A Round Shelf

Have you seen these amazing shelves by Ferm Living?

(photo from ferm living)

I absolutely love the look. I love this shelf by Bride & Wolf even more as it has an open back.

photo from bride & wolf

As much as I don't mind paying for good design and quality, and as much as I like supporting smaller businesses and do whenever I can, we are strapped for cash and there was no way to justify paying over $200 for a shelf at the moment. I had the ferm living shelf on my wishlist for months, with an exact idea of where I would put it..in the playroom with some of our smaller Ostheimer figures that Josh is not ready for yet.. but it was just not going to happen, so I started to think about how I could make my circle shelf dreams come true. I saw a few tutorials around pinterest using all types of materials, including cheese boxes, but none were as clean as I was hoping for. Finally, I came across a tutorial using embroidery hoops. Perfect!

I changed the design a bit to include three shelves, and eventually threw out the hot glue idea and used tiny finishing nails instead (pre-drilling holes so they wouldn't crack the wood). My embroidery hoops were also 20 inches in diameter instead of 14. I couldn't find embroidery hoops without wood blocks at the bottom holding them together, but I don't think they're that big of an eye sore. Of course I had to show you my wallpaper seams in the photo below. In person, they really aren't that visible.

The shelves are made with craft wood (which is flimsy, so if you want to put anything even slightly heavy on it you'll need to get thicker wood). I had planned on hot gluing the hoops together before adding the shelves, but there were only two hoops available at my local craft store and they were not even. Once the shelves were nailed in they did sit flush against each other. 

You can see the nails from the sides, but from the front they aren't visible. Basically, up close this project isn't nearly as lovely and clean as the originals, but I have a circle shelf and I love the way it looks in the space (except I may drill in that hanging loop instead of having it tied on)!

With the discount I used and the nails I had on hand, this project still ended up being about $30. Those hoops aren't cheap! Still, $30 is much more affordable for us right now.