life is good - diy burlap book rack

kimba is hosting another great diy party





edited to read: i'm also linked up with gina at the shabby chic cottage for transformation thursday

yes, i'm still playing with burlap. in fact, there's only a few yards left on my bolt.

sooooooooo - i've been wanting one of those wall book racks like they sell at pottery barn. here's one hanging in my grandson's nursery, at his mommy & daddy's house. whoops! when i hit publish, it wouldn't accept the photo. anyway, it's white, it hangs on the wall, books sit behind dowels, get the picture? without a picture?
i want one of those for my house, for the grandkid's room.

& last week, i showed you this-



it's a cd holder that corrie (my daughter) found at goodwill. she thought it could be used for books, but i didn't think the little ones could keep them on the shelves.

but if it had something to hold the books. hmmmmmm? burlap, perhaps.

sooooooooo - i took the cd holder & my burlap & started working.

i asked my dear husband, shelly, to use the liquid sander/deglosser on it & then he sprayed on some white primer (true confession time: after last week's dresser, i can't bear the thought of spray painting. i have very little cartilage in my right wrist & the spray painting hurts! i'm gonna stick to the roller & brush from now on. but my can of primer was missing (i think my son "borrowed" it. how do you borrow paint?)

so anyway, shelly spray painted on the primer & then i used CRAFT PAINT IN THE LITTLE BOTTLES. i mixed 2 colors together to get the blue that i ended up with. 1 coat of blue & then "distressed" it with a combo of burnt sienna & ivory. all with the little sponge brushes.


i had been "stewing" about the burlap part of it for a couple of weeks.

by the way, have you all read that crazy blog about quotation marks? it's cracking me up! it's called "the blog of unnecessary quotation marks". find it here: www.unneccesaryquotes.com
i have this great fear that i'm gonna end up on there d/t excessive "quotation mark" usage. (and, if there's a blog for unnecessary or excessive parenthesis usage, i'm really in trouble!)

back to the burlap, i'm not a seamstress, engineer (though i am married to one) or mathematician, just so you know. figuring out how to make the pouches for the books was NOT easy, because i'm not good at exact & precise measurements. so, i made a pocket at the top & a pocket at the bottom. in between, i wove the burlap in between the dowels to create pouches.


as a result, you need to load it with books from the top to the bottom. if you do it from the bottom first, then all the burlap slides to the bottom making the other pouches disappear.

i know.

good luck getting a 4 1/2 yr. old, an 18 month old, a 13 month old & an 8 month to follow those directions.

as if.

as if they would ever reload the book rack. kids take them out, grandmas put them back, right?

oh my goodness, i just had a light bulb moment. i'll use velcro to hold the pouches into place (do you think that'll work?).

here's how it looks in the room:




thanks for stopping by, & make sure you look at everyone else's projects at kimba's



that's where i'm heading -

don't forget to leave comments -

don't forget to thank kimba for being such a gracious hostess - (sure wish she'd serve refreshments)

& stop by to see the others from gina's transformation thursday, too!

blessings & peace -

randee