Eric and Adrian went to the cousin’s birthday party. I stayed at home, because those parties tend to be too large and too full of strangers for my taste, and I just didn’t have the energy right now for a big party. (Although afterwards I found out that it had been much smaller than usual, with only people I knew. If I had known that, I’d have made a different decision.)

Adrian and Ingrid joked that I’d probably spend all afternoon reading. Nope! Recently, whenever the family is away and I have unusual amounts of time on my hands, I’ve been making things instead. Either physically – I started the napkin project when they were away, for example – or virtually, by blogging more.

Today I finished a bunch of bookends. I started this project a while ago, and some of the bookends in these photos I made earlier this summer. But today I finished several more, and now I’m feeling done. I could probably find a place in our bookshelves for a few more, but there’s no longer an urgent need for them. Our books are now standing up and not falling down!

All the bookends are made from scrap materials, leftover pieces of wood from the storage thing and other pieces I found in the basement, where we have a stash of odd pieces. So they have different proportions and designs, and some pieces are slightly damaged on the bottom.

The basic design is just an L shape of two pieces of wood. (But I found two triangular pieces so two of the bookends ended up with a different design.) Cut two pieces of wood, sand the cut ends a bit smoother, drill holes, screw together. I guess I could have glued them but then I’d have to find some way to clamp them, and wait, which I didn’t want to do. Screwing was maybe a bit more work but gave faster results.

The only part that was not scrap material was the rocks. I picked a few smooth white pieces of limestone when we were in Gotland, with the bookends in mind. The golden rock is just a random rock that I found in the garden. It was not very pretty so I prettified it.