Last Minute Holiday Shopping?

Posted on 20. Dec, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

If you are looking for unique book gifts this holiday season there is still time to place your order!  We are shipping daily for all products that are in stock.  Today is December 20th and in order to receive your books by Christmas we recommend requesting Fedex 2 day if you place your order today, Overnight Fedex if you order on December 21st.

Of course you are also welcome to order by Fedex Ground/Home Delivery and print out the product page from our website showing what gift you have purchased then the books will arrive after Christmas.

We always have a great inventory of the  book sets that is ready to ship. Some of our most popular items include:

All of our Penguin Collections.  A recent popular item has been our custom set of 10 Penguin Classics featured in Real Simple Magazine.  Perhaps the ultimate decorative set of literary classics is our Penguin 30 Set.

Penguin Classics Set of 20

Looking for a set of gift books for a child?  Our Puffin 10 Set is one of our best sellers and we put it on sale to help offset last minute shipping costs.  For older readers, our Harry Potter sets are fun and unique – choose your favorite “house” by buying the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Slytherin Edition!

Our Cookbook Sets have been very popular this holiday season.  Blue, Red and Green are all ready to ship as well as our Italian and French Cookbook sets.

Our Author Collections are also ready to ship as well.  Our Pink Jane Austen has been one of our best sellers, followed by Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner.

So, there is something for everyone and lots more unique book sets to come in 2013!

Note that all of our personalized products, white they do make amazing gifts, do take longer to design and print and therefore at this point will not ship until January.

Happy holidays,

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

Tags: creative ideas, custom printed book jackets, decorative books

From Book Wrapping to Rebinding

Posted on 19. Sep, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Resources, Book Styles, Ideas and Advice

One of the things we do at Juniper Books that is different from any other book seller in the world is that we can help with just about any book project – from requests for a lot of books in a particular style at a low cost per book, to projects involving one very special book and a much generous budget per book.

About 11 years ago I started selling rare books online – first from my own collection and then books that I went out and acquired from estate sales and auctions.  Occasionally I would  come across a rare book in terrible shape so I started developing relationships with bookbinders.  Bookbinding is expensive and time consuming – when executed skillfully, the results are beautiful and last forever.  Juniper Books helps clients with bookbinding projects – both in leather and cloth, and we also work on custom boxes and cases for books and other printed material.  However given the cost of bookbinding, it is not for everyone or every project.

Custom Pulitzer Bindings

The custom book bindings are generally for clients who have one special book (e.g., a Family Bible, a sentimental or rare book) and wish to preserve it in an attractive new binding.  We also create special gift editions for clients that might be a cherished classic, or could be a commemorative book for a specific project (e.g., a thesis, a recently completed design/architecture project, etc.)  We work with clients closely to design each binding exactly to their preferences – this includes leather and bookcloth colors, title and detail design.

At the other end of the cost and time spectrum are our wrapped books.   Whereas a custom binding might take 3-6 weeks and costs a few hundred dollars, we can make hundreds of wrapped books in a day at a very small cost per book.  We have been working with designers, architects, developers and visual merchandisers for years to provide them with books in the exact color and texture of their choice.  Our book wrappings are generally paper jackets that we measure and cut precisely then apply to each book, in some cases they are fabric.

Linen and Kraft Paper Wrapped

While some have copied our work, what cannot be duplicated is the attention to detail we provide to each project, the quality of our materials and our excellent customer service.  We offer customers an infinite number of color choices – we stock dozens of colors and I personally test a lot more papers around the year to assess their suitability for wrapping books.  We do this so that we are always ready when someone calls with a rush order – such as a visual merchandiser who needs to put 50 gold books in 100 store windows by Christmas!  Or a spa in Miami about to hold their grand opening and they need a couple thousand white books.  Or a video game company launching a new product and they need a few hundred books in their corporate color to stage a mock home.

If a customer needs books screened for content we do that as well – for example a conservative hotel chain that does not want romance novels in their lobbies . . .

In 2010, I introduced custom printed book jackets into the market and we are the only company that provides them.  The idea was to take book wrapping to a whole new level, especially for residential home customers.  The idea is that you can have the books you want (ie literary classics, or Civil War histories) and get the color / style that matches your interior.  We measure each book then custom print the titles on each jacket so they fit perfectly – we can design them to look like antique leather books or bright modern colors and just about everything in between.

Make Your Own Book Set – Rainbow

Some of our custom book jacket sets are available in our online store, however 99% of what we sell is custom made and so it is best to call or e-mail us about your project.

So, whether you have a project that calls for rebinding one book, or a need for several thousand books, Juniper Books can help!

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

Tags: books for interior design, creative book art, custom book collections, custom book covers, custom made books, custom printed book jackets, custom wrapped books

New Photos, New Projects, New Products

Posted on 17. Sep, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Styles, Ideas and Advice, Press and News, Recent Projects

2012 has been an incredibly busy and successful year at Juniper Books.  In fact we have been so busy filling orders the past several months that our website simply has not kept up to date with all of our offerings.

Coming Soon – New Photos, Projects and Products

Over the next few weeks we will be trying to catch up by:

• Adding new products to our online Store
• Posting new projects to our online Portfolio and changing the navigation structure
• Adding hundreds of photos to our Styles section – including new color options, customization choices, and various new styles not previously posted

A few things to note about our offerings:

• Our online Store only has about 1% of the books we sell in it.  Juniper Books provides anything and everything related to books – rare books, complete libraries, book for decoration, and about a thousand other products and services.  With a few exceptions (our personalized book sets) our online store is really about ready made book sets (i.e., our Penguin sets, or our Jane Austen book collection.)   If you would like to hire us for something you don’t see in the store it’s best to e-mail thatcher@juniperbooks.com or call 303-946-1494.  We are adding more products to the online store over time however given the highly customized products and services we provide (curating book collections by color, size, subject, making custom book jackets, custom wrapping books, etc.) by nature many of our offerings will never appear in the store.
• Our overall philosophy is that anything with books is possible.  We work with clients to help them get what they want from their books – this means different things to different customers.  For some clients this might involve sourcing a the best copy of a particular rare book or first edition, for others it might entail assembling 10,000 books by color for a commercial project and others might be involve us building a collection of a favorite author, then wrapping them in custom printed jackets with a special gift inscription.

I have been a lifelong collector of books and I have been selling books for about 12 years now.  Every day I feel like I am just getting started on what is possible with books and what I am trying to do at the intersection books + design.  I really appreciate the compliments we have received on the work we do at Juniper Books. We will keep the innovations flowing and we will continue to expand our offerings of more traditional / classical books too.  We look forward to working with our many customers and partners for years to come – thanks for keeping us so busy!

Thatcher

Tags: creative ideas, custom book covers, custom printed book jackets, home library, library consultant, thatcher wine

Neutral Wrapped Books

Posted on 17. Sep, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Styles, Ideas and Advice

Our white and neutral wrapped books are one of our most popular styles.  We can wrap books in just about any color paper or fabric.  The available options in this colorway include everything from bright white to cream, ivory, off-white, beige, light brown, linen, and dozens of additional options.

We work closely with designers, visual merchandisers, developers, architects, homeowners and all others to ensure that the books are exactly the right color.

