Upcycling Shoe Lasts to Make Book Ends

I had an old pair of shoe lasts hanging around and decided they needed something doing to them.

I always have an abundance of books hanging around, so thought some bookends to keep everything in check was in order.

An old shoe last, or other equally solid wooden item

Some blocks of wood for the bases. I went with 15x15x4cm blocks of oak

Enamel Paints of 5 different colours

small thin paintbrush

Grey Primer Paint

120 grit sandpaper

Large 3" or more screws

Screwdriver

Cordless Drill.

First of all give the wood a good sand. This is to help the paint key or stick to the wood.

I used a normal grey primer.

After the primer is dry use a pencil to draw the lines to follow. I went with squares, but you can do rectangles or whatever shapes you feel comfortable with.

Use 5 or so different brightly coloured enamel paints to paint squares onto the item. Leave to dry a little between colours.

You don't need to be too neat at this point.

When the colours have dried, then you can outline in black to finish. this clears up some of the rough edges of the colours. Maybe not when i've painted it, but i'm sure most of you have a steadier hand than me.

I would generally use a heavy base for something like this

I used some Oak i had lying around.

Luckily the shoe lasts had holes in the bottom already, so i used these as pilot holes.

marked them up on the wood and continued the pilot holes through the bases.

I used large screws to connect the bases and the lasts.

Completed.

Now get them up on the shelf and holding those books up.

They look great and stylish in many settings.