I have a hard time parting with books, let alone rip them apart.
As I was looking through Restoration Hardware's catalogue, I came across this "objets d'art."
They cost $29.00 for each bundle of books. I wondered who in the world would buy this when you can just do it yourself? It couldn't be that hard.
So I decided to try it and the books would have to take one for the team.
I wasn't crazy for the look but I felt challenged to recreate this with thrift store books at a fraction of the price.
This picture courtesy of Restoration Hardware
I gathered up a few books - $1.00 each. Trae enjoyed stacking them on his little wagon. Note to self: old books = cheap toys. 
As the RH catalogue says, the books are "liberated from their covers" which must be akin to burning bras or something. I first made sure the books were not going for thousands of dollars on Ebay. The most expensive one was $13.00. No big whoop I thought. So off with the covers!
Next, I took jute twine and tied it around the books. I wanted the lighter shade but I didn't have that and wanted to use what I had so this color would do. It was around $2.00 for the roll.
Five minutes later I had my own "objets d'art." I held them all together with one of Jon's boot laces. See what happens when your husband is golfing and fishing with his high school buddies out in WA state? (our home state) You take his shoelaces...
And then I put it on the shelf and suddenly I kinda liked it. I think it would look better en masse so there will be more on the way. And I'm going to buy leather cords to hold them together.
As a side note, the capiz flower candle holder was only .49 cents at the thrift shop and the name card inside of it was from my 1st grade field trip to the Portland Zoo and OMSI. There was a slide into the petting zoo area and we enjoyed going down it and watching the animals dodge us.
A goat came up to me so I petted him and he started to eat my name tag, that name tag. He was slowly getting closer to my neck when my mom realized I was yelling. She was in a tug of war with the goat but managed to get it out of his mouth.
