Upcycling Books - Guides and Ideas for Old Books

• Upcycling books: 3 instructions
• 1. Decorative box
• 2nd Classic: Bookstore
• 3. Decorative shelf
• Upcycling: 17 ideas for old books

Upcycling is not just a trend in terms of clothing and accessories. In itself, you can use all objects from the hobby area or everyday life as a suggestion. It has become very popular to continue using upcycling books, even if you no longer read them. Since books are paper, they are suitable for many projects.

With upcycling books, you can easily turn it into something new and let your imagination live it up. Books are an item that can cover multiple areas in terms of different ideas because of the usable components such as the sides and the back. These include, for example, decorations, storage options or even small furniture that can be integrated into your own ambience. If you're looking for ideas to turn your books into something new through upcycling, you'll find what you're looking for here.

Upcycling books: 3 instructions

Guides are ideal to help you understand how to recycle your books through upcycling without having to part with them. It is particularly interesting to see what ideas some people have already implemented and how you can orient themselves to these projects. For this reason, you will find here three different upcycling projects, through which you get a direct insight into these "craft ideas". For most of the upcycling projects with books, some of the following utensils and materials are well-suited:

• scissors
• Scotch tape
• adhesive
• Color of every kind
• drilling machine
• Cordless Screwdriver
• Sewing
• more crafting utensils

Alone with a pair of scissors you can implement numerous projects and then dissolve your old book collection, even copies that do not bring a penny more. The following guides will help you to get a glimpse into the way old books are upcycled:

1. Decorative box

One of the most fundamental book upcycling projects is the design of a box, such as an old shoebox, which then takes on a decorative aspect on your premises. The design possibilities are not limited to the leaves of a roma. Since there are books on all sorts of topics, you can edit boxes accordingly with your favorite topics. Even illustrated books can be used for this purpose.

When upcycling your books, do the following:

• cut out the pages you want from the book
• pay attention to clean edges
• this improves the decorative effect
• Find a box of cardboard with a lid
• This is best selected according to the size of the pages
• the smaller the box, the easier it is to stick to it
• Glue the entire carton including lid with the sides
• Allow yourself enough time
• That's the only way to really live out your creative streak

• For gluing, apply a glue stick to the back of a page
• Now glue the page directly onto the box
• fix the page with light pressure
• Continue with this until the entire box has been pasted from the outside
• You can cut individual pieces out of the pages
• This helps especially in hard-to-reach places
• let dry

This box can be used to store a wide range of items, from jewelery to hats to guitar picks. The pages of the book, whether printed with letters, pictures or music notes, create an appealing look on the box that looks very elegant and even. For this reason, you should definitely make a box of books yourself.

2nd Classic: Bookstore

Do you still know movies in which people hide money or other items in a book ">

• use a knife to cut the appropriate compartment into the sides
• Size the cavity beforehand to one side
• at the beginning and end of the book unconditionally leave some pages uncut
• These make sure that the book still looks like a book

• gradually cut the hole with the cutter
• then glue one of the backs to the spine of the book
• let dry

Now you have a book cache at hand. But do not use this for keeping important documents or money because they are not really secure.

3. Decorative shelf

Shelves can not only be made of wood, books are due to their thickness and robust nature just as well suited. You should use single, thick copies with many pages and solid borders, which are best bound books, for this upcycling.

These are almost as durable as comparable wood panels and can be placed well with the necessary utensils on the wall:

• two to three mounting angles per book
• matching screws, slightly smaller diameter than the drill holes

Yes, even for these shelves you need a drill, but this does not have to be big in any form. Then do the following to make a shelf of books:

• select the book
• glue this over several pages together
• the closer the individual pages are connected, the more robust the "board"
• complain the book
• Let it dry for several hours
• then drill two or three holes in the book
• first mark the location of the holes over the angles
• do not drill through the book
• fix the inside of the holes with some glue
• let dry
• hang up afterwards

From these examples, you can see how versatile you can reuse your books while upcycling.

Tip: If you do not own many books yourself, but like the look of the novels, you should look in free classified portals or at flea markets for free or very cheap "ham". Often these are offered in large bundles, except it is well-known authors such as JK Rowling, JRR Tolkien or the German Markus Heitz, because these books are even used even a lot of value.

Upcycling: 17 ideas for old books

There's a lot you can do with books, because besides the actual pages, you can use the spine, the bindings, the bookmarks made of cloth and even the entire novel itself. In addition to the ideas for old books mentioned so far, there are 17 more that you should definitely try:

• Orimoto - fold book pages to a motive
• attractive paper flowers from old book pages
• effective case for a tablet
• Pages-Tannenbaum
• Origami from the book pages
• Make a notebook from the old book
• space-saving and inconspicuous jewelry box
• a night light from each page
• Quotes wall with their favorite sayings for motivation
• Picture collages from books of various topics, for example horses or world maps
• Holder for tools or kitchen utensils from several piles stacked together and glued together
• pretty greeting cards
• personal invitations
• Wall mounts for light objects
• a simple bookmark
• Storage for business cards and notes
• Paper birds to hang on the Christmas tree or plant logs
• a handy box for handkerchiefs

You see, your old books can easily be turned into a variety of things. Especially in the field of decorative items, the book pages offer excellent because they can not only paper birds or origami operate with it. Book pages, at least of novels, are very robust and can therefore be used without much difficulty for many craft projects. Let your imagination run free and you can clean up your old book crates and shelves again.

Tip: Alternatively, of course, you can upcycle your favorite books by using other materials such as denim or homemade t-shirt yarn and enhancing it. For example, you can make cloth covers or create a cup warmer if you want to spend the evening with a good story and tea or coffee on cold days.