I stole this idea

I don’t remember where I saw this idea, but at some point early on in having kids, I saw an example of someone using an old toy to create some cool bookends. They cut the toy in half and re-attached them to the bookends, which I thought was a neat way to incorporate something unique into a room. But our oldest was young enough to not really be into anything at the time, so the idea just kind of sat somewhere in my exhausted brain as I tried to survive kid #1, and then #2. 

Well it came bubbling back this weekend when I saw a seam in the middle of a dinosaur kid #1 had buried in the sandbox. Suddenly I had the perfect toy to try this on, just waiting to be ripped in half and put back together as something new. And if it was buried in the sandbox odds are it wouldn’t be missed, but it might add something to an already dinosaur-themed room.

Getting the basics together was simple: tear the toy in half, trim the plastic lip off, chop some spare boards to get a pair of L-shaped bookends together. Easy so far.

plenty of materials around to use...

Paint the bookends blue, the dinosaur white, and add some black highlights to create a little visual interest. Okay, getting slightly trickier but still not difficult.

I weirdly liked how these looked sticking off the box I used to paint them on.

Finish the bookends with poly coat and attach the dinosaur halves…okay, this part was a challenge.

After several glues and cursing, I think these are done.

Sometimes the biggest challenge of a project like this is matching up what’s in your head with what’s happening in-front of you. This was pretty close but getting the toy halves lined up with each other across the bookends and then getting them to stay still was a bit challenging. They kept sliding down from where I had them lined up.

That’s what happens when your level of OCD is higher than your skill level. It can be rewarding to just see how things come together as a project happens, but the quiet voice in my head reminding me about that is usually drowned out by the much louder inner monologue focusing on “WHY WON’T THIS #$*%ING STAY WHERE I WANT IT TO?!” When that happens it’s usually time to get out of the shop for a while.

The boy snuck into the garage at some point when I had the pieces drying so he wasn’t surprised when I gave them to him, but he clearly was looking forward to having something new to display. Now in the issue of fairness I have to wait and see what toy of kid #2 I can destroy in the name of DIY…