DIY: Animal Bookends

We read all the time - we actually have so many books that it has gotten pretty ridiculous...so this book end tutorial is wonderful for us!  Perhaps we could find it in our hearts to get rid of two or three books to make space for these to sit on the shelf??

Thanks to Hi Sugarplum's blog we just might get motivated to donate a few books just to have these bad boys on display.

.....Plastic elephants from the dollar bin! I found these at the Target Danger Dollar Zone for $1 each, and the spray paint I already owned (duh). As for the rocks, you can find them in the garden department of the hardware store, on walks in park, or stone yards. I happen to have a stone yard nearby (kind of random, right?!), so I grabbed my 'Rattlesnake Rocks' (that's really what they're called) there. The poor guys were so confused by my request, they just let me wander around and take whatever scraps I wanted.

I originally planned to use stone tiles as the bases, but they were too small and not heavy enough to hold the weight of books.

I didn't love the tusks, so I trimmed them off with scissors, then gave each animal a few light coats of spray paint. I wanted the rocks to sit straight, so I filed the bottoms down using our concrete driveway. A dot of super glue to the bottom of each foot adheres the plastic to the stone.

Here are the mighty elephants now!