Lovely Book Holder - A Thoughful Present

Congratulations to my Mum who just got married! Having never attended a wedding before it wasn't until a couple of days before the wedding that I remembered that you get people wedding gifts. I wanted to give her something nice and something to cherish and I think something made would absolutely be the way to go.

After a couple days scouring Pintrest for ideas I came across this.

An example of a book holder from Pintrest

I thought this would be a great project that my Mum would be able to use but would also give me practice making something nice with a good finish that would feel good in the hands. I started out making creating very rough and practical projects and it has been a goal for a while to push outside of that comfort zone and make 'nice' things.

So I started by looking at lots of reference pictures and sketching out a rough shape that felt good. I also made sure to consider that the size of the whole would comfortably fit a thumb. So after one failed attempt to get the shape I wanted the second one I cut out on my scroll saw looked like a good start.

Simply pine offcuts in a rough shape

Now I was a tiny bit worried after I cut it that this would be a poor gift as it just looked kind of crappy. However I stuck with it and got to shaping with both a disc sander and hand shaping, making sure to make all the edges smooth so they were nice to touch. This was a long process and it was important to work slowly and considerately making my way through the grits all the way to 240grit.

Used a wood burner to make it really special

After some work it both had a much more pleasing shape and feel. This was such a fun process making it something nice. I made sure as I worked to check that it was actually comfortable for its purpose.

It was super comfortable I am genuinely considering making one for myself

After this it took two coats of Danish oil to give it some protection and bring out the grain. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of it after oil. This was a gift I was so proud to give. Whilst it wasn't a huge project it was great to make something like this on a deadline to make me work slow but smoothly through the process. In the future I will definitely making projects like this out of hard wood scraps to give them a little more substance and fanciness but I have only just at the time of writing this found where I can get extremely cheap hardwood scraps and I am very excited to start working with them.

This build has gotten me very excited at the prospect of working with knives and whittling for projects similar to this in the future as they could make great gifts and may be very satisfying process.

Made sure it was nicely wrapped in a recycled box, newspaper and ribbon

I loved making this project and I hope my Mum loves her gift. Congratulations and I wish you and Steve the absolute best.