Paper Mache Mushroom Bookend

This Instructable will show you how to make a mushroom lamp bookend. The

Supplies needed:

2 small pieces of wood (roughly 6x6)

paper

an extra wide drinking straw (from a milkshake or boba tea)

wood glue or white glue

several black or dark tea bags

a small corded LED light

2 very small screws

3 medium size screws

small round container like one for yogurt

small piece of thin cork (roughly 6x6)

heat shrink tubing of two different sizes or electrical tape

metal sheet (I used copper roughly 2x3)

spray adhesive

saran wrap (aka cling wrap)

polyurethane spray finish

Tools:

Bucket

paintbrush

scissors

tin-snips

pencil & sharpie

drill & drill bits

soldering iron & solder

hot glue gun

screwdriver

router *optional*

file/Dremel (for sanding and rounding edges)

sandpaper and sanding block

coping saw or bandsaw

The first step is to create the cap of the the mushroom, which we will do with paper mache!

Add some glue (about a tablespoon) and some water (about a half tablespoon) to your bucket. You want it liquid-y even though it’s not an exact science.

Next, tear your paper lengthwise into roughly 1 inch strips. Then rip those in half to be roughly 1x6 inches.

Grab your rounded cup -I used an empty yogurt container - and your Saran Wrap. Wrap your cup with the Saran Wrap. (This will make it easier to get your mushroom cap off later.)

Dip your paper strips into the glue mix until they are just a little soggy, and then wrap it around your cup. Just like those balloon planet projects from elementary school :)

Tip: If your cup isn't completely round, you can ball up some of your paper and put it on top to make your mushroom more round.

After your Shroom cap looks just right, you can grab the edge of the Saran Wrap and use it to lift your Shroom cap up off your container.

Peel off the Saran Wrap from the inside of your mushroom cap, give it a quick coat of the glue mix, and set it on something to dry. (I used the milkshake straw to hold mine up to dry.)

Now it's time to make the stem for our mushroom!

Using your straw, roughly measure out how long you want your mushroom stem to be and trim it to that length.

Next, cut a full sheet of paper widthwise, just a little longer than the straw.

Wrap the paper you just cut around your straw, and give it a twist!

Paint the twisted paper with some glue mixture and add some large paper mache pieces around the outside of it.

Cut one last large piece of paper lengthwise, roughly 4 inches wide. This will make up the ring/skirt of the mushroom - that little frilly bit on the mushroom stem.

Paint one edge of this with glue and wrap it around the mushroom stem. Feel free to twist or crinkle this piece as it makes it look more realistic.

Now to make our paper mache mushroom look a little more convincing…

Boil a few tablespoons of water and add it to a large dish.

Pour in one or two bags of plain black tea. Let this sit for 5-6 minutes.

Using a paintbrush, add the tea water to your mushroom. This will stain it a natural brown color. Make sure to get some of the tea bits on the mushroom. These will make the stain a little more concentrated, and help it to look nice and dirty. Be careful not to add too much water to mushroom parts or it will loosen the glue, making your paper mache soggy or misshapen.

Repeat the same process with the stem.

Set the mushroom cap and stem aside to dry, preferably standing upright on something. (Similar to how you dried the cap after you made it.)

The next step is to prepare our pieces of wood for the bookend.

Wrap your sandpaper around your sanding block and get comfortable, sanding always takes a while.

After that it's time to design the profile for your bookend's base. I will attach a printable template if you would like to follow mine!

If you design your own, some things to take into consideration are:

Where you want your mushroom to be placed (make sure this is far enough away that the cap of your mushroom doesn't hit the vertical portion of your bookend.

Now it is time to cut our pieces of wood. I used a coping saw to show that this is really easy to do by hand, but if you've got a bandsaw (or any power saw) its even easier!

After cutting, use a file, sandpaper, or a Dremel to clean up your cuts and get it as close as possible to the sketch you drew.

Add a groove going to one side of your bookend where the wire will sit in later. (I forgot to do this until the last step so I used a Dremel for it and it was kinda messy.) You can use a Dremel, file, chisel, or pocket knife to make this groove.

Drill a hole in the center of the circle on the bookend base, about the same size as the milkshake straw. This is where we will attach our mushroom.

