought for $3 each and I found all the gold frames from thrift stores. 



I made framing mats for the frames that needed them and hung them in our guest bedroom above the bed. I just love how it all turned out.

Love.

Want to make your own book page art gallery wall? It's super easy. 

Materials: 

Old frames, all sizes (thrift!)

Old books, medium-large(thrift!)

Exact-o Knife

Stencils 

(can find for cheap/use coupons at Michael's, JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, etc.)

Paint 

(I used stencil paint and acrylic and the stencil paint definitely didn't run as much under the stencil, but you can't always find it in the colors you want.)

Stencil sponge brushes

Stencil Adhesive (or any spray adhesive-if you can work fast)

Poster board or card stock to make mats for frames 

(I used a taupe-ish color poster board I found at Michael's-cheaper!)

Pliers (maybe)

Find your frames first so you know how you want your book pages to sit/what size mats to make for the frames. I got super lucky at the thrift stores and found several sets of matching frames! I'm not one to be so matchy-matchy, but having two of the same frame a few times in the whole gallery wall, spaced out looked nice.

Some of my frames were pretty old and had paper backing glued on with staples on top. Some of the staples I had to remove completely with pliers and others I could just pull back in order to get the back of the frame out. 

On the older frames I had to cut out the backing in order to remove the art/picture inside.

Clean all glass/remove all art/pictures.

**Before you start cutting book pages, lay out all your frames on the floor and decide how you want your gallery wall to look. Be sure to space them out evenly (and if you're trying to get it totally perfect you can even measure between frames so they're evenly spaced). Make cut-outs from poster board/cardboard/grocery bags, etc. of each of your frames and put those in the wall in the same pattern your frames are on the floor. Be sure to find the center of where your gallery wall art will be and work out from there. Move them around until you like it and then transfer the frames to where the cut-outs are. 

Read more details about this process here on HGTV's website. 

It sounds tricky, but it's not. Have fun with it! 

I was super excited I found the Shakespeare book. It worked best for using two pages side by side. (More on that in a second.) Medium/large books will work best. 

 Cut out pages from your book by carefully sliding your Exact-o knife down the inside spine of your book. Cut as straight as you can. 

Now lay out your book pages on each frame to see where they will go. Some frames may need two pages side by side to fill the frame (More about that below). Decide if you need to make a new mat or use an existing photo mat. Some of the photo mats I could reuse, but some frames were too big and needed smaller mats to frame the book page(s) I wanted for that particular frame. You can buy these or make your own!

To create the mats needed for several of the frames, I used this video to help me create the photo mats.

 I wanted some frames to go up on the wall horizontally, but then the book pages were not wide enough to fit in the frame if I kept the page vertical so the words read correctly. To fix this, I simply taped two pages (that went together in the book-side by side!) together from the back. My Shakespeare book was perfect for this. I cut out two pages that went together (like page 109 and 110) so that if you opened the book those were the two pages open. Then I straightened out the edges that would be taped together by laying them on top of each other and using a ruler and a rotary cutter to make a straight edge. I flipped them over and laid them edge to edge (not overlapping, just touching) and taped all the way down the back where the two pages touched. When I turned it over, (on the Shakespeare pages), it would say "Act IV, Scene II" or whatever and (because I'm an English nerd) I thought that was awesome.

On the smaller frames or frames you plan to hang vertically, you probably won't have to do that. 

 Next you need to choose a stencil or two. On some frames I just centered my stencil and only used one and on others I used two. It's up to you. They do sell stencil adhesive and it would probably work best, but I didn't want to pay $5.99 so I just used the regular spray adhesive I had. This will work-if you work fast. Ha. The spray adhesive will pull the paper apart if you wait to long to remove the stencil. This only happened to me once, however, and most times it was very easy to remove. 

First, position your matting over your book page to determine where you want your stencil to go. Spray the back of your stencil lightly with adhesive spray and lay your stencil on top of the book page and press down around all edges (to prevent paint from seeping through). Remove matting and get ready to paint. 

 Using a stencil sponge, dab the paint all over the stencil. Work in a back and forth sweeping motion or circular motion, being careful not to go too fast or pull up the cut out parts of the stencil so the paint doesn't run under the stencil. 

I do recommend stencil paint. It's cream-based and won't run and looks very clean. Stencil paint, however, may not come in the color you want so if you use acrylic, just be careful. As you can see above on the last picture on the right, some of the paint ran under the stencil and I just touched it up with a small paint brush by creating my own design so that I wouldn't have to do that page again! 

After you're done painting, carefully peel back the stencil and set aside. 

Let dry. Cut to size. Place in frames, hang frames on wall, and you're done! 

Thanks so much for reading!

And for voting!

I really appreciate you. :) See you soon! 

