For Valentine’s Day this year I wanted to transform my rainbow bookcase into a heart shaped one. Lovely! I love working with the calendar and creating seasonal content so Valentine’s Day is no exception. It is the perfect time to get creative with content, whether that is food, fashion, beauty, lifestyle or interiors content. Just think outside the box! In summer, I bought a plain white Billy Bookcase from Ikea which created a really simple backdrop for a rainbow bookcase theme. The content did SO WELL on my Instagram that I thought it might be worth looking at how I could use the rainbow themes in other ways. So here we are, this is how I made my very own Heart Shaped Rainbow Bookcase in time for Valentine’s Day. You can read my previous blog post on how to make a Rainbow Bookcase here.

Heart Shaped Rainbow Bookcase Inspiration

First up, my inspiration was all the incredible Christmas themed bookcases I’d seen. However, I couldn’t find much on heart shaped bookcases for Valentine’s Day so I wanted to see if I could do it! You know when you get a great idea and then you usually don’t do it? Well this time I was utterly determined. Although halfway through I was worried I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Plan Your Heart Shaped Rainbow Bookcase

I thought about this bookcase A LOT before moving a single book.

I realised given the books I had I could either, create a rainbow heart shape in the middle – which I have done. Alternatively I could keep all the books where they were and just switch the ones within the heart shape around so the spines were showing (to create the shape). I also could have just created the outline of the heart shape by adding the spines of the red ones within the bookcase.

In the end I decided (and this was based on the books I estimated I had, that it was easiest to take them all off the shelves and create the rainbow effect in a heart shape.

This would allow me to stack books and fully fill the central part of the heart.

I planned to keep the heart all bright colours and the edges would be all black and white. This was based on the number of books I had.

How to Make A Heart Shaped Rainbow Bookcase

Take them off – I’d like to say that I was clever enough to work with the books on the shelves, but the truth is, they all had to come off and start again.

I did take photos of the layout before I moved them. So I could try and replicate the original layout after Valentine’s Day.

Create the Heart Shape with the Books

Once they’re off, I started from the top. I knew that my top would have a small stack of red. Logically, red is always at the top for me and this also worked well with Valentine’s Day. I ran out of those pretty quickly so I moved onto a mixture of colours, working through the rainbow.

The hard bit is mirroring the books on either side as you’re not likely to have two identical books, so just work with what you have.

Tips on creating the shape – make sure you fill the shelves in the middle of the heart. so stack these ones up to create a solid shape. It helps if these are smaller books of the same side. On the edges, use larger books and make them smaller towards the edges.

It is worth noting I made a big heart but you could make a much smaller one. If you start to run out of books, just adjust the size. I ended up with a few large black books at the bottom as I had run out!

Finishing Off Your Heart Shaped Rainbow Bookcase with Flowers and Lights

When I’d completed it, I was a bit disappointed with the definition of the heart shape so I went out and bought pink tulips and red roses to add to the shape. I think this was a really good idea to make it even more romantic. Because it was so dark, I also added lights, although I think I prefer it plainer. What do you think?

How Long Did It Take To Create a Rainbow Bookcase?

This took me agesssss. I did it over the period of three days, mainly because it is January in the UK and lighting was an issue throughout. I did two hours the first day, three the second and then added flowers and lights on the final day. I’d say you need a solid day to do this (maybe less) and maybe more if you’re taking pics and videos.

Watch the video

Read next – How To Make a Rainbow Bookcase with Billy Bookcase.

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