These books are made by wrapping real hardcover books in solid color “jackets,” or in the case of fabric wrapped books, covering them in the fabric.  These are an economical solution for obtaining a neutral toned appearance for a bookshelf, bookcase or entire room without the “distraction” of titles (sounds funny, we know, but often desired).

Examples of projects which have used our wrapped books include these below (click on the photo for more information):

Hotel Lorien

Macy*s Bar III White Books

95 Wall Street Library

To inquire about this style of books, please call 303-946-1494, e-mail thatcher@juniperbooks.com or contact us through the form below.

Tags: creative ideas, custom wrapped books, visual merchandising books

Father’s Day Gift Guide

Posted on 04. Jun, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

I’m a Dad with two kids and we have a lot of books around the house – my books, my wife’s books, my son’s books and my daughter’s books.   I’m a firm believer that a family can never have TOO MANY books in a home.  That being said, you do have to  proactively keep them organized and part with some from time to time to make room for new acquisitions.

With Father’s Day in mind, we have created a number of new products that make great gifts for Dads – either to read themselves or share with their kids.  Many of these sets are original designs that are unlike anything the world has ever seen before!  So it might be a good time to donate those Hemingway paperbacks to the local library and upgrade to our Custom Hemingway book set for example.

As a special discount for Father’s Day we have created the coupon code DAD20 that can be used for 20% off your shopping cart at checkout.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions and special requests – we are always creating new book products and we are very open to feedback!

1.  Custom Hemingway Book Set: A fantastic set of 9 Ernest Hemingway books wrapped in a completely original series of jackets made by Juniper Books.  The set makes up one unique design.  $385

Ernest Hemingway Set in Custom Book Jackets

2. J.D. Salinger Book Set – Tree Design: A unique custom edition of J.D. Salinger’s complete works, wrapped in custom book jackets with a colorful tree design.  $140

J.D. Salinger Custom Book Set

3. Complete 38 Volume Shakespeare Set: Complete set of the works of William Shakespeare in 38 volumes with custom book jackets in an original design.  $750

William Shakespeare 38 Volume Set in Custom Jackets

4. Sherlock Holmes Book Set: A fantastic set of 6 Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes books wrapped in a completely original series of jackets made by Juniper Books.  The set makes up one unique design.  $150

Sherlock Holmes Custom Book Set

4. American Flag Book Set:  9 works of American literature and history wrapped in custom jackets designed to make up the American Flag when assembled in a collection.

American Flag Book Set

6. Thomas Keller Set: A custom edition of 4 Thomas Keller cookbooks in jackets designed by Juniper Books, inspired by the red, white and blue of both the French and American flags, fitting we think, for this trailblazer of French American cooking.  $275

Thomas Keller Cookbook Set

7. Cook’s Book Set ($250) – or Personalized Cook’s Books Set ($300):  Recently featured in Real Simple magazine, this set of 5 substantial cookbook classics clearly shows off the fact that these are the cook’s books!  The titles and authors are cleverly integrated into the design of the letters that spell out “Cook’s Books.”  A personalized version of this set is also available where we can print the owner’s name on the book jackets and customize the color.

Cook's Books Set from Juniper Books

Henri's Cookbooks - Yellow and Black

8. Literary Classics ($250) or Personalized Literary Classics ($300): A modern styled set of literary classics wrapped in red and white book jackets.  The titles and authors of the 8 books are cleverly integrated into the letters that spell out “Literary Classics.”  Also available in a personalized versionw here we can print the owner’s name on the book jackets and customize the color.

Red and White Literary Classics

Thatcher's Literary Classics - Teal and White

9. Set of 100 Literary Classics from Everyman’s Library: This set of 100  brand new books from Everyman’s Library provides an instant library of timeless literary classics.  $2,250

Everyman's Library Set of 100 Books

10. Set of 30 Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics: A set of 30 Children’s Classics, brand new from the publisher, selected to form a wonderful collection for boys, girls and families!  $495.

Everyman's Library of Children's Classics

11. Set of 10 Puffin Children’s Classics: Set of 10 books in the Puffin Classics Series, designed for children, published by Penguin in beautiful, colorful, decorative bindings.  $170.

Puffin Classics Children's Book Set

12. Charles Dickens Penguin Set: Set of 6 Charles Dickens books including A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, in decorative bindings in a custom box.  $125.

Penguin Charles Dickens Set

Happy Father’s Day!

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

Tags: creative ideas, custom book covers, custom printed book jackets

Facebooks Go Public

Posted on 18. May, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

Congratulations to Facebook and all the Facebook employees and investors out there!  Call me if you need help with your library!

Or I can help you perhaps with a special gift for your favorite chief executive – History of the Hoodie anyone?  Instead of a book jacket, the book comes with a book hoodie.  (Perhaps I should trademark that, along with the Rick Santorum Book Sweater Vest.)   And for every person that orders “Hoodies in History” I will customize it slightly so that no two are alike!  (Note that this book does not really exist yet, but that has never stopped me from bringing a book to life!)

In all seriousness – something that sort of does exist, but is in it’s infancy are my “Face Book Jackets.”  They are printed book jackets that you wrap around your own books, and they have a picture of you on them – a literal Face Book.  Get it?

I have to give credit where credit is due – my father, Barry Wine, encouraged me to make these and so the very first face book jacket I made was for him.

Barry Wine Face Book

Then Mark Zuckerberg came next . . .

Mark Zuckerberg Face Book

Then Steve Jobs . . .

Steve Jobs Face Book

Then I made myself a SET of face book jackets to be my facebook profile picture . . .

Thatcher Wine Face Book

I’m happy to make anyone a single face book jacket that wants one – just send me a high resolution picture and one share of FB stock.  We also accept credit cards, paypal or good old fashioned checks.  Pricing for the jackets has not really been set yet – I’m waiting for JP Morgan to get back to me – however your indication of the strength of demand for vanity facebook jackets (or hoodies) would be greatly appreciated!

I can also make you a multi-volume SET of books with your picture across the spines (like me)- just tell me how big you want it to be and we will work out the logistics and the price.  Want a 15 foot high installation of literary classics with your picture on the spines, no problem, give me a call.

Thatcher Wine Face Book Display

Whatever size you order, your personalized facebooks will put you in some pretty serious company . . .

Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Barry Wine

And it can be your own individual way to “go public” with face books.

Sincerely,

Thatcher Wine

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

facebook.com/juniperbooks

Tags: creative book art, creative ideas, custom book covers, custom made books, custom printed book jackets, custom wrapped books, thatcher wine

Images Across Multiple Books

Posted on 05. Mar, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Styles, Ideas and Advice

We invented custom designed and printed book jackets for a variety of reasons, but turning book spines into a canvas with unlimited possibilities was definitely one of them. The elephant image, one of our first creations which was inspired by an antique engraving, was made semi-famous by the New York Times article Selling a Book by Its Cover in January 2011.

Since then we have gone on to design and print a number of cool graphical images across book spines that turn bookshelves into art – the projects shown here are just the tip of the iceberg. Example of some of the innovative designs we can custom print across book spines. The elephant series uses an antique engraving on the spines, this set is for sale as a product in our online store.

Customers may supply images for us to print, or we can create them. The underlying books used in this series are generally “filler” books, but we can also coordinate the books with the jacket designs, please inquire for possibilities. Our Jack London project shows the possibilities of building a real book collection and designing jackets around and inspired by the content of the books.

