Book Wall Art

Amy Wadsworth
by Amy Wadsworth
6 Materials
$20
1 Hour
Easy

Creating a book wall is one of the easiest projects I've done, but it looks very intimidating. I love to read and I love vintage books. For a while, I knew I wanted to repurpose old books as art - and once I started, it was much easier than I anticipated!

Steps for attaching book wall art:

1. You’ll need to gather loose book pages of varying sizes and color. Gather or buy old books of varying sizes (aim for an odd number of books – I used seven). Organize the loose pages by size so that you can easily grab the size you want.

2. Use Glue Dots or Scotch tape to attach book pages to the wall. I started in the middle of my area and then worked out. Be sure to angle pages, overlap pages, turn some upside down, and be aware of the text on the page – make sure you’re OK with it.

3. Once you have a good foundation of book pages for the background – start with a book towards the center of your design and use a brad nail gun to attache one side of the book cover with a pinch of pages too – then nail the other side. To help hold back more pages than the nail will hold, I used thumbtacks and then taped one page back to cover the tack. You can decide if you want the book fully opened or if you want the pages flared. For the most part, I let the books lay however they did, but I did tack back a few to give different looks. Also, angle the books differently to help give movement to the design.

4. Step back often and add more pages or books when needed. I added several more loose pages and one more book after over a week of looking at it and noticing gaps. Who knows if it’s completely done yet…

Tools

Brad nail gun and brad nails (I used 1.25” nails)

Glue Dots

Loose book pages

Thumbtacks

Step stool

Old books (thrift stores, antique shops, garage sales, Etsy, ebay)

Here's the wall before adding my book wall art. The floating shelves were just installed and I knew I wanted to move my book art through the shelving. The media console is filled with books so it works well as a unit with the wall art.

Lay out your loose pages and books. Organize the pages by size so that you can quickly grab the size you need as you put up each page.

Use Glue Dots or tape to start attaching the loose book pages first. You may want to add pages later, but first place loose pages in an arrangement on your wall. The pages create the shape of the wall art.

The next step is attaching the old books using a brad nail gun. I recommend placing the books fairly close to one another. Angle the books to give movement.

Some pages are behind the shelves to show the art continue through. I allowed the pages to flare naturally for the most part, but for some I used a tack to hold back more pages.

The large wall art is stunning in person and is such a statement piece. The best part is how easy and inexpensive it was!

Resources for this project:
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Amy Wadsworth
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Frequently asked questions
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  2 questions
  • Lisa Cuddy Lisa Cuddy on Sep 09, 2019

    LOVE THIS!!!

  • I have a large box of vintage books without the covers. I'm planning on covering one side of my hall with the pages. I love this idea as well, but wonder how they will look without the covers.

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