How to Create a Pair of Bookends With Fabric And Cheap Beads
Everybody who loves to read will know what it is like to have hundreds of books cluttering up their house, with nowhere to put them all.
Every surface becomes a storage space for much loved favourites, points of reference and classic cookbooks.
As your collection slowly grows, you will have to make the choice between putting up more bookshelves or throwing some of your beloved collection away.
If you choose to put up bookshelves to house all of your books, then you will probably need some bookends to prevent your assortment of tomes from tumbling over or slipping onto the floor.
Although this may seem like an extra expense, you should instead consider it to be a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles, and use your craftwork skills to create new set of unique bookends.
Making a pair of embroidered bookends is so simple that you can complete the project within a couple of hours.
First you must decide what design you want to make, and then go out and buy some sand (or cheap, dried rice if you cannot find sand), some fabrics, some thread and some cheap beads.
If you already have fabric, thread and cheap beads lying about, then you can use these instead, to keep your costs down, although using fabric which you already own will limit your creative choices.
Your design should be a symmetrical shape if you want it to be easier to make.
Begin by drawing out four symmetrical shapes on your main piece of fabric, and then cut them out.
Carefully sketch out the design that you want to embroider using a fabric pencil and then begin to stitch, threading the cheap beads on wherever you want them to go.
As well as using stitch work to decorate your front and back pieces, you can sew on other pieces of fabric to enhance your design.
For example, you can use felt patches to create animal faces or doll faces, and so forth.
Once the design is fully embroidered, you can begin to sew the two corresponding halves together, leaving a small gap at the top of the piece.
Insert a small plastic bag, such as a freezer bag (the kind with no holes) into the gap, leaving the open end poking out.
Put a funnel into the top, and then use the funnel to fill the bag with sand, until the bag (and therefore your fabric creation) is full.
Securely tie the top of the bag, so that the sand cannot leak, and then finish sewing the fabric bag shut.
Once your fabric creation is full of sand, it should be heavy enough to act as a book end, and hold all of your books firmly in place.
The best thing about these bookends is that you can create unique and fun designs for all of your different shelves.
You can also easily create bookends that will fit well with the decor of each room, rather than struggling to find an existing set of bookends to fit.
Every surface becomes a storage space for much loved favourites, points of reference and classic cookbooks.
As your collection slowly grows, you will have to make the choice between putting up more bookshelves or throwing some of your beloved collection away.
If you choose to put up bookshelves to house all of your books, then you will probably need some bookends to prevent your assortment of tomes from tumbling over or slipping onto the floor.
Although this may seem like an extra expense, you should instead consider it to be a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles, and use your craftwork skills to create new set of unique bookends.
Making a pair of embroidered bookends is so simple that you can complete the project within a couple of hours.
First you must decide what design you want to make, and then go out and buy some sand (or cheap, dried rice if you cannot find sand), some fabrics, some thread and some cheap beads.
If you already have fabric, thread and cheap beads lying about, then you can use these instead, to keep your costs down, although using fabric which you already own will limit your creative choices.
Your design should be a symmetrical shape if you want it to be easier to make.
Begin by drawing out four symmetrical shapes on your main piece of fabric, and then cut them out.
Carefully sketch out the design that you want to embroider using a fabric pencil and then begin to stitch, threading the cheap beads on wherever you want them to go.
As well as using stitch work to decorate your front and back pieces, you can sew on other pieces of fabric to enhance your design.
For example, you can use felt patches to create animal faces or doll faces, and so forth.
Once the design is fully embroidered, you can begin to sew the two corresponding halves together, leaving a small gap at the top of the piece.
Insert a small plastic bag, such as a freezer bag (the kind with no holes) into the gap, leaving the open end poking out.
Put a funnel into the top, and then use the funnel to fill the bag with sand, until the bag (and therefore your fabric creation) is full.
Securely tie the top of the bag, so that the sand cannot leak, and then finish sewing the fabric bag shut.
Once your fabric creation is full of sand, it should be heavy enough to act as a book end, and hold all of your books firmly in place.
The best thing about these bookends is that you can create unique and fun designs for all of your different shelves.
You can also easily create bookends that will fit well with the decor of each room, rather than struggling to find an existing set of bookends to fit.
