Help! The Craft Project is Killing Books

The fate of books is in our hands. Only this time, the enemy is not Amazon... it's Pinterest. Obviously I have a great love of books in all facets of my life. Yet, save occasionally using my to-read stack as a bedside table, or employing an old textbook as a spider squishier (sorry, PETA), I basically use them for their original, intended purpose: I read them. For an astounding number of Americans, though, this is simply not the case. Target: the craft project. (Insert scary dun-dun-dun music here.) While I'm not completely adverse to all book-related crafts, the manipulation of books is getting out of hand. If you need proof, behold:

Encyclopedia broom: Because what better to make a broom out of than something that costs more than a broom. Plus, as of 2010, encyclopedias are extinct, so that thing you just swept up your spilled coffee grounds with? Yeah, it might be worth something someday.

Bathtub: I am so on board with the whole bath thing, I just prefer my soak to take place in a vessel that is a little bit more... waterproof.

Pumpkin: The nice thing about actual pumpkins is that they already have that nice pumpkin shape. Also, the thought of spending hours attempting to paint the edges of paper orange makes me sad.

Tree: Again with the careful painting of book edges... Also, everyone realizes books come from trees, right? This is just adding in hundreds of steps to the making of a Christmas tree.

Super-secret hiding spot: No better use of one’s time and funds than carefully carving out a hole in a vintage book to make sure no one ever finds or steals your vintage key that probably does not actually open anything.

Skull carving: When you don’t know what to do with a book, why not make something that will scare young children for decades to come?

Birthday cake: Someone loved books so much that on her birthday, her friends decided that instead of baking them a nice, edible cake, they would TIE UP ALL THE BOOKS AND BURN THEM.

Cut-up sculpture thingamajig: What even is this? Try and tell me this makes for a better decoration than a book in all it’s original, in-tact glory.

For the sake of books everywhere (not to mention sanity), good people of Etsy and Pinterest, put down the scissors, glue, stamps, paint, and candles and return to reading books, you know, like people did before DIY was an acceptable employment to list on Facebook. Besides, when a beautiful, old encyclopedia becomes a broom, how is than an "upcycle"?

Image: Michael Cory