**Optional step**

You can use a handheld router, a Dremel, or a chisel if you want to add a chamfer or decorative edge to your bookend. I used a table router which did not go very well. If you do add a decorative edge, try to use a tool you have a lot of control over. I cleaned up my messy router job with a Dremel tool.

There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. You can always make them and call it a "distressed" look. :)

Our next step is to drill some holes for attaching our screws.

Pick out several drill bit sizes: 1 small drill bit just a little smaller than your screw thread thickness, 1 medium drill that is just a little bigger than the screw threads, and 1 that is the same size as the head of your screws.

Use your medium drill bit to drill through the piece of your bookshelf that will be upright and holding the books. This hole allows the screws to pass through upright board and screw into the board that will be the base.

Use your large drill bit to countersink the medium holes you just drilled. This will allow your screw heads to sit flush in the boards. (countersinking can be done by drilling a little ways in with a large drill bit so that a screw head can sit flush in the wood)

Finally, use your small drill bit to drill pilot holes for the screws to thread into the base. (The best way I found to do this was to have a friend hold the base upright board held in place while I used the drill). With the boards held in place, drill pilot holes in your base, using the holes you drilled in the upright board as a guide.

Now its time to assemble the wooden pieces of our bookshelf!

Use your 3 medium size screws and a little wood glue to assemble your pieces. Put a thin layer of wood glue onto the the joint between the two pieces of the bookshelf. Then screw the two pieces together nice and tight.

Let’s add our mushroom!

Slide the straw from inside your mushroom stem out and snip a small slit in the bottom.

Add some hot glue to the hole you drilled in the base for attaching your mushroom. Then quickly insert your straw. The slit will allow the straw to fit into the hole if (like it was for me) the hole you drilled is just a bit too small.

Add more hot glue around where the straw and the base meet and quickly slide the mushroom stem back onto the straw.

Feed the wire to your light through the straw in your mushroom. You may need to cut the wire if the the plug end can’t fit. You can solder it back together afterwards and cover the the joint with shrink wrap tubing, or electrical tape.

Glue your light to the mushroom stem, making sure that the LED's are pointed upwards. This will help to diffuse the light and make it a more natural glow. (LED's are safe here because they don't warm up very much. This makes it a good alternative to a traditional light bulb which would pose a fire hazard)

As your last step, glue on the mushroom cap. I put the glue on my light where the mushroom cap touched it and that worked great for me.

We are now going to cut out the tab at the bottom of the bookend. This tab is what the books will sit on. It uses the book's own weight to hold it up!

Grab your sheet metal - I am using copper - and draw out a small tab. Mine was 2.5” x 3.5” long, with a 3" radius at the top.

Cut out your tab using tin snips or super heavy duty scissors. Make sure to sand or file down any sharp edges that may be left after cutting.

Drill pilot holes with a super small drill bit.

You can use a hammer like I did to work-harden metals like brass, copper, and stainless steels. It also gives it the “beat up” aesthetic :)

Drill two small holes for screws into your sheet metal. Hold the sheet against the base and add pilot holes for some small screws.

Use your screwdriver and screw your small screws through the tab and into the base. (They need to be shorter than the thickness of the piece of wood so they don't end up poking through.)

Almost there!! Add some wood glue around the base of the mushroom stem.

Rip open another teabag and pour it on the glue you added. Basically we are making non-dirty dirt. :)

After sprinkling on the tea, mix up your final batch of glue and water following the same proportions as for the paper mache.

Sprinkle a little bit of the mixture onto the tea pile. This will help secure all the loose tea.

Now we wait for it to dry! This may take a day or two before we can put our spray finish on it.

Second to last step, almost there!

We are going to add cork to our base. This will help protect any surface that you put the bookshelf down on, as well as hiding the hole and groove we cut for the power cord and the screws we added for the book tab.

Grab your cork and and trace the base onto the cork using a pencil.

Cut out your pattern using scissors. I recommend scissors instead of an Exacto knife because they are less likely to rip your cork.

Apply spray adhesive to the cork and to the base of the bookend or whatever the instructions on your can of spray adhesive say for a permanent attachment.

Stick the two together and hold tight for about 30 seconds, so that it dries nice and flat.

We're at the end! Now we just need to add our polyurethane spray finish.

Add two or three coats following directions and that's it!

Take a moment to appreciate what you made, take some glory shots, and think "Dang I'm cool!"

Thanks for following my Instructable! This is my first, so if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. :)