TILT: Bookshelves

Ever since I moved (okay, before I moved. Always.), I've been obsessed with getting new bookshelves. So of course, that's what I'm focusing on for Things I Love Thursday today!! (Click any of the pics to make bigger!)

(if you do not want your picture shared, please let me know & I will take it down!)

A truly lovely rainbow reading nook from Oh-thebookfeels

This gorgeous green shelf didn't have a source but I love all the different sized shelves and crannies! This is probably a dream shelf for me. And I would definitely need the step stool lol.

Has anyone else been completely obsessed with getting a library cart ever since that Book Riot article? No? Just me? Well fine then. ;) KylieMInteriors shows off different ways to use the Ikea cart and I really love this sunshine yellow one from Amazon (comes in lots of colors). My sister suggested I could use it for my to-read books and I love that idea! Now, I just need some money. Hmm...

Okay, it's totally impractical but how cool is this bathroom/library? And I seriously considered purchasing this bookshelf shower curtain on Amazon when I moved, but I decided against it. One of you should buy it so I can live thru you! lol...

What are you loving on this fabulous September Thursday? Share below!

Bookshelfie

It's been awhile since I've shown off my bookshelves (oh yeah, over a year oops) so I thought I'd post an updated shot of them on this lovely Sunday. And I want to see your bookshelves too! I always love snooping looking at other's shelves and see how they have organized them and such. So comment below with links! And click any of the pictures to make bigger.

I cleaned my shelves up again a few weeks ago, so let's start with the before shots, starring sleepy Binky Cat. The bags and stacks were all books that I had recently purchased and needed to find homes for. I had to do some creative thinking this time; I am seriously running out of space. I even got rid of a couple. (I love that my middle sister is a Reader (capital R) like me because I can give her all the books that I kind of liked but not enough to keep lol.)

And here is the first after shot. This is my main bookshelf, which faces my bed, so I had to stand way back in the corner to take this picture. It holds, from the top, my Harry Potter books & Funkos (which I have become addicted to collecting all of) and Neil Gaiman, "pink" chicklit books, young adult contemporaries, Pretty Little Liars and "traditional" romance books, all my Christmas books (which have grown exponentially in the last year), history-ish books plus tearjerkers, and Baby-Sitters Club books on the bottom (mysteries and specials are on the trunk). And a whole lot more.

To the left are all my classics, sitting on the Reader's Digest specials that my mom found at a thrift store for me a few years ago. Below is my old trunk holding all my children's picture books and 80-90s reads like Christopher Pike, Sweet Valley High, and lots more. (If you're interested in seeing these in more detail, let me know!) The trunk is stacked three deep in spots, which drives me crazy, but I don't have much choice at the moment. I'd like to get a new bookshelf for that space but I know I will fill it immediately with all those books, so it won't do me much good for new books. I just need more room. :)

And here's my second bookshelf, which is in front of my window, to the right of my bed. (It gets too bright and hot when I open the curtains anyway, so I didn't care much about blocking it.) The top shelf is my to-reads. I really need to get back to "reading my shelf" again. The rest of the shelf is graphic novels and supernatural-ish books. Lots of vampires and dystopian of course. The odd one out is the stack of Gossip Girl books. Unfortunately, I just could not fit them on my other shelf so they had to go here.

You can also see a lot of my owls on this shelf, which I started collecting accidentally on purpose. I wish my Pops weren't on there, but I don't have room for them anywhere else. (I've got a serious shelf shortage situation going on everywhere lol.) The monster statue in the bottom left was made by my sister. The clear box you can just barely see in the bottom right corner holds my single issue comics, which I have recently gotten more into. To the right of that is my comfy reading chair.

I'll end with a closeup of my Harry Potter collection and artwork (links below), which was the main reason I started cleaning my shelves that day to begin with. I have one more art piece I need to get a frame for, this zombie HP one I've had a few years. I am so bad at hanging pictures! I want to eventually get a real shelf or shadow boxes for my Pops because I do plan on getting them all, but they're okay like this for now.

