How to Make Decorative Bookends
Although books themselves add a decorative touch to a room, adding attractive bookends can tremendously enhance a shelf or tabletop display. Creating original bookends can actually be fun because there are so many possibilities. You’ll want to keep in mind both the decorating style of a particular room as well as the purpose of the books you’ve chosen to display or line up on a bookshelf. Each of the following ideas starts with standard metal library-style bookends.
Instructions
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Make use of old buttons (the kind without shanks) by gluing them onto the front of a bookend in an attractive design. You might also try this idea using pennies or coins you’ve accumulated from your travels.
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Use appropriate items from a favorite collection by simply attaching them to the bookend. For example, if you collect pitchers, use hot glue to adhere the bottom and side of one to a bookend that you’ve painted the same or a complementary color. You might try this idea with such diverse items as beer steins, Santa Claus figures or grocery tins. Even if you’re not a collector, you might use a flea market item that reflects one of your interests or hobbies. For example, you might make a bookend from something like an old bowling pin, an evening bag or an antiquated camera.
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Glue a paper item such as the program from a graduation or a play, a piece of sheet music, or a child’s drawing onto a piece of foam core board of the same size. You might want to have the paper item laminated first. Glue the back of the foam core board onto the front of the bookend.
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Buy a couple of inexpensive stuffed animals, such as small teddy bears, and you’re on your way to making a pair of fun bookends for a baby’s room. Make a hole or two in the bottom of the animals through which you can pull out the stuffing. Fill the animals with sand (for weight), sew up the holes and glue the bottoms of the animals onto the bottom of the bookends. You might like to first cover the back of the bookends with a calico or gingham print.
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Make a stack of alphabet blocks across the bottom of each of two bookends. This procedure will probably take around three blocks. Glue these down securely, and when they have dried, add another row on top. You’ll probably end up with three or four rows of three blocks by the time you build up your alphabetic architecture to the height of the bookend.
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Find an inexpensive picture frame about the same height as the bookend. Paint the frame to complement your room decor. When it has dried thoroughly, glue the back of the frame to the front of the bookend in such a way that the frame can be removed for inserting a photograph.
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Tips & Warnings
Let kids create bookends by choosing items they no longer play with every day to glue onto ordinary bookends.
Make sure that fragile items are not put to use holding up a display of books too heavy for the bookends on which they are mounted.
