Y’all I am a huge reader! I love books of all kinds, but my absolute favorite are romances—the cheesier the better! I can still remember when we moved to South Africa being in awe that my friend’s mom had four cupboards/china cabinets chock full of books. I’m not even sure I could describe my excitement when, at 13ish, I was deemed “old enough” to choose a book out of the cabinet to read (harmless love stories bees, don’t worry!). And I’m sure I drove my friend nuts! She’d invite me over for sleepovers, ask me what I wanted to do and first words out of my mouth…”ooooh do you think we could read books?” Yes Bees, I was that friend. And since our wedding is a hodge podge of things we love, well, I wanted to include books in some way. But how? Let’s think on that a minute…
If you recall from our venue selection, the Inne comes with fresh floral centerpieces. I’m super excited about that because I doubt we’d be doing flowers on the tables otherwise.
Image Via Shosho Designs, Photographer: Stacey Bode Photography
We decided to do something like the above picture—short, square vases but with yellow roses and some greens. With that in mind I started to get a sense of what else I wanted for our centerpieces. I’m sure you’re reading this going,, “Ms Goat, what are you talking about? You just said you picked them out. Remember those yellow roses?” That’s true, but I love the multipiece, multi-layered look.
Image via: Mod Wedding, Photographer: Lisa Lefkowitz
So of course I can’t just pick out flowers and call it a day! I also have my yarn wrapped table numbers, which I shared with you a while back. And what else? Oh yea, books! No wonder I like this photo so much. Books would be a great way to add some height to our centerpieces without them obstructing peoples’ views across the table.
So I set to work collecting books at yard sales, flea markets and at my library’s $5.00 a bag book sales. Just one catch…I want our books to be color coordinated…and what did I find out over the last year of book collecting? It’s near to impossible to find solid yellow books (that is, if you refuse to pay more than a dollar per book). So, what to do, what to do? What if I just paint them yellow…ooo ooh what if I paint them gold? And that, bees, is how another DIY craft was born.
I wasn’t altogether sure this would work, especially since it would kill me to ruin the books and have them be non readable, but after looking around for a bit I found this youtube tutorial by Chriselle, along with this photo, which suites my vision perfectly.
Image via: The Chriselle Factor, Photographer: Jana Williams, Wedding Planner & Event Designer – Details Details, Floral Design- Shawna Yamamoto
So, while we were painting animals, we also painted books! We grabbed that Rust-oleum gold paint.
And we grabbed our books and we got to painting. And don’t worry fellow book lovers—the pages are totally fine, still readable. Apart from the occasional gold finger print from touching them to soon, you don’t even see the paint on the pages. I even kept the book jackets for afterward in case someone wants to read them. Just check out that tutorial for the full instructions.
Personal Photo © 2014
We deviated a little bit from the tutorial. We painted the tops flat first and then we lined all the books up with the spines together and painted the edges.
Personal Photo © 2014
Laying out to dry!
Personal Photo © 2014
Billie was “supervising.”
If you’re wondering why it took so long to post this it’s because I hit a few project snags. The paint on the page edges themselves started to flake off when the books were opened. I attribute this to the fact that we sprayed the paint on too think and didn’t give it proper time to dry. So we scraped it off and lightly sprayed in layers allowing it to dry in between. The second problem? The book covers themselves didn’t dry properly. I mean for the most part it felt dry and it wasn’t rubbing off on the carpet (where I had them stacked), but because it’s been so humid and rainy here they still left a fine sheen of gold when you ran a finger across them. I wouldn’t care so much about this (because I don’t think it’d come off on the table cloths) except I was worried when the venue staff was placing them on the tables if they noticed the gold on their fingers they’d refuse to use them. So I have had them spread out on the floor for a few weeks drying. I looked into sealing them with a clear coat but everything I’ve read said you can’t clear coat metallic spray paint or it will lose the metallic look. Final verdict? I think they’ll work and they turned out pretty glam…
personal photo—obviously not the flowers but you get the idea
So that’s three of the four elements of our centerpieces completed. Stay tuned to find out what number four will be.
Any other book lovers out there who incorporated books into their wedding? I’d love to hear how you are using them. Anyone have advice on clear coating metallic, or drying paint advice?
Tags:
decor
diy
flowers
scranton
tutorial
BLOGGER
Miss Goat
Location:
Scranton, PA
Occupation:
Senior Graphic Designer
Wedding Date:
July 2014
Venue:
The Inne of the Abingtons
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