Custom Ideal Bookshelf Painting

This is truly one of my most favorite gift discoveries of all time.

Artist Jane Mount is the creator of Ideal Bookshelf. She paints portraits of people through the spines of their favorite books: the ones that changed your life, that defined who you are, that you read again and again.

And she will paint yours!

Ideal Bookshelf: Design by Jane Mount

Ideal Bookshelf: Food52 by Jane Mount

We have a propensity for collecting books in our house. You too? After many heavy moves, our habits have gone the way of the Kindle (mostly) and I miss those treasured book spines still locked away in storage. What a great gift for us, book lovers!

As Jane puts it, a custom Ideal Bookshelf painting is…

Perfect for a birthday or first anniversary (paper!) gift, or for father’s day, graduation, or whenever else you want to celebrate how much you love who that person is on the inside. Also perfect for yourself, for recording who you were at a certain time in your life. Like getting a tattoo but less painful.

Ideal Bookshelf: Kids by Jane Mount

Ideal Bookshelf: Harry Potter by Jane Mount

Ideal Bookshelf: Travel by Jane Mount

Your painting can be created with up to 20 books, but if a custom painting isn’t in the cards, there’s also a wonderful assortment of affordable prints in the shop with collections of titles by popular authors or books of a particular theme. (Like those shown in the pics here.)

And the cherry on top? Jane’s book My Ideal Bookshelf comes out next month—filled with the bookshelves of leading cultural figures and the books that matter to them most.