See also our post regarding the custom jacket library we created for the Green Room of the 2012 Academy Awards® using images of classic film scenes across the books.  Also our write up of some of our larger projects where the installations are getting larger and more creative – Going Big – Large Scale Custom Book Jacket Installations.

We  love working on custom book jacket projects for clients.  Truly anything is possible, so please feel free to contact thatcher@juniperbooks.com, call 303-946-1494 or use the form below.

Tags: creative book art, creative ideas, custom book covers, library artist, visual merchandising books

A Video Valentine to the Printed Book

Posted on 13. Feb, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

One day last week, our shipping table was full of books and book sets that we were getting ready to ship for delivery by Valentine’s Day (this year we created a lot of gift book sets in pinks, reds and purples).  I looked at all the books and their custom jackets – they looked so bright and colorful all together, like a room full of fresh flowers!  I had an idea to make a video of all the books and thus this Video Valentine to the Printed Book was born.

Enjoy and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Visit our store to purchase many of the “stars” of the video.

Bronte Sisters Custom Book Set

See also our Valentine’s Day DIY project which is featured in the book.

Valentine's Day Gift Book Set with DIY Book Jackets

We are always open to commissions and personalized versions of our books and book jackets – please contact thatcher@juniperbooks.com or call 303-946-1494 for more information.

Valentine’s DIY Project

Posted on 11. Feb, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

I’ve always said books make great gifts for any occasion as there is a book for everyone and the act of choosing and giving a book can be very personal.  Valentine’s Day provides a wonderful occasion to give a book or a set of books to your Valentine.  I created this do-it-yourself project for our friends at Design Sponge, they published it and it looks fantastic on their site: Valentine Book Collection from Juniper Books.

Valentine's Day DIY Book Jackets

Here is the complete project – this is a great way to take four books you already own and dress them up as a new gift, or you can purchase new books for the project.  It only takes a couple hours to complete so you still have time to make before Valentine’s Day!  For the set of books I made, I chose four classic love stories, however it can be made with any books.

Materials for DIY Valentine Book Jackets

Materials:

4 Books of approximately equal size

2 large sheets of white drawing paper (approx. 19 x 25″ or larger)

2 large sheet of pink drawing paper (approx. 19 x 25″ or larger)

Note: I recommend a relatively lightweight paper for the white “inside” jacket and a thicker drawing paper for the “outside” jacket.

1 Fiskars Shape Cutter tool

1 Fiskars Hearts Template 4855

Pencil

Red Marker

24″ Paper Cutter (or a Rotary Cutter and X-acto knife will work fine)

24″ Ruler

Double sided tape or paper glue

Instructions:

1. Pick out your books

You can use books from your existing collection and give them a fresh new look, or find new or used books to buy.  The great thing about making these jackets is that it will turn your books into a uniform set, so they can be any color to start with.  Using the tools specified, the only requirement is that the books are at least 1″ thick – if they are smaller you will have to hand draw and cut the heart shapes.

Pick Out Your Valentine's Book Set

2. Cut the book jackets to size

Like each book flat on its back with the spine facing you with both the paper and the book against a straight edge.  Mark the paper at the edge of the book.  You want the jacket to fit the height of the book precisely or slightly larger so that the original color of the book is covered up.  If you are using the 19 x 25″ paper, cut the paper on the long side so that you end up with a sheet that is the size of the book plus about 3-4 inches for the flaps at the front and back of the book – for example 9″ tall by 19″ long.  Cut one jacket of white paper and one of pink paper for each book. Do not discard the extra paper, we will use at least some of the white paper for a book band, and you can use the other scraps to practice shape cutting.

Mark Paper to Size of Books

Cut Jackets Using Paper Cutter

Alternate Paper Cutting Method

3. Fold the jackets around the books.

Before you start folding it’s helpful to pencil a number discreetly on each book and jacket so you know which jackets go with which book.   Place each book in the center of the jacket you have cut in order to fold the jacket around it.  Start with the white jacket.  Before folding the jacket around the front and back cover, “score” the jacket along the book edges, this will help with achieving a nice clean fold.  When you perform the second fold you will want to leave a little extra room, if the jacket is folded too tightly, it won’t allow the book to close completely.  You may need to give the top jacket – the pink one – even more breathing room in order for the book to open and close smoothly.

Scoring the Folding Edge

Keep Track of Which Books Go on Which Jackets

4. Cut the heart shapes on the pink jackets.

Take the pink jackets off the books.  There should be a nice visible fold showing the width of the spine.  Now, using your using your ruler and pencil, mark a spot that is in the middle of the spine width, at the same height across for all 4 of the book jackets.  I used 6″ from the bottom of the jacket to measure to the middle top of the heart.  Every book may be a different height so it is important to measure from the bottom for the hearts to align.   Working on one pink jacket at a time, align the smallest Fiskars Heart from the template (1″ wide) with your pencil mark.  Holding the template firmly in place, use the Fiskars Shape Cutter to cut out the heart.  If you do not have the Fiskars tools, you can easily draw the heart shape, then cut it out with an exacto knife.  Try practicing on the paper scraps you generated earlier if desired.

Measuring Placement for the Hearts

Alternative Freehand Heart Cutting Method

Cutting Hearts

5. Writing L-O-V-E letters

Once all four of the heart shapes are cut out of the jackets, put the pink jackets back on the books so that the underlying white jackets show through.  Then, using your red marker, write one letter in each opening on the white paper that shows through the heart shapes.  If your books are different sizes, just make sure you have the order you will want to display them in before you write the letters.

Waiting for the Love

Writing L-O-V-E Letters

L-O-V-E in the Hearts

6. Making a Book Band

Using some of the white paper scrap generated in the second step, you can make a book band to wrap around all the books in order to present them as a set along with your gift message.  To wrap around 4 books, you will likely need a 25″ piece of paper that is about 1.5″ wide, depending on the paper size you started with, you may need to tape or glue two scraps together.  Once you have the 1.5 x 25″ paper, line it up so that you can see where the visible portion will be on the spine – usually it’s nice to have have the paper taped or glued to itself on the back cover of the books.  Write your gift message on the book band.  Then attach the book band to itself with double sided tape or a few drops of glue.  The book band should be nice and tight so that it holds the books together securely.

Making a Book Band

Congratulations, your book set is now complete and ready for the big day!

Valentine's Day Gift Book Set with DIY Book Jackets

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Thatcher

To see some of our Valentine’s Day book sets  for sale, please visit our store by clicking here or on the photo below.

I Love / Heart Books

Tags: book gifts, creative ideas, DIY, Valentine's Day Gifts

Valentine’s Day Gift Guide

Posted on 31. Jan, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Resources, Ideas and Advice

I firmly believe that books make great gifts for any occasion and for every potential gift recipient, there is a book you can give them that they will love, even if they don’t like books!  Sorry if that was a bit of brain twister, but it’s true – if literary classics aren’t of interest, an impressive coffee table book on a favorite topic (Motorcycles? Paris? Fried Chicken?) might appeal!

February has arrived and Valentine’s Day isn’t far away.  For the holiday we have created several Valentine’s Day themed book sets matched with our custom book jackets in reds, pinks, purples and other colors.   Below you will find links to our new offerings.  Please click on the links below or on the photos to be taken directly to the items in our online store.

