:: how to - ombre books ::

I am so excited about the mini project I completed today. Particularly because I didn't see it on Pinterest first. Yessiree, this one's straight from my usually unimaginative head. I even 'googled' on Pinterest to see if anyone else had done it. And nope!

So what we have here are ombre books (if you're not familiar with the 'ombre' term, it's the look of something going from dark to light, in the same colour. A bit of a craze at the moment). I wanted something to add to the mantlepiece in the baby's room, and I wanted it grey. So I originally searched through our own book collection, but I couldn't find enough of the right size/colour. So the idea hit me to grab some old books from the op-shop and create my own.

Ombre Book Display

You will need:

5-6 books (old ones with non-glossy covers work best)

1 can of spray paint (colour of your choice)

1 tube acrylic paint (of the same colour as the spray)

1 tube white acrylic paint

face mask

gloves

I picked up these books for 50 cents each at an op-shop just up the road. Hope there's nobody's favourite novel here. Hehe.

Go outside and lay down some plastic or newspaper to give all your books a base colour.

Work out which order you want the books in, then make up some very light grey paint, and add a bit more black as you go along, for each book. I ended up putting too much black from the start and had to do it the other way around. So add less colour (in my case, black) than you think!

Just paint the spine of each book in your descending shade. I didn't think the whole book needed painting, as the spine is all you see.

Oh, and paint a couple of picture frames if you're a duffer like me, and have way too much paint left over.

Leave to dry, and arrange to your heart is content.