At the beginning of summer, Pinterest released a report on some of Gen Z’s biggest trending searches across the social bookmarking platform. One of the themes throughout the report was a noteworthy increase in searches for not only reading retreat ideas, but various book club ideas. Pinterest users wanted to find fun and unique book club themes, sought out book club stickers and swag, and curated ideas around adding new, fresh ways to host their book clubs.
If there’s something to be taken from this, it’s that book clubs are not only thriving, but book lovers are looking for ways to make their gatherings even more memorable.
Where there are plenty of creative means for changing up your book club–take, for example, hosting a cookbook book club where attendees read different recent cookbooks and bring with them a dish they created from the book they read and then the conversation becomes about which books and dishes were winners and which were better skipped–another idea is to add a hands-on crafting activity to your book club. Attendees can all read the same book to discuss or use these book club craft night events as a chance to host a casual book swap or a no book book club, where readers talk about anything they’ve been reading with one another.
One of the trendiest book crafts taking off across book clubs, book stores, and libraries over the last year? Book bedazzling. It is EXACTLY what it sounds like. You make your own books look as sparkly as you’d like, making for the perfect piece of bookish art for your shelves, as well as your social media. It scratches the same itch for fun, colorful physical books that today’s publishing world has been eager to capitalize on; the biggest difference is you can make your bedazzled book as customizable to your own design aesthetics as you’d like.
Book bedazzling is easy and doable for all levels of craft skill. A big bonus? You can use whatever books you have on hand, so no need to spend cash on acquiring something new, unless you’d like. That makes it a perfect book club activity, since chances are everyone has a book at home they can bring to DIY.
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Bonus? The cost of supplies is reasonable and those supplies will last you a very long time.
Supplies:
Note that you can likely buy most of your supplies in one single kit, like this one.
How To:
This one is super straightforward. You and your attendees will use the rhinestones to decorate the front and/or back covers of your selected book. Maybe you make the title sparkly or you outline the picture or design on the cover. Perhaps you go full rhinestone and do both.
You’ll use the wax pencils to pick up the rhinestones from their supply case and apply a small amount of the strong glue to the diamonds. It might be easier, depending on your plans, to put the glue on the book cover to begin and put the diamonds on top. The tweezers are helpful for getting precision and/or into the smaller spaces of your design.
Once you’ve finished your bedazzling and the glue has dried, you’ll apply the diamond art sealer and let it dry. Boom–you’re done!
Note that you will likely be unable to get books that are bedazzled to sit neatly on your bookshelf between other books. Don’t let that stop you. This is your opportunity to have that book face out or stacked differently. It is meant to stand out!
Inspiration:
Stuck on what this might look like or want to provide your book club attendees some examples before or during the bedazzling session? Check out these gorgeous bedazzled covers from across social media. You’ll also find some additional tips, tricks, and possible supplies.
Itching for some more book club craft ideas to bring something new to your meetings? Try out these fun DIY bookmark ideas!