1. I Love Books Set – $150.  This set shows that the proud owner loves printed books – and the “love” books have been specifically selected for Valentine’s Day given their romantic themes.  The set of 5 brand new books includes Persuasion by Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.  See also the slight variation on this set.

I Love / Heart Books

2. Jane Austen Set in pink leather style jackets – $235.  Our most popular set when we launched it just before the holidays at the end of 2011, the product was featured in Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP. The set is comprised of the complete works of Jane Austen, published by Oxford, then we made custom printed jackets to look like pink leather covers.  A great gift set of classic novels including Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice and Emma.

Jane Austen Pink Leather Style Book Set

3. Literary Classics in Red- $250.  This set incorporates 8 literary classics with our custom jackets in a bold modern design that spells out exactly what they are.  The books are all new and include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Literary Classics in Red

4. Valentine’s Day Decorative 3 Book Set ($45) and Decorative 5 Book Set ($75).  The underlying books are re-purposed law books, so these sets are all about the design of the jackets, which are eye-catching, fun and very pink!  These are great for decorating the house for an event, or for retailers to merchandise store windows.

Valentines Day 3 Book Decorative Set

Horizontal Valentine's Day Set

5. Modern Victorian Set in Red – $225.  This set uses a classic Victorian book design from the late 19th century for the book jackets, wrapped around five 20th Century American classics.  The books include classics from Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Willa Cather and John Cheever.

Modern Victorian Book Set in Red

6. Cook’s Books in Pink – $250. Our set of 5 classic cookbooks now comes in pink for Valentine’s Day.  Cleverly contained within the letters for Cook’s Books are the titles and authors of the books.  The books are all brand new and include The Joy of Cooking, The Essential New York Times Cookbook and American Cookery by James Beard.

Pink Cook's Books Set

7. I Love J.D. Salinger Set – $150.  Salinger is one of my favorite writers and I came up with this simple idea for the four volumes that make up his complete works.  Like the “Literary Classics” and “Cook’s Books” sets above, this set places the titles for the books within the letters on the spines.  This is a great gift for guys – trust me!

I Love JD Salinger Set

8. European Engraving “Six Pack” – $90.  This set of 6 books is purely decorative.  We have re-purposed six substantially sized law books with an image from an antique engraving that is beautiful, detailed and engaging.  This is a fun way to decorate your shelves with a festive image of lovers, musicians and revelers at a Renaissance village gathering. -

European Engraving Decorative Book Set

9. Bronte Sisters Purple Book Set – $300.  This set of 7 books represent the complete works of the Brontë sisters – Anne, Charlotte and Emily.  The classic works include Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.  We unified the set with a very pretty floral design and jackets printed in a leather style in purple .

Brontë Sisters in Purple Jackets

10. Two Ladies Traveling Decorative Set- $60.  This set isn’t necessarily specific to Valentine’s Day, but I think it’s a very nice design for the shelves.  Like the European Engraving set above, it uses re-purposed law books as the underlying volumes.  The beautiful jacket design is based on a Victorian book cover that we love.

Two Ladies Traveling Decorative Book Set

11. Pretty Woman in Mirror Decorative Set – $60.  Same as the set immediately above, a Victorian book cover caught our eye and we turned it into a design for the book jackets on this set of re-purposed law books.  Our ideas for book designs are sometimes purely decorative and not about the content of the books – sometimes we combine content and style, sometimes we choose one over the other!

Pretty Woman in the Mirror Decorative Book Set

12. Blank Journals – $15 each.  This is a new experiment for us!  We are taking old book designs that we love and using the artwork on the covers of blank unlined journals.  They aren’t fancy, but they are unique and you won’t find them anywhere else.  Depending on how this experiment goes (please buy one!) we will continue to develop this line and create some very interesting journals . . .

Juniper Books Blank Journals with Vintage Book Covers

13. Penguin Classics – we didn’t create these, but we love their design and are happy to build custom collections of them.  We offer a set of 10 where you can pick your titles and we will ship the selected books to you.

Penguin Classics

14. Gift Certificates – if you want to give the gift of books but don’t know exactly what to buy, our gift certificates are a great choice.  Unlike a traditional bookstore where the gift certificate is only good towards what they have in the store, you can use Juniper Books Gift Certificates towards anything and everything book related – custom book jackets, custom bookbinding, rare book or first edition searches, and much more.

A quick thank you to the various blogs who have discovered some of our Valentine’s Day creations and featured them on their sites including DesignSponge.com, BookRiot.com and lots of tumblr users.  We love how the web works and how everyone can discover something they never knew existed!  Keep it flowing . . .

Happy Almost Valentine’s Day!

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

Tags: custom book covers, custom printed book jackets, decorative books, repurposing books, Valentine's Day Gifts

Movies and Videos about Books and Booksellers

Posted on 29. Jan, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

Movies based on books are plentiful of course, but movies about books, bookstores and booksellers, in the broader sense are fewer and far between.  A few of our favorite movies and videos with book themes – [old books, rare books, bookstores, booksellers, book mysteries, etc.] are listed below.  When you’re not reading a book, these are good entertainment!

1 .The Joy of Books

A delightful creation from Type Bookstore in Toronto Canada – what happens in the bookstore after everyone has gone home.  Sort of a Toy Story with books making use of stop animation and a tight soundtrack to pull off an original production.  I love how the books rearrange themselves by color and also the part where the little book reads the big book.  Definitely a fun one for the whole family to watch.

2. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Just nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short.  The Louisiana based production company Moonbot Studios created this 15 minute gem.  It conveys the magical power of books in a way I haven’t seen captured before.   I love the scene where the main character performs surgery on an old book – just charming.  Hopefully this one wins the Oscar!

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios.

3. 84 Charing Cross Road

“Their love for books became a love for each other.”  This 1987 movie features Anthony Hopkins as a British bookseller and Anne Bancroft as an American writer.  They fall in love via their letters to each, but alas they never meet.  So you can imagine it is a rather restrained and subtle work.  It’s serious and authentic to the book trade, unlike many elements of the next two.

4. The Ninth Gate

Movies featuring booksellers or set in bookstores are a little harder to choose from.  I’m not thrilled with all of them in their entirety (maybe movie about books make for better short films, such as the above, which is ironic of course given how long a real book can hold your attention!)  There are high points and low points in this movie directed by Roman Polanski and starring Johnny Depp.  It’s about a rare book dealer hired by a bibliophile to validate his copy of a demonic text.

5. You’ve Got Mail

The polar opposite of the dark and gloomy Ninth Gate is this happy romantic comedy from Nora Ephron.  Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as competing booksellers (Tom Hanks = big corporate evil bookseller and Meg Ryan = small independent struggling to survive) who are having a secret (unbeknownst to them) online e-mail relationship.  The whole AOL inspired title seems dated but the bookseller war of big vs. small, continues . . .

6. The Love Letter

Before there was  e-mail in You’ve Got Mail, there was real mail!  The Love Letter stars Kate Capshaw as a bookstore owner in New England.  Through a chain of events tied together by a mysterious love letter of unknown origin, a romance unfolds. Based on a novel of the same name by Cathleen Schine, the movie and the book are entertaining and romantic without flashy effects.

I’ll have to return to this post or write up a new one to include my deep thoughts on Pamela Anderson as a bookseller in Stacked!

Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

- Thatcher

Tags: books as art

Going Big – Large Scale Custom Book Jacket Installations

Posted on 10. Jan, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

One of our plans for 2012 is to work with clients to make  large scale book installations using our custom book jackets unlike anything the world has ever seen before!  But first a little background . . .

Custom book covers have a lot of uses and we have worked with clients on some very beautiful projects over the past couple years since introducing them.  The basic idea for custom book covers (aka custom book jackets) is to quickly change the look of a book without the time and expense of rebinding it AND be able to achieve any color and style desired.

Some clients have had us personalize their book collection with modern / contemporary jackets, others have opted for a classical look using leather or vellum designs.  In 2011, we designed, printed and shipped our custom creations to clients all over the US and Canada, Europe and Asia.  We supplied approximately 1,000 of our vellum wrapped books to Darren Henault Interiors for his show house design at the Rumson Stately Homes-by-the-Sea. Other jacket related highlights of 2011 included having our elephant set appear in the New York Times, our vellum style jackets mentioned in Veranda, and also a couple of projects for yacht libraries that were incredibly fun and unique to work on but for very private clients so we can’t disclose much else about them!

Now back to the large scale designs – the concept for these is straightforward – turning book spines into a canvas for personal expression.  Push the books together and they make up a single unified design and that design can be anything.  We have a patent pending on this multiple book cover creation system.

This product/service has both home and commercial applications.

• Home libraries can be modernized, shelves turned into art displays, with book titles integrated into the jacket designs if desired -  we can make book jackets out of  photos, paintings, illustrations, engravings, maps, other artwork, typography and text designs, etc.
• Hotels, restaurants and retailers can have book displays with corporate logos, product photos, nature images, or just about anything else.

Here are a few of our recent creations:

Giant Book Elephant

George Hincapie Bike Racer Library

Medieval Knight Books

Ridley Road Bike

Bookcase Biker

As one can imagine, some very cool installations can be created for homes, galleries, retail stores, trade show booths, showrooms, hotels, spas, restaurants, and so on!

If you have an interest in learning more about this type of work, please contact thatcher@juniperbooks.com or call 303-946-1494.  We are always interested in working with designers, architects, visual merchandisers and private clients who want to do something creative and unique with books.  We look forward to working with you.

Thatcher

Tags: books as art, creative book art, creative ideas, custom printed book jackets, library artist

Cool Book Artists and Book Art Projects

Posted on 01. Jan, 2012 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

These are projects from other artists and sculptors whose work we admire for using books in creative ways.  Please enjoy the links and feel free to suggest other creative works that we have not mentioned.

Thanks to thisiscollassal.com for helping us discover these first two.

• Cool suspended book installation in Istanbul.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanifoto/5450655732

Istanbul Modern Art Museum

• The Book Face

Numa Book Face

• The Work of Brian Dettmer - very intricate, detailed, complex sculptures carved out of books – you have to see these to believe them.

• The Work of Su Blackwell - magical creations bringing books to life in different forms

http://www.sublackwell.co.uk/portfolio-book-cut-sculpture/

• John Marshall’s Book Sphere

http://www.neatorama.com/2011/03/01/book-sphere/

Book Sphere

- Thatcher

 

Tags: books as art, creative book art, creative ideas

Decorative Books

Posted on 29. Dec, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

Q. What are decorative books and who buys them?

A. The answer to this question used to be simple, however I’m trying to change the definition of decorative books and also expand the market for them.

There once was a time when the line between people who put books on their shelf only for decoration with no intention of ever reading them or even caring what their titles were on one side and the true readers who would never think of buying a book for its cover were on the other side.  However, since I founded Juniper Books 10 years ago, what I have been trying to do is make all books, book collections, and libraries more visually appealing and integrated into their surroundings.

The results have been pretty successful I think.  Perhaps it has something to do with the evolution of the e-book market and the increasingly recognized trend among publishers and the media that you have to give the consumer more reasons to own a printed book.  For more on this see Selling a Book by Its Cover and also Selling Books by Their Gilded Covers, both articles in the New York Times.

My approach is to provide beautiful decorative books that are exactly what a homeowner wants to have on their shelves with respect to their content.  Sometimes this is achieved by curating a collection of books by author, or by binding type or both, and sometimes it is achieved by curating these collections AND making custom book jackets for the books.

Consider for example these various styles of books and book collections with varying levels of decoration:

Solid Wrapped Books

Custom Wrapped Rainbow of Colors

William Faulkner Hardcovers

William Faulkner First Edition Library Book Facsimiles Collection

Modern Leather Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Austen Pink Leather

Antique Vellum Books

Vellum Custom Book Jackets

Juniper Books Elephant

Read Me Literary Classics

Literary Classics 8 Book Set

So, as you can see decorative books are not what they used to be and they are appealing to many more people than ever before.  Juniper Books is decorative books much more decorative, but also much more useful, readable, and collectible.  We have done everything in the world of decorative books from making the cover-less book bundles for Pottery Barn to designing unique collections in our custom book covers for several of the world’s finest homes, yachts and hotels (a big range I know but it illustrates how we work with all customers love books and love the look of books).

Coverless Book Bundle

Gwyneth Paltrow featured some of our books in GOOP this year, as did Elle.com, and a huge variety of websites and media.  We are hearing from interior designers, architects, builders and homeowners every week how they love discovering our book products and services and how they are unlike anything they have seen before – I think that’s saying a lot for a medium that’s been around for 500 years!

Oh, and did I mention that we are just getting started?  Look for some incredibly creative new ideas in the world of decorative books in 2012 . . .

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

Tags: books as art, books by coor, books for interior design, books without titles, creative book art, custom book covers, visual merchandising books

Books by the Foot and Beyond

Posted on 27. Dec, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

Books by the foot have been around a long time.  I’m not sure who invented them, but I’d like to think that I’ve taken them to an entirely new level of quality, choice and creativity.  For as long as there have been books, various types of books from antique leather to modern “filler” have been purchased in bulk to fill shelves and achieve a certain decorative look that an abundance of books conveys.  Now it’s possible to both expand the decorative possibilities of books tremendously thanks to what we do at Juniper Books.

What Juniper Books does that is very different from companies and booksellers of “books-by-the-foot” is simple:

We think about EVERY aspect of the books that are going into a client’s library and customize a selection of books that work SPECIFICALLY for that client. 

Every book in our inventory is acquired for the purpose of putting into home libraries or commercial installations – a subtle but important difference – we are not an outlet of a large warehouse bookstore with books to get rid of!

Every project we work on is different and we don’t have a cookie-cutter product that works for every customer.  We listen to our clients whether they are interior designers, architects, builders, homeowners, boat owners, hotels, restaurants, spas, etc. We take all of a customer’s requirements about book and shelf size, color, style, subject matter, budget, room usage, etc. when pricing, selecting and shipping libraries and collections.  If a client doesn’t know what they want, we work with them to determine the appropriate type of books.  It’s not unusual for me to correspond at length with clients or meet in person if appropriate to gain a better understanding of the goals for a home library then custom tailor the selection – for example how old are the kids in the house, what are the hobbies of the family members, who are mom’s favorite authors, etc. (I don’t want to give away all my questions as the whole approach is a bit of a trade secret, however it really distinguishes what I do from anyone else).

