Vintage Photo Book Covers

Continuing with the "book" theme, I decided to try another quick and cheap technique with a set of books.  I know I saw a similar idea like this on someones blog, so I can't take total credit for this idea - unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it.

Anyway, I have a number of books that I have set aside to use when decorating.  I selected several different sizes of books that I thought would make a nice grouping.  Next I needed to find some old photos.  I wanted to use either black and white or sepia photos.  I eventually want to get some of my own old family photos, but I wanted to see if I even liked it before I went to a lot of work.  So, a-searching I did go (on the Internet that is).  I was able to find a site that had tons of old photos that had decent resolution.  I wanted to find pictures that could "feature" a portion of the photo that would appear on the spine, with the rest of the photo wrapping to the front and the back of the book.  Once I had some pictures I thought I could use, I measured the sizes of the covers and spines.  I do all my graphic design in Corel, so I created a book cover to match the book size and imported the photo.  I carefully placed the photo in the appropriate place on the spine and printed it out on 12 x 18 paper.  I then made a book cover (just like we had to do with old paper bags in school - don't even tell me you're too young to ever have done that!!!!), and wrapped my book with the new photo cover.  It doesn't really matter that the photo does not go all the way to the edges of the book, because all you will see is the spine. 

I LOVE these covers - not necessarily the pictures themselves, but the idea and especially using the muted colors.  I can't wait to find and scan some of our old family photos to use instead of using pictures of people I don't even know.  Keep in mind, the wider the spine of the book, the more you will see of the photo you are using.