Tomorrow I'll be back for another 30 with 30 Challenge post and I hope to have more tutorials up this week, too. I'm headed out of town again on Wednesday, but I'm going to try to keep things going around here. :) Have a great Monday!

Linking to the parties on my sidebar.

Doily Art

After seeing a lot of doily ideas around (on blogs and on Pinterest) I felt inspired to create my own. Who wouldn't be inspired after pinning all this goodness:

1. source via Melissa Misco on Pinterest 2. source via C on Pinterest 3. source via Allison Michelena on Pinterest 4. source via Angela Redding on Pinterest 5. source viaSolveigg Grimstadd onPinterest

Here's my version of doily art:

Wanna make your own? This project will take a day or two  to complete, but it's can be a really inexpensive, interesting option for wall art if you find your canvases on sale, find doilies at thrift stores or in grandma's attic, and use scraps for the ruffles. 

Let's get started.

Paint the canvases.

 Paint your canvases in long even strokes. Let dry.

I have a tendency to dive into projects without researching them sometimes to find the best way to do them. Instead, I come up with my own way and it sometimes works out as planned and other times it doesn't. My original idea to make this art was to paint the backs of the doilies and print them onto the canvas, but the picture above is what I got. Since that paint mess was already on my canvas and I didn't want to start over or fix it, I decided to go a different route: paint all the doilies and adhere them to the canvas. I simply put one doily on top of the painted part. You can hardly tell.

 Next position your doilies where you want them to go. I did this before I painted so I would know what colors I'd want to paint the doilies. 

Paint the doilies.

 The easiest (and messiest) way to get your doilies painted is to put a large amount of paint onto some cardboard and press the doily into the paint with your hands. Then pick the doily up and pull it apart and press the paint into the crevices of the fabric. Your hands will be seriously a wreck. Then let doilies dry. I let mine dry overnight since they were soaked in paint, but it may take just a couple hours.

The doilies could also be dyed, but I used what I had on hand instead of going to buy dye once the direction of my project had changed. Since I already had the paint, it worked for me. I liked how the paint hardened the doilies, too, so I probably wouldn't change it if I did this project again.

Mod Podge the canvas and the doilies onto the canvases.

Get out your Mod Podge and paint the canvas in even strokes for a nice glossy finish on the canvas. Let dry. 

 Now we're going to adhere the doilies to the canvas. Paint both sides of each doily with Mod Podge. The layer under the doily will adhere it to the canvas and the layer on top will give the doily a gloss.

 You'll probably get puddles of Mod Podge in the holes so simply dab it out with the brush. 

 Be sure to smooth the Mod Podge around the doily, too. 

I placed some doilies so they would hang off the edge. When you do this, simply adhere them like you did the rest except let them wrap around the side and then the back as shown here:

Let all doilies dry. Again, I believe I let these dry overnight, but it may not take that long.

You can stop here. But I felt mine needed a little extra something so I made some ruffles. Ruffles are always the obvious choice when you need a little something.

Make the ruffles and glue to canvases.

To make your own ruffles and add them to your art, read on.

Cut strips of fabric about 2 inches wide. Follow directions on the Fray Stop can and spray both sides of all fabric strips.

 Then press the strips in half leaving about 1/4 an inch peaking out at the bottom. 

Since you've already sprayed your strips with fray stop they will stick together after pressing. Simply run your finger through to separate layers.

 When you sew the ruffles, stitch along the fold. Your ruffles will look like this:

Use hot glue to glue the ruffles where you want them.  

Do not cut the threads from your ruffles until it is completely glued down.

 To layer the ruffles, I placed the top one on first and then lifted it up, drew a line of glue underneath for the next ruffle. By doing it this way I can plan where the ruffles should be as I go.

 Even though you sprayed your fabric with fray stop you'll probably get this mess. That's okay. Just snip it off once that set of ruffles is glued on. 

 Keep adding ruffles until you're satisfied with the look. 

 If you want your ruffles to go off the sides of the canvas, glue them to the sides only as you go, not the back until you're finished with with the whole set of ruffles.

 Your canvas will look like this on the back. 

When you're done with that set of ruffles, glue the ends to the back and trim the edges.

Stand back and enjoy. :)

These canvases are going in my guest bathroom to spice up the plain white walls that have been there all year that we've lived here!

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

I'd love to see yours if you make any! You can upload them to my flickr group or just email me!

Thanks for reading.

Linking here.

Doily Art in Progress

Well I wish I could hole up in the craft room and work on this all day, but I'm about to drive 5 hours to a teaching conference. It'll be helpful I'm sure, but I'm kinda dreading the drive. Too bad it's in Michigan and not Hawaii. I might stick that in the suggestions box on my way out.

So I'm loving where this project is going, I think, but it still needs something. 

I'm thinking ruffles and lace? What do you think? Excited to finish it on Friday when I get home. Enjoy the rest of your week! Thanks for reading!