John Steinbeck Collection

So, you can buy any of books by the foot – for example literary classics by the foot, modern leather by the foot, vellum books by the foot or even antique leather by the yard, gold books by the meter, white books by the ton, you name it!  With Thatcher overseeing every project you are going to get a level of quality, precision, and detailed project management unlike any other provider.

Black White and Grey Book Jackets

Just in the past few weeks we have shipped these projects to clients:

• 250 linear feet of white books for the conference rooms of a new hotel in Texas
• 300 linear feet of gold wrapped books for a luxury residences building in Central America
• 365 feet of curated books by subject for a hotel in New York
• 40 feet of curated antique leather books including important American authors and histories for a home in South Carolina
• Projects ranging from 6 to 1200 books wrapped in our custom printed book jackets in a variety of styles – for home libraries in Texas, California, Chicago, New York, and beyond.
• Custom jacket projects where we have matched Pantone Colors, Paint Chips, Carpet Samples and Fabric Swatches – nobody else in the world does this!

And when designers and homeowners have called and said “we are on a budget and want the least expensive filler-type books by the foot we can buy” – we have helped them out and assembled book collections that have exceeded their expectations – usually these range from from 5 to 100 feet, but sometimes they are larger.

On the wrapped book projects, we usually work closely with interior designers to choose a particular paper and color for the project.  For example, not all white wrapped books are the same – we have about a dozen different white paper options to choose from.  Juniper Books popularized white wrapped books several years ago – look just about anywhere in Miami and you will find our white books for example the Icon Brickell Spa which was also featured in the New York Times.  Our solid color wrapped books are unlike any others (even with the copycatting we are experiencing from competitors) – we use all new paper in EVERY possible color, various textures, every jacket is cut one at a time to fit each book.

Alfred Lord Tennyson Antique Leather

I grew up in one of the finest restaurants in the world (The Quilted Giraffe) and worked for several years as a management consultant (Monitor Company) so I have learned a few things about quality, accuracy, large scale project management and meeting high pressure deadlines over the years.  I have applied my a whole new level of standards to the sale of books in bulk that many clients never thought possible and that has resulted in many happy customers over the past 10 years and hopefully many more in the years to come.

Please let me know if I can help with any projects to fill your shelves with books that do more than just take up space, and instead truly fulfill your vision.

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

Tags: book selection, books by the foot, books for interior design, custom library

Christmas Tree of Books 2011

Posted on 13. Dec, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

It’s becoming somewhat of a tradition at Juniper Books – every year we build a Christmas tree constructed out of  books, but we change how it is made each year as the possibilities are truly endless.   Last year we made a 7 foot tall tree made up of about 800 green books stacked layer upon layer.  This year we made a more subtle creation – a tree made up entirely of olive green law books, some of which we carved form the tree’s branches.

Before anyone gets upset about cutting books we should explain a couple things – first of all we re-purposed about 10,000 law books this year this year that law firms and law libraries no longer needed as their content has all been digitized.  Thousands of these very nice substantial matching books went to retailers and designers for decoration and visual merchandising, and hundreds more we have used many for Juniper Books’ custom  jacket creations such as our Elephant Six-Pack.  So, cutting, chopping, carving or drilling through a few books that we know are plentiful and may face worse fates if we don’t do something creative with them makes perfect sense to us!  We won’t be dismembering a first edition of Pride and Prejudice anytime soon, don’t worry.

The tree is about 8 feet tall on 7 shelves, plus the star.  Christmas ornaments dangle from the page edges – we shaped them to hold the ornaments – a very organic and 100% natural approach.  Christmas lights are wrapped around the tree so it glows beautifully.

The tree was the centerpiece of our holiday party this past weekend where we invited numerous friends, customers, suppliers, designers and others to celebrate the holiday season and browse our warehouse for various book gifts to buy for their friends and family. Thanks to everyone who attended and complimented us on the tree.  There were a number of lawyers in attendance (my wife is a law professor) and they all got a kick out of the creative use of law books.

Technical questions: 30 books were used in the creation of the tree, of which 24 had to be cut in some way to create the tree.  While we originally considered gluing the parts together or constructing supports to hold the books up, we did not end up doing so as the law books are substantial enough to support themselves, even after being cut.

Happy holidays to you and yours, I wish you the best for the holiday season and a happy healthy 2012!

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

Tags: books as art, creative book art, creative ideas, decorative books, library artist

Juniper Books Holiday Gift Guide

Posted on 25. Nov, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

Happy holidays from Juniper Books!  Books make great gifts – no matter who the recipient is, one can always find a book that they will appreciate.  From rare books to unusual sets, customized book collecting services or even our custom book jackets – Juniper Books can help with you with unique and beautiful book gifts.

Below is our guide to some of our most popular book gifts – if you don’t see your preferred choice for your gift, please feel free to contact us at thatcher@juniperbooks.com – we have a lot of experiencing finding the perfect gift book for clients.

Literary Classics

Pink Jane Austen Set

Recently featured in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Holiday Gift Guide, we took this new six volume set of the complete works of Jane Austen and made custom book jackets in a pink leather style for them.  $235.

Jane Austen Pink Leather

“Read Me” Literary Classics

Lets face it, with the popularity of e-books these days, the books on your shelf are practically crying out “read me!”  This 4 book set makes a great gift for lovers of classic literature with a sense of humor.  $150

Read Me Literary Classics

Penguin Classics – Make Your Own Set of 10

Penguin hardcover literary classics are beautifully designed books that make great gifts.  They are generally sold one at a time, however we we believe they look great as a set.  $200

Penguin Classics

Modern Leather Literary Classics Set of 10

Full leather bound literary classics that look beautiful on the shelves and make great gifts. $350

Thackeray First Editions in Beautiful Red Leather Bindings

This is a one-of-a-kind set of 15 books, all first editions from William Makepeace Thackeray, custom bound in decorative red leather over a century ago.  Only one set available.  A great gift for any collector of first editions, classic British literature, or anyone interested adding rare books of lasting value to their shelves.  $3,000

Rare Thackeray First Editions for Sale

Literary Classics Set of 8 Books

This set of 8 books in custom jackets designed by Juniper Books makes a great gift for the literature lover with a modern aesthetic for their shelves.

Literary Classics 8 Book Set

Victorian Style 5 Book Set

We took inspiration from antique Victorian books to design this set of 5 custom jackets wrapped around true American classics.

Brothers Grimm Illustrated Edition from Taschen

Another one of our favorite books of the year, we love this oversize illustrated edition of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales. $40

Taschen Brothers Grimm

Cookbooks

Cook’s Books Set

Cook's Books Set

Purely Decorative Books

Elephant Six-pack

We have designed a series of decorative book jackets that we sell with re-purposed law books, so these are purely decorative elements for the shelves. $90

Juniper Books Elephant

Six-Packs in a variety of leather colors

Not real leather, hence their economical price point.  Available in simulated brown leather, red leather, black and white leather and vellum.  Please click on the photos below to be taken to the individual sets. $90

Brown Leather Style Decorative Books

Red Leather Style Decorative Books

Black & White Leather Style Decorative Books

Vellum Style Decorative Books

Antique Leather Law Books

If you know someone who loves the look of leather books but the content is not important, however they still want the real thing and not our custom book jackets that look like leather, our antique leather law books by the foot are a good option.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juniper Books Gift Cards

If you can’t find exactly what you want, we can help you set up a gift card in any amount so that the recipient can pick out what they want.  The gift can be used towards anything book related – we can help with a rare book search, sourcing a first edition, building a curated book collection, designing custom book covers, custom leather bindings, and much more.  $ any amount

Juniper Books Gift Certificates

Thanks for looking and enjoy the holidays!