Creepy Voldy by Locoduck (Facebook)

Potter Kitties by Lululinart (Website)

Trio Portraits by ?? (given to me by a friend, 

if you know the artist, let me know!)

And that's my bookshelfies! This turned into a massive post, didn't it? What do you think? Would you organize anything differently or have new techniques I should try? See any of your favorites or don't see something I should absolutely have? Comment below. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I've Added to my To-Be-Read Shelf Lately

Today's The Broke & The Bookish topic: 10 books I've added to my TBR shelf. Easy right? I count TBR as books that I physically own, so this should be even easier. Tell me what books you've added to your shelf lately! And hey, what should I read next?? Here's a quick snapshot I took of my to-read books, almost exactly 2 months ago:

1-3 a handful of free eBooks: Friends with More Benefits (Luke Young), Cinema Lumiere (Hattie Holden Edmonds), The Story of Awkward (RK Ryals)

4-7 several graphic novels: X-Men: Days of Future Past & Present (Chris Claremont), Locke & Key: Vol 6 (Joe Hill), Shadow Kiss: Vampire Academy #3 (Richelle Mead)

8 I Will Always Love You: Gossip Girl #12 (Cecily Von Ziegesar)

9-10 some old school: A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle), Izzy, Willy-Nilly (Cynthia Voigt)


And bonus: the 2 oldest books on my TBR shelf, both from 2008 eek!!: Odd Hours: Odd Thomas #4 (Dean Koontz), A Lion Among Men: The Wicked Years #3 (Gregory Maguire)

Bookshelf Organization: 5 Hours of Work in 2.07 Minutes!

Hi all! I know I've been saying for a long time now that I wanted to start vlogging and never had the courage. Well, I got some courage for Christmas. ;) I've been needing to redo my bookshelves for ages and my 2 weeks of vacation around Christmas was the perfect time. I decided to film the whole thing in warp speed and show it here. I hope you find it interesting. Maybe this will give me even more courage to speak on the next video! (I mean, if I can show y'all my butt, I can speak to you right??) Oh, and huge thanks to my sister @DashOfDazzle for editing the video for me and taking out the parts where I'm getting up off the floor awkwardly lol.

(I made the video as big as I could get it here, but you can click for full screen too)

TILT: Book Furniture

I am obsessed lately with getting more book space and have started branching out from just plain old bookcases, so I thought this would be a fun Things I Love Thursday. I am especially intrigued by the bookshelves built in and around the bed. I would love that. How about you? Do you have books stacked up into a bedside table? Turned into a chair? Throw a blanket on a stack and sleep on them? ;)

Side Table
Behind the Bed (check out the calligraphy comforter too!)
Staircase
Bed Cocoon 

Drawers
Around the Bed
Chair
Side Table 2

I did manage to turn a few of these colorful Readers' Digest books that my mom found for me into little shelves. Eventually I want to hang them all and spread my Wild Things out on them. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Authors I Own the Most Books By

Today's TTT topic on The Broke & The Bookish should be an interesting one! Using a fancy formula of checking my Goodreads stats + looking at old pictures of my bookshelves + trying to remember off the top of my head should = the authors I own the most books by. :) Luckily, I have some very recent pictures of my shelves, because the "off the top of my head" part always gets me.

The #1 author is easy, because it's Ann M Martin. :) I own the entire regular Baby-Sitters Club series + all the Super Specials, all the Friends Forever, all the Portraits, about 15 of the Mysteries, and 3-4 random BSC books. Total is around 185? Maybe more. These take up the whole bottom shelf, stacked upwards, plus another stack on my trunk. (A makeshift 3rd bookshelf lol.)

These are authors that I own a majority or all of a series they have written, so obviously lots of books! It's interesting to see that the majority of these are supernatural series. I still love me some vampire stories but have cut way down on them this year! I'm all about the contemporary romance now (much like most of the world!)

