Prepare yourself for another post in our Crafty Chaos series...
Looking to show off some bibliophile love in the garden, we recently posted about some brick pavers we painted to look like books - the first of many "books" to come. We picked up some pavers in a recent Memorial Day Special buy at Home Depot and created a few new additions to our garden library this past weekend - a Jane Austen collection. (We both love Jane Austen, although one of us gravitates more to the books and the other to the movie adaptations, but that's neither here nor there.)
If you read the previous post, you know we're working towards having enough pavers to line the bottom of Kaitlyn's raised garden beds. You also know there were a few learnings and things we wanted to try differently with our next set of "books." This post will outline that we tried differently this time around - and of course, we just wanted to share some pics, as they were different, in case they proved any inspiration to your own project.
Difference #1
On The first set of pavers, we used colors that were darker and/or brighter than we used on this set. Those colors covered the pavers really well (and just needed one coat). However, as we used much lighter colors on these pavers, we quickly found we did need to prime these pavers before painting them, if we didn't want to use several coats of paint - especially with the most pastel of the colors.
Difference #2
Last time, we used painters tape to create the lines where the "cover" wraps around the sides to meet the "pages". As we felt like that would ultimately be a lot of tape (since we're making a lot of these), we wanted to try a less wasteful process. This time, we use d a ruler and pencil, instead of tape. This ruler (about an inch wide) left a nice "cover" edge when we centered it on the side of the paver (about 1/4 inch). The ruler may be too narrow for this exact same approach with a thicker paver or brick, but it worked well for these.
After painting three sides the ivory color (for the "pages"), we simply centered the ruler down those same sides and then drew a line on either side of the ruler with a a pencil. On the short edges, there was an extra line, as three sides had that border. From there, we could fill in that skinny border with the paint color right up to the line.
This took a bit longer than the taping off method, as painting along the lines is a bit more tedious. However, as indicated in our prior post, the tape lines weren't super crisp, as these pavers aren't smooth, So, we actually like how these ones turned out better and plan to use this method again.
Difference #3
We used a stencil to dress these "books" up. We used the same Jim Holtz floral stencil on all six pavers, but we didn't position it exactly the same on all of the pavers or even necessarily use the same sections of the stencil consistently. We wanted them to all go together, but intentionally weren't striving for the perfected matches, as you can especially see on the "spines." We stenciled both the front "covers" and the "spines" with this stencil.
Learning: Because we did an entire set by the same author, it probably would have made sense to have crated a stencil with Jane Austen's name. So that's a learning we'll keep in mind going forward.
These were super easy to stencil! So we'll probably incorporate more stenciling into the next set of "books." We'll let you know how it turns out, for better or worse!
Everything else was the same process as the first set of brick books we created.
Materials:
- Brick pavers
- Paint brushes
- Stencil
- Stenciling brush
- Paint (see below for specific color we used)
Paint Colors:
Choosing color schemes isn't something we always feel confident in doing. We actually hopped on Pinterest and searched for "vintage color palettes." After we found one we felt seemed Jane Austen-ish and would be cute in the garden, we did our best to grab similar paint colors from our stash. Below is what we used.
On All:
- Black (Delta Ceramcoat)
- White (Delta Ceramcoat)
- Antique White (Delta Ceramcoat)
Pride and Prejudice:
- Waterfall (Delta Ceramcoat)
Emma:
- Straw (Delta Ceramcoat)
Sense and Sensibility:
- Gypsy Rose (Delta Ceramcoat)
- Please note this paint is very old - it came from a decades-old paint collection someone was downsizing. Unfortunately, this color is no longer available for purchase.
Persuasion:
- Green Tea (Delta Ceramcoat)
Northanger Abby:
- Cottage Rose (Delta Ceramcoat)
Mansfield Park
- Sea Foam (Delta Ceramcoat)
We enjoy creating these cute "books" to go around the garden bed, and can't wait to make even more! Who's your favorite author? Please comment below!
P.S. If you like this post, then don't forget to check out our other posts and leave us a comment! We love hearing from our readers and appreciate your support!