Thatcher

Tags: antique leather books, gift wrapping books, home library, literary classics

Buying Our Custom Book Covers

Posted on 13. Nov, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Styles, Ideas and Advice

We receive a lot of inquiries from customers who say “we love your custom book covers, how do I order them?”  Since it is a relatively new product to the market that is highly customized and personalized, there are a few things to think about when placing an order and considering your project, whether it be remodeling your library, integrating  books into your interior design, picking out a special gift, etc. Here is a bit of a primer on how to order Custom Book Covers (aka Custom Book Jackets) from Juniper Books.

1. Do you have the books in your collection you would like covered, or would you like Juniper Books to provide the books with the covers?  95% of our work involves picking out a book collection by author and/or subject and then making book covers for those books.  Some clients have books they want to keep so they send us their books to make covers for and we ship them back with the covers on.  Why do we need the books, can’t we just ship out the covers?  Every book cover is custom designed and printed specifically for that book – we take precise measurements and fold the jackets onto the books to make sure they fit exactly.  Call us perfectionists, we are obsessed with the quality of our product and they just don’t look right if we try to make a one size fits all jacket that can be shipped without the book . . . maybe down the road.

2. Are the books purely decorative or is the content important?  If the content is important, skip to question 3.  If the books are purely decorative, skip to question 4, we can provide generic books and focus on the book jackets.    If the books are mostly decorative but you would still like the titles printed on them, we have various categories of books that are less expensive (bestsellers, mysteries, etc.) but still nice to have on the shelves.

3. If we are picking out the books, what would you like the collection to include?  Our most popular request is for literary classics, broadly defined.  Some clients request specific authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, etc.  Some clients want subject matter such as history, biographies, philosophy, art, etc.  Other clients may have a particular size request that can be combined with the subject matter or not – such as oversize illustrated literary classics, oversize photography books, and similar requests.

4. What style would you like your book covers?   Here is where the choices are infinite! Customers can choose from some styles we have already created or we are always open to creating custom styles.

One option are our series of modern contemporary designs with solid jackets and bold titles.

Black White and Grey Book Jackets

Book titles printed on different types of paper, such as these metallic silver book covers:

Silver Book Jackets

Typefaces and colors can all be customized as shown with this Anne Rice Vampire series:

Anne Rice Collection

Alternatively, if you would like a design that transforms your modern books into antique looking classics, we can make custom book jackets that look like leather books:

Leather Book Covers

Or, one of our most popular styles is our antique vellum style book covers:

Vellum Book Covers

As with all of the jackets, the leather and vellum colors, accents and embellishments can all be modified and customized.

Pink Jane Austen

One of the most innovative looks that we have introduced, and for which we have a patent pending, are the books sets or groups/collections that have image that goes across the spines.   These are great to turn your bookshelves into an art display – the images can correlate to the content or be purely decorative.

Elephant Books

Or the text on the spine can make a statement across multiple books such as our literary classics set for sale – note that within each of the big letters are the names of the authors and titles.

Literary Classics

Or this set of cookbooks:

Then there are the more involved multi-layered projects that give you a sense of how far we can take this.   For the project below, we first built a collection of the works of Jack London, then we commissioned an artist to paint murals of scenes from London’s life, the we photographed the jackets and created book jackets that when pushed together recreate the murals.  The jackets are all personalized for the collection with book titles listed on the inside flaps of the books.

Jack London Jackets

We can also do somewhat whimsical designs for store displays or other uses:

Sports Car Book Jackets

For commercial customers, there is always the option to put a logo on the book covers:

Logos on Custom Book Jackets

Or across a group of books – nice for a hotel lobby, retail store branding, or other uses:

Logo Across Multiple Books

Alternatively we can create designs that match the subject of a book such as this Western series:

Western Collection

Or this kids / children’s book set:

Puffin Classics Books for Kids

Hopefully this provides some more information for how to place your custom book cover order so you can utilize our unique products and services!  Please feel free to inquire with us for more information.  We do not post prices on our website besides the few ready-made products for sale, as these projects are highly customized.  They are still relatively affordable, but the pricing does vary depending on level of customization.

Please contact thatcher@juniperbooks.com or 303-946-1494 to place an order or for more information or use the form below.

Our DIY Book Mobile on Instructables.com

Posted on 13. Oct, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

We recently turned some old books into a new “Book Mobile” hanging sculpture to decorate the Juniper Books warehouse.  We thought it would be fun to share instructions on this one as a DIY (do it yourself) project so we posted it to Instructables.com.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Book-Mobile/

The editors liked our write-up and featured it on their homepage.

Yes, we admit that some books were harmed in the process of making The Book Mobile – but in keeping with our theory that more books in the world and more books in the house (or warehouse) are good for the world, it doesn’t really matter if they are being read or can be read, we like to think of new ways to keep them around as inspiration.   The Victorian books used for the project are so gorgeous and yet there are only so many bookshelves to put them on that I’m constantly inventing new ways to display them – stay tuned for more on this thought!

Thatcher

Juniper Books Book Mobile Sculpture

Tags: books as art, creative book art, creative ideas

The Book Wall

Posted on 02. Oct, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

This was another idea I came up with with my kids as the inspiration, but I also took some inspiration from the architecture where we live in Boulder, Colorado.

For our playroom, I wanted the kids to have a reading nook / library corner where they could read books quietly and relax.  However, being a creative bookseller, always interested in displaying books in interesting ways, I didn’t just want to settle for a simple bookshelf and library chair in the corner!  I wanted the area to be interesting and fun and be the first of its kind!

Thus, the book wall was born – first, we wrapped hundreds of books in linen for a nice uniform color effect (these books were just for decoration, their colorful children’s books were the ones I wanted to stand out), next we constructed panels with the books glued to them, then anchored them into the walls.  The effect is similar to the rock walls found around Colorado and elsewhere made of flagstone in a nice layered design, however these are made with books.  The walls are soft and while the books on the wall are not meant to be read, it is nice to be surrounded by books.

- Thatcher

This design can be adopted for just about any construction project where the look of books is desired in a creative manner – the books do not have to be covered in linen in this way, they can be left unmodified, or leather books can be used, etc.

For more information on this project and potential related commissions, please contact me at thatcher@juniperbooks.com or 303-946-1494.

Tags: book accessories, books as art, custom wrapped books

Library Ladder

Posted on 02. Oct, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

After assembling a collection for a client in Texas, a high end luxury residences building, the client asked if we knew where they could purchase an attractive yet functional and safe library ladder.  We searched for them, but there seemed to be nothing available for sale between small step-stools and industrial (ugly) library ladders.

So, as with many things at Juniper Books that we do – if it doesn’t exist in the book world, we will create it.   This is Thatcher’s philosophy.

We partnered with a woodworker who drafted  a custom design for a library ladder that would be tall enough to reach the high shelves yet sturdy enough to be comfortable with the residents of the building – young and old – using the ladder.  It is entirely constructed of walnut wood, which gives it a beautiful appearance.  It rolls on weight sensitive casters so that it stays put when someone is standing on it.

