Monday Mischief-Simple Project Book Frames

Hurricane Sandy rained out our Sunday Pug-O-Ween party and closed the NYC public schools and trains, meaning a day at home with mom and dad.  A nice day for a craft.  Mom has been wanting to make book frames from some of our old books for a while and she decided to start yesterday. There are lots of techniques on like and mom decided to use this one . Being sloppy and an ameture crafter mom wisely decided to try the simplest technique first.

Book Frames

Materials: 

• Old hard cover books
• x-acto knife or box cutter, or both
• pencil
• ruler
• card stock or card board
• photos 
• tape

Procedure

1) Place the picture on the book and trace around it with a pencil

2) Use the x-acto knife or box cutter to cut through the cover along the traced lines.  (This takes a bit of work, I started scoring with the x-acto knife and then switched to the box cutter when I was nearly through).

3) Pop out the cut of part of the cover and try clean up any hanging, frayed bits of cover with your knife.

 4) (I didn't photograph this) Cut a piece of card stock a bit smaller then the book cover and tape or glue your picture to it, being careful to center it carefully.  Check the line up by putting the picture against the book frame.   When you have it like you want it, tape the card stock with the atatched picture to the inside of the book cover.

  

I made 3 frames in about an hour, and a better crafter could definitely do it faster.   I used a copy of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of my favorite books, and two dog focused books.  The first was the Monks of New Skete's training manual How To Be Your Dog's Best Friend, which was a gift from someone and does not espouse a training philosophy I believe in, but the title seemed to suit a dog picture.

 For this frame I used some dog themed scrapbooking paper for the backing.

The last frame was my favorite, I used Susan Orlean's Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend to frame a picture of my husband and Ping bike riding on the Brooklyn Bridge.   I really like the cover of he book so I wanted to keep that in tact.  I traced the picture on the back cover and first cut the opening in the paper cover and then in the actual book.  After cutting through the book I secured the paper cover on with tape and framed the picture the same as with the other books.

 

The best thing about this project is that you can still read the books after making the frame, as only the cover has been altered.   You can use up old books you have lying around like I did or have fun shopping for vintage books that compliment your photos.  I'm sure with greater craft know how there are lots of ways you could improve on these frames as well.

(Stay safe in the Hurricane!)