How to make a rustic book stack

Rustic book stacks make great additional decor. They can be created to match any season. Your creativity with these can be endless. They really are super simple to make. In this blog I will show you step by step how to make a rustic book stack.

Materials I used

Books – I bought mine from the charity shop 3 for £1

Jute

Cricut Maker

Standard grip Mat

Transfer tape

Weeding tool and scrapper

Self adhesive vinyl

Small wooden beads

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Choosing the right books

For the books, I head down to the local charity shop. They always have a selection of books for sale. Try and choose books that are all the same size in height and try to find them the same thickness too. For this project I chose to make my stack 3 books high.

supplies I used to make my book stacks: cricut maker, books, ruler, scissors, standard grip mat, self adhesive vinyl, transfer tape, weeding and burnishing tool, jute and wooden balls

Removing the covers

Carefully remove the front and back cover of the books. Try to remove as much of the cover as you can from the spine of the book. This will make it easier for the vinyl to stick.

Removing the back and front covers from a book

The picture below shows how the books should look.

3 books with the back and front covers removed

Measure the books

If you chose to add vinyl to your book stack you will need to measure the spine of the books. This will allow you to make your vinyl the correct size to fit perfectly.

Measuring the width of the book spine

Creating the design

Load up design space and click on the text icon. This will bring up a text box.

Design space screen showing a text box

Start adding any text that you wish to be placed on the side of the books.

Design space screen showing text our life

Changing the font

If you wish, you can change the font. This could be a cricut font or a font you have purchased. Click on the font box and drop down the list. You should see the list of fonts.

If you wish to use a font you have purchased all you need to do is click on system. This will allow you to scroll down and select the font you wish to use.

Selecting the font of the text to Baby Angelo

Changing the size of your design

Now you are happy with the text and font you will now need to change the size of the font.

This can be done by heading up to the size box and changing the height of the text. The height of the text should be within the size that you measured. Cricut will change the width of the text in proportion to the height.

Design space screen showing text Our life, Our story, Our home

Now you have your font to the size you need it you are ready to click on Make It.

Design space screen showing text Our life, Our story, Our home with the text resized

Choosing the cutting options

You will now need to choose how you are cutting your vinyl. I chose to cut mine on the mat. If you are also cutting yours on a mat, just select on mat and click on continue.

Selecting how I would like the vinyl to be cut. I selected on the mat

You will now be able to see how your design looks on the cutting mat. This will allow you to make sure that you have the vinyl placed on the right part of the mat.

The mat screen showing how the vinyl will cut

As I am using self adhesive vinyl I do not need to mirror the design.

Next select the material that you are using. I always select the setting for premium vinyl as I find that this gives me consistent cuts.

Selecting the materials I will use. I selected Premium vinyl

Next select the pressure, I like to select more as I find it gives a clean cut.

Premium vinyl selected and the pressure is set to more

Cutting and removing the vinyl

Place the vinyl onto the mat and press down firmly. Next load the mat into the maker by clicking on the flashing arrow buttons.

Black self adhesive vinyl on the standard grip mat being loaded into the cricut

Once the mat is loaded begin by pressing the flashing cricut button and the cricut will begin cutting.

Once it has finished cutting, press the flashing arrow button and the mat will be ejected.

To remove the vinyl from the mat, flip the mat over and remove the mat from the vinyl. This should prevent the vinyl from curling.

Removing the cut vinyl from the mat

Weeding the vinyl

Trim down the vinyl as this allows you to save any vinyl that has not been used at this time for another project.

Weed the vinyl carefully, make sure you remove all the inner parts of the letters you don't need.

Weeding the trimmed down cut vinyl

Once you have weeded all the letters cut a piece a transfer top to place over the top.

Adding transfer tape to the weeded vinyl

Peel the back off the transfer tape and place the transfer tape over your vinyl words. Burnish well so the transfer tape stick to the vinyl.

Burnishing the transfer tape onto the vinyl

Cut in between all the words to separate them. This will make it easier to stick them to the spines of the books.

Cutting the design into sections

Carefully remove the backing paper from the vinyl.

Removing the backing form the vinyl

Adding vinyl to the books

Take one of the books and carefully position the vinyl onto the spine of the book. Once you are happy with the position start to carefully burnish the vinyl to the book. Repeat this process for all your books.

Placing the vinyl onto the spine of the books

Finishing touches

I added jute to the edge of my book stack to help hold it all together and to add a bit of decoration.

Wrap the jute around the book stack several times and tie it with a bow.

Wrapping jute around all 3 books and tying it

I kept the tails of the bow quite long and to these I added beads to just make it look a bit more rustic.

You can finish your book stack off in a way that will suit your decor.

Adding wooden beads to the long pieces of jute for decoration

I really hope you enjoyed this blog. I love these cute book stacks and they really do make a fab addition to your decor. The best thing is you can switch them as each season changes.

If you want to watch how I made my book stacks then click on the video below.

Also if you enjoyed this blog them please take a look at some of my other blogs:

How to tie a perfect bow every time

How to apply vinyl to a mug

Easy to make nappy cake

Happy Crafting xx

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