We are accepting orders for library ladders and other custom book related woodwork projects such as bookshelves, bookcases, built-in bookcase, step-stools and library ladders. All designs, woods, and finishes may be completely customized.

To contact us regarding your commercial project, please e-mail thatcher@juniperbooks.com, call Thatcher at 303-946-1494, or use the form below.

Tags: book accessories, home library

Magnetic Bookshelves

Posted on 02. Oct, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

The idea for these magnetic bookshelves came from wanting to do something about the messy pile of books next to my daughter’s bed that we generated reading her children’s books every night.  I thought “what if we could read her favorite books then stick them to the wall instead of dropping them on the floor?”

I set about designing a shelving system that would look good and hold the books safely above and next to her head.  With the help of a metalworker and a woodworker, and some experimentation with magnetics, glue and rubber bands, the idea I conceived of came into being and my daughter loves going along the line of books, reading them all, and sticking them back in place before bedtime – it’s neat and tidy, as well as fun to play with.

Custom versions of this product can be commissioned.  Please contact me at thatcher@juniperbooks.com or 303-946-1494 if you are interested in the magnetic bookshelves.

Tags: book accessories, childrens books, library artist, thatcher wine

The Book Mobile

Posted on 02. Oct, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

I have always loved the word “bookmobile” even before I found myself the book business – the concept of a traveling library is fun and useful to society.  About a year ago I drilled some holes in books and spun them around and the first “book mobile” was born.  We have since evolved the concept to become a much more balanced and decorative item – it is very fun, but hardly as useful to society as the bookmobile that drives around and brings books to the world!

Thanks to Alexander Calder for some inspiration on this, and thanks to Zac for perfecting the production and balancing act required for the new book mobile.

This project is current on Instructables.com with complete DIY instructions.  The editors of Instructables apparently liked our concept and featured the project on their homepage!

Tags: books as art, creative book art, creative ideas, library artist

Suspended Book Fixtures and Lighting

Posted on 30. Aug, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

Thatcher made these suspended books stacks using our custom wrapped books in linen fabric hung with steel cables from the warehouse ceiling.  The light fixtures were also conceived by Thatcher using retro Edison style bulbs and the alternating books and lights makes for a unique divider.

To inquire about Thatcher’s art projects made from books including commissioning custom works, please feel free to e-mail thatcher@juniperbooks.com or use the form below.

Tags: books as art, repurposing books, thatcher wine

Wrapped Book Towers

Posted on 30. Aug, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

This isn’t really an art project but more of a design concept for cool ways to modify and display books, perhaps in a merchandising / retail environment.

Thatcher sometimes uses the book warehouse as somewhat of an R&D lab for how to use books in new and creative ways.  The book towers are a creative idea for displaying stacks of books. The concept starts with using wrapped books in neutral tones in order to allow the viewer to focus on how the books are arranged, instead of being distracted by their original colors and/or titles.  The books I chose all had deckled page edges so they look great from all sides.

To inquire about Thatcher’s art projects made from books including commissioning custom works, please feel free to e-mail thatcher@juniperbooks.com or use the form below.

Tags: books as art, repurposing books, visual merchandising books

Book Stairs

Posted on 30. Aug, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

The stairs in the Juniper Books warehouse always seemed very naked and I considered painting them or carpeting them, neither of which really would have solved the problem (or made use of the opportunity!)  Then I came up with the idea of using some of the plentiful modern fiction bestsellers I have around to make book panels for the risers.  The result is a very cool book staircase with real book spines on each step, giving the impression of an abundance of books under the stairs and adding to the overall literary decor of the warehouse!

To inquire about Thatcher’s art projects made from books including commissioning custom works, please feel free to e-mail thatcher@juniperbooks.com or use the form below.

Tags: books as art, repurposing books, thatcher wine

Red White and Blue Books

Posted on 04. Jul, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice

Happy Fourth of July!   All color combinations are possible with books, including with leather and vellum books, hardcover clothbound books, nice old victorian books, and our custom designed and printed book covers.  Here are a few photos to enjoy on this Independence Day.

Tags: books by coor, decorative books

Fun with Book Jackets and a Camera

Posted on 07. Jun, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

OK, maybe I had too much fun with this one, but I wanted to show what is possible with our custom designed and printed book jackets and a little creativity.

For one photo shoot, we made book covers using an image of pizza then I played around with placing them in a pizza box and with a pizza cutter!

For another one, I brought in one of my Navajo blankets and rounded up some western americana items, then arranged them with the books we made with images from an old sioux ledger drawing.

Lastly, the most fun I had was with my son’s toy ride on car (awesome vintage roadster from babystyle) and some of the miniature formula 1 style cars weaving in and out of the vintage race car book jackets.

I can make just about any design on book spines, and as you can see it can be whimsical and fun from these Juniper Books projects.  Or it can be serious as with our vellum style or antique leather style book covers.

Tags: custom book covers, custom printed book jackets, custom wrapped books, juniper books, library artist, thatcher wine

Easton Press Books

Posted on 27. May, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Book Resources, Ideas and Advice

We’ve added an entire new area of the site that focuses on Easton Press books.  We now have pages devoted to different series of the leather bound books from Easton Press far beyond the 100 Greatest Books series (that page isn’t quite done yet).  You can link directly to the pages from the photos below.

I have always loved Easton Press published leather bound books and we are big fans of how they are keeping the art of leather bound books alive and well.  Easton Press publishes a beautiful assortment of literary classics and important histories.  We buy a lot of collections of Easton Press books from private individuals and are always happy to acquire libraries of these books.

To learn more about selling your Easton Press books to us, please click here.

We tend to price the books very reasonably and straightforwardly compared to other dealers – we believe that these are beautiful books that should be affordable and that individual volumes should not be overpriced due to temporary fluctuations in market availability.  When building a collection of Easton Press books, we generally price them at a flat rate per book or per foot and the result is that our customers get to buy more books in a very straightforward manner.  We keep customer lists on file so we can help complete series or collections over time.  Many of our customers for Easton Press books have worked with us over years and are consistently amazed at our ability to find elusive titles and willingness to sell them at low prices.

Please see our new pages through the link below, we will be adding many more photos and links from our collection soon:

Author Collections

Biographies

Great Books of the Twentieth Century

History

Library of the Presidents

Military History

Other

Oversize

Science

Science Ficton

Sets

Signed

Tags: books by the foot, decorating leather books, easton press, franklin library, home library, leather books by the foot, leather bound classics

Antique Leather Style Book Covers

Posted on 19. May, 2011 by Thatcher Wine in Blog, Ideas and Advice, Recent Projects

Antique leather books are beautiful and timeless.  However, not all books are available or affordable in antique leather editions!  That’s one of the reasons I invented custom book covers that can be designed and printed in any style.

Juniper Books is the first company to design and print gorgeous book jackets that really look like leather books at a fraction of the cost and with many more possibilities for color, design details, and coordinating bookshelves or entire libraries.  Please browse some of our recent creations and feel free to contact me about your project involving books and how our custom book jackets can find a home on your shelves.

Thatcher

thatcher@juniperbooks.com

303-946-1494

Tags: antique leather books, books by the foot, books for interior design, creative ideas, custom library, custom made books, custom printed book jackets, custom wrapped books, decorative leather books, library artist, thatcher wine