Oversized Spool of Thread Bookends

I love old wooden spools of thread. I found a bag of them at the thrift store one time for 75 cents! They were my inspiration.

I bought 4 wooden circles from Hobby Lobby and a board from Lowes. I had my husband cut the board to the sizes I needed (back: 5 1/2 x 6 1/2; bottom: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2).

The circles will be the ends of the spools so I had him drill a hole in two them (not all the way through).

For the center of the spool, I used 2 empty cans. These were from mandarin oranges (the small can). They are smooth with no ridges.

I wanted the spools to look old. Here’s the technique I used on the wood. (There may be a better way, out there, to achieve this look but this worked!)

First, I painted them with a brown paint/water mixture.

Then I mixed up a black paint/water mixture, dipped the paint brush in it and laid it on the wood which allowed the wood to soak up the paint, almost like a water stain, just like I wanted it to look!

Then I coated it with an even more diluted black paint/water mixture, just to even things up a bit.

While the circles were drying, I spray painted the cans white. I needed my bookends to have some weight so I filled the cans with rock from the driveway (I would have preferred to use sand but didn’t have any)

I mixed up some Gorilla glue Epoxy to adhere the wooden circles to the cans and used soup cans to hold them in place while they dried.

I asked my husband for one more favor, to nail the boards together with brads. Then I sanded, painted and glazed them.

Now I had to wrap my “thread” around the spools. I was going to use cotton twine until I found this at my favorite thrift store for 50 cents! Perfect!:

I started at one end and used a little glue to hold it in place. At first, I used hot glue but found that it dried to bulky. Craft glue worked the best.

I also figured out that it was easier to roll the actual spool rather than to just wrap the thread around it. I finished it with another small drop of craft glue.

I affixed the spool to the bookend with more Gorilla glue Epoxy!

Let them dry and I was done!

* They won the DIY Club Competition!