This Girl Will Be Reading in No Time

We are very lucky to have so many caring and generous people in our lives. Our baby has received so many books that I had to come up with a creative way to store them. If you're a Pinterest addict, like me, then you've seen the book slings that you hang on the wall. Here is just one of the many tutorials that I've come across on Pinterest.  I decided to whip up a few of these to house some of our baby girl's books.

A lot of her books are on the built-in the Bill made, but I wanted to be able to keep some closer to where we'd be reading to her. There is a window next to the glider, so I chose to sneak them in right below the window. This benefits us for a few reasons: they are low to the ground, so the baby will be able to reach the books once she's mobile and I could hide the hardware behind the curtain panels.

This was actually a really easy project. I used about two-thirds of a yard of fabric, along with a 3/4 inch round dowel, two heavy duty command hooks and some ribbon for each one.

I didn't take any pictures while I was making them, but they are pretty self-explanatory. Just hem each side of the fabric and then sew pockets for the dowels. Mine are about 6 inches deep and 40 inches wide. They each fit 7 or 8 of the board books.

I should have bought stock in command strips and hooks before decorating this nursery because I've used them everywhere. These specific hooks are designed to hold 7 pounds each. They've been hanging for a few weeks and they seem very solid.

As for hanging them up, you can see in the picture above that I just laid the dowel for the back of the sling right on the command hook. Then I tied some ribbon around the front dowel and hung that from the command hook. Staggering the dowels a bit allows the sling to open nicely.

A lot of the other tutorials I've seen for the book slings use the double curtain rod bracket to hang them. I opted to use command hooks instead so that we didn't put any holes in the wall. Really, Bill was the one that didn't want the holes and it ended up making the project even simpler than if I used those brackets.

See how the curtains cover all of the command hook nonsense? Its perfect. 

I would definitely suggest this project for anyone looking for some cute book storage. These would also be useful in a classroom. You don't even need to be able to sew. I think that these could easily be done with hem tape instead of sewing the hem and the dowel pockets. 

How else do you guys store all of these books? We don't really have space for a book case in her nursery, so I'm sure I'll be looking for more creative suggestions!

Thanks for reading,

Kathleen