Fairy Tale Crate Project

When I was in the middle of redoing the book closet, I ran across this small crate at Walmart on discount for $4.00. I think there's something that appeals to just about everyone about crates. It's small and I thought it would look perfect on the wall for my fairy tale books which, while I love them, are large and I can never find the right place for them on the shelves. I could always stack them with the other hard covers, but then they would be hidden and I hate doing that. 

The largest is the blue child fairy tale book written for children, the newer Grimm tales. I love the castle on the book and the childlike atmosphere. The smaller red one actually holds the best stories but is the more unimaginative cover wise. It's the old, original Grimm tales. The book with the geese also has the original Grimm tales, but with large font and some minor illustrations. The top is the puzzle book piece of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves which I figured would go perfectly with the fairy tales. You can find more information about this fun puzzle with my post about it here. 

I picked up these cheap stamps to put a quote on the crate. I ended up not using the stickers of the moon, etc., at all as it's a bit cheesy and didn't look right. Unfortunately after spending a large amount of time putting on (then rearranging, oh, about four times) a quote by C.S. Lewis, "One day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again...", I found out the crate doesn't look right with many words on it. Eventually I had to just settle on "Fairy Tales". 

I rearranged these books several ways before I could decide on something. I ended up removing the second wood piece on the back so that when I hung the crate on the wall, the books (which didn't quite fit with the piece in there) could overlap a bit into the back. This was harder than I figured since I HATE SAWING.  I then ran into many issues getting this to actually stay on the wall. Me and my ideas versus the practicality of doing them!

Instead of leaving it in the center of the wall like I anticipated, I had to eventually have Nathan connect it to the side of a bookshelf and leaving the rest on the wall. I put the flowers from my son that he made me out of paper one year in school from a previous Mother's Day by the blue book in the back.

Overall this simple project ended up more annoying and time-consuming than I planned. Still, I like the end result, it was cheap (cost under $7.00 to do, minus the books and using supplies around the house like the saw and screws) and left me feeling slightly accomplished (after begging help from the fiance.)

Here's the finished project. I put my son's mother's day paper flowers with the blue fairy tale book.