I was getting quite frustrated by the piles of Library books that we would bring home and stack in a corner. Anytime Niva wanted a book she would have to dig through looking for

what she wanted. We have regular book cases but they are inaccessible to her. So I saw a book case that displayed books for children in a Montessori catalog for $80. Ha I thought I could make one of those. And so I did.

Here is a look at how I built it I took a 4′ length of 1″x11″ pine plank and measured up to where I wanted the shelfs and dowels to be and then made a diagonal mark about 1 1/2″ away from each point. Then cut it along the diagonal and trimmed the bottom so I had two sides. The shelf part is 1′x2.5″ strips that I cut into three 23″ long pieces. The dowels were cut into 24″long pieces and the idea was that I would drill in 1/2″ on each side for the dowels and then when I screwed the shelves part in it would hold the dowels in, however I must have mis measured because the dowels were all about 1/4″ too long and I had to trim them. I dabbed some glue on each end and drilled pilot holes for all the screws. I did this for one side and made a paper template to transfer to the other side.
It was quite difficult to get all the pieces lined up and secured and keep the dowels in while I was screwing it together. Once I had done that I screwed in some back boards to keep the books from falling out the back (I already had some masonite so I didn’t purchase it with the rest of the material that is why it is short).

So here is the finished product complete with books. Niva, 2yrs, was able to start using it right away without any instruction on how to get and put away the books and she keeps her books neat now and is able to quickly find what she is looking for.

Cost to make, around $20 as I already had some materials.

Whew! I finished it! It took a bit longer than expected and I had some bugs that were giving me trouble but I worked them out, learned a bit and I even put in a slideshow on the front page. I created the header from two seperate images, joined them together and did some painting* on top. Fun stuff. So check it out: jeanettebreen.com.

Made some Komono Shirts for Niva, still working on the pattern, haven’t got it quite right but this one is really close. She is a great model. Tie slips through hole inside then ties in back to the tie from the front piece. 3/4 sleeves great to keep her just a bit warmer without getting in her way.  Works great for mobility.

I have now changed my site to be more interactive!  I will be posting my artwork blog style, which is more fun I think.  So if you want to see something - click on a category, do a search, or scroll the archives.  Have fun!

My services are listed in the service page, and to contact me go to the contact page blah blah, but if you need to get home, click on the header.  Anyway pardon some technical appearances, I am re-writing my blog template and it is all in html, css script stuff which I am slowly learning.