DIY Painted Book Edges: Customize Your Books — All Readers Aboard

I’m just going to say it, books with painted book edges are absolutely gorgeous but unreasonably expensive! The worst part is they are so tempting you can’t resist them.

There’s been a really cool trend going about on bookstagram that caught my eye, DIY painted book edges. If you didn’t know this already, painted or gilded book edges have recently gained huge popularity. These are books with their edges spray-painted with different colours, sometimes metallic colours to give a gilded effect. Some of them are even decorated with custom themes and artworks.

Most books with painted book edges are actually considered to be collectables and are therefore very expensive. Fun fact: decorating edges are actually very old and date back to 10th century Europe when books were either painted with symbolic images or gilded with thin gold sheets.

So, of course, I had to try it myself! After overcoming my greatest fear of destroying my beloved books, I finally decided to give it a go. And I have to say, I went pretty well. There were a few ups and downs, and I did mess up a few times. But the end result is just gorgeous.

Here is a complete guide on how to DIY painted book edges yourself and give them a beautiful and unique look. Enjoy!

1) Choose your book

The most important step obviously, is to choose your book to DIY painted book edges. Now, I, like the idiot, choose one of my favourite comfort books to try this out for the first time. I suggest you choose some book that you aren’t very fond of because it’s always better to test out a procedure before performing it.

My book of choice was the first book of the Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard and I’m planning on doing the DIY painted book edges on the other 3 books of the series as well. Red Queen is a young adult fantasy novel set in the future where the society is divided into two sections based on the colour of their blood, red and silver. The reds are just normal people like us and form the socially deprived weaker section of the society, while the silvers possess god-like powers and look down upon the reds. The story is mostly based in the country of Norta, ruled by a silver king who can control fire.

The story begins with Mare Barrow, a young girl with red blood who lives in Norta.

Due to a series of unforeseen events, she stumbles into the crown prince of Norta, Tiberius the VII Calore a.k.a. Cal and finds out that she has the power to control electricity. To hide her identity as a red, she gets betrothed to the second prince of Norta, Maven Calore (MAVEN!! I’ve discussed him before in my article ‘ Our love-hate relationship with morally-grey characters ‘). And, of course, she falls in love with both the princes because every YA needs a love triangle. She and Maven also join a resistance group called The Scarlet guard to take down the tyranny and bring equal rights for reds. After that, it’s just a series of twists and turns, with an ending that will shatter your heart into a million pieces (the book as well as the series).

So, there you have it, a small summary of one of my favourite books that I decided to use for my DIY painted book edges tutorial.

2) Decide a colour scheme and design

For my book, I decided to mix two different shades of red for the painted book edges. One of them was crimson and had a light maroonish undertone to it. The other was just called poster red and was brighter. The book cover of Red Queen is white with a silver crown dripping with blood on the front. The inside of the book has the symbols of the Nortan Monarchy and Scarlet Guard. Therefore, I decided to draw a black crown in the centre of the long edge in black.

Considering the scarcity of colours I had, I did a lot of mix-and-match with the colours to come up with a proper colour scheme for my painted book edges. You can also stick to the theme of your book and customize it accordingly. But, the safest and the most beautiful option is to get a metallic colour in a golden, silver or bronze shade and use that on your painted book edges to give your books a gilded effect.

• Acrylic paints, or if you don’t have them you can use poster paints like me. I did that because it is very hard to go out and buy paints in the lockdown so I managed with whatever I had. I’m going to discuss how to use poster paints properly on your painted book edges in the next point.
• Glue, optionally, if you’ve used poster paints. The biggest problem with poster colours is that they tend to flake off after they dry and lose their lustre. This doesn’t happen in the case of acrylics. Therefore, to give your poster colours similar properties as acrylics, mix 2 parts paint, one part PVA glue and one part water together and use it on your painted book edges.
• Brushes and mixing palette. The mixing palette is for the above-mentioned step. For brushes, I suggest using a medium-thick flat brush for painting the edges and a thin round brush for designing.
• Old newspaper or any other waste paper. I just used some of my old class notes. The purpose of this is to protect your book cover from the paints.
• Optionally, you’ll need a book press or any heavy object like a paperweight or dumbbell. I resorted to pressing the books between my legs and hoped for the best.

3) Get your supplies

For this process, you’ll need the following supplies:

• Cover your book completely with scrap papers or old newspapers. Make sure your front or back cover isn’t exposed. And, use paper tape or painters tape for this if you must.
• Press your book tightly while painting the edges to prevent bleeding on the pages.

4) Protect your books

PROTECT YOUR BOOKS! I cannot stress this point enough. It would be heartbreaking to see your beautiful book cover destroyed by unruly paint splashes and bleeding pages. There are two most important things you have to do to protect your books while making painted book edges.

5) Start painting

Now, that you’ve done all the above steps, it’s time to paint. Paint one side at a time and make sure the paint isn’t diluted a lot. Too much water will make your painted book edges soggy and can cause tearing. Another thing to keep in mind is to fan your book edges after you’ve painted one side. This is important as it prevents caking of the paint after it dries and reduces the chance of the pages sticking together.

7) Aftercare

After all these steps are done, the only thing left is to let it dry completely. I just that you keep fanning the pages once the paint is slightly dried to avoid sticking pages as it can cause tearing. Just so you know, sticking pages aren’t abnormal and are common even in some of the commercially made painted book edges, so don’t worry about it too much. If you think the problem is too prominent, you can also take the time to separate each page separately.

There you have it, the complete tutorial for DIY painted book edges. I really enjoyed doing this craft project and giving my book a unique identity, and I’ll probably finish the whole series soon. Do tell me in the comment if you liked this tutorial or if you’ve tried it for yourself! I also want to apologize in advance for my inconsistency in writing a blog. Life has been a real mess lately, but I hope I can get back into this habit soon. Till then, bye!

Originally published at https://allreadersaboard.com on May 6, 2021.