Welcome to “Weekend Warriors.” Every Friday, we run a shining example of a reader’s recent makings—to say TGIF and send you off right into your own weekend’s projects. This time, New Zealander Drus Dryden, of hat stand lamp fame, returns with—finally!—a good use for old phone books. Have a project you’d like to see showcased? Email and let us know about it.
Phone companies are printing millions of phone books that no one uses. Give it a nice cover, and it’s upcycled it into a doorstop. Other re- incarnations could be “the Paperweight,” or “the important-looking Book,” but I settled on “the Doorstop.”
By the way, is it “doorstop” or “door stop”? Perhaps I made a typo on a book with three words in it.
Is this ready made-able? I guess you would have to have some basic bookbinding skills? Or you could support your friendly, local book-binder?
If you’re doing-it-yourself:
1) Cut cardboard to the dimensions of the phone book’s covers & spine. The trick is to do 3mm less width than the book on the cover, and 2mm more width on the spine.
2) Then you PVA glue the cardboard to book cover canvas (you can get it from any craft store). Leave a 4mm gap between covers & spine, and cut the corners of the canvas before folding them over.
3) Then glue the phone book in.
4) Gold leaf lettering optional!
oh, this is beautiful! i shall do this to all my ugly books! what a GREAT and simple idea!
thx for sharing!!!
I love it!!!! It beats the current doorstop of heavy gumboots (belonging to a friend) in a ripped Karen Walker bag… I want one!!!!!!!!! (In red! Or luscious PINK!)
I think I am just tired from studying, but I can’t wrap my head around the measurements. If it is 3 mm less width than the book on the cover, it would be smaller than the book…. maybe you just meant 3 mm more. Hope so, because I want to try this tonight!
hey Caitlin. . .
it needs to be a little smaller than the book so that it can hinge. there’s a gap of about 4mm between the cover cardboard and the spine cardboard.
don’t worry, it’s melted my brain lots of time too..
I LOVE this, we always just chuck them in the recycling bin, but as we need doorstops this is a fab idea. Going to collect my phonebook from the bin before it gets recycled now!
[...] Drus Dryden is at it again. The New Zealand-based “writer and ideas man” recently opened, and then closed, a pop-up store called Sensntive Boyfriend, featuring relationship-themed “readymades.” A couple of highlights: [...]