12 Books & Counting: Richelle Mead, Gena Showalter, Lemony Snicket
11 Books: PC Cast
10 Books: Sara Shepard, Cecily von Ziegesar, JR Ward, Charlaine Harris
5-9 Books: JK Rowling, Francine Pascal, Michael Grant, Rachel Caine, CL Stone, Joe Hill, Robert Asprin

And these are the authors that I own a hodge-podge of books by...some are multiple series, some I just really like their writing and devour everything they put out. :)

10-12 Books: Terry Moore, Brian K Vaughan, Mike Carey, Neil Gaiman, John Steinbeck, Jane Green, Sophie Kinsella, Marian Keyes (this is interesting because the first 4 are all graphic novelists! and the last 3 are "chick lit" authors that I've had forever-ever!)
5-9 Books: Scott Westerfeld, Christopher Pike, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Anna Godbersen, Gayle Forman, LM Montgomery
3-4 Books: Rachel Vincent, Ann Brashares, Nora Roberts, Jane Austen, Tarryn Fisher, David Moody, Libba Bray, Suzanne Collins

It's weird how much my taste has changed. It used to be tons of Dean Koontz, Mary Higgins Clark, Jodi Picoult, Piers Anthony, Phillipa Gregory. I love seeing the progression of change on my bookshelf though. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: My 10 Pre-Blogging Faves

I've only been blogging since January 2011, so this week's Top Ten Tuesday should have been relatively easy. But I decided to make it harder on myself and do pre-Goodreads too, which was Jan 2008. And then...I made it too difficult. I couldn't remember very many lol. So I went to my pictures, where I found this one of my bookshelf from 2004, which was a few months before my sister & I moved into our apt together. And that helped quite a bit, but some of these might be in general terms (if I can't remember details) or maybe not quite my favorites, but ones I just wanted to highlight. Yeah, that sounds right. ;)

(go here to view it extra large in all its messy glory!)

1. Why Girls Are Weird by Pamela Ribbon --I remember having a "this is me" moment while reading this book. Like I felt connected to the author.

2. Stone Garden by Molly Moynahan --this is obviously a little-known book, because Goodreads doesn't even have the cover I have listed. I think I might still have this one. I know it made me cry.

3. Jane Green & Marian Keyes --I was waaaay into Pink Books (chicklit generally had pink covers for a long time, so my dad coined them "Pink Books") for a long time. I still have all of these two authors, along with Sophie Kinsella, but I haven't read any of them in a loooong time. I gave extra bonus points if the book was set in England.

4. The Cheerleader by Jill McCorkle --I was assigned this book in a psychology class in college. The girl is super popular and successful in high school and then goes off to college and everything falls apart. I can see now why the teacher assigned it, but at the time, I was like "OMG how did she know??!". I read several more of her books too and remember liking them. Maybe I should pick one up again...

5. House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski --the best book I never finished lol. Seriously, this book is so big and confusing, it's kind of like 1Q84. I read it for like 3 years and would think I was totally getting it and was completely astounded and then I'd read one of those odd footnotes and I'd just have to give up and beat my head against the wall for a while. If you've read it, you will understand. If you haven't, don't pick it up. Yeah, it's that odd.

6. Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford --my mom gave me her paperback copy to read when I was a teenager. What do you think she was trying to say? Lol...I don't care if it was "fake" or not, it's still a crazy good story.

7. Anita Shreve --I was very into those tear-jerker stories for awhile. I devoured all of her books.

8. A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer --this was another one for a pysch class (I took about 4 different ones). The whole series is very interesting and I felt very "grown-up" reading these. Like I had moved beyond those silly Pink Books and was super intellectual now lol.

9. Bad Boys To Go by Lori Foster & Others --haha just kidding, not intellectual at all! :) There are several of these "Bad Boys" compilations and they were always good for a quick, dirty read. I actually want to find some again soon for our cruise next year. :)

10.Dean Koontz & Mary Higgins Clark --I looooved both of these authors for so long, it seems funny that I never, ever read them anymore. I still have a few of Koontz's, including the first 4 Odd Thomas (I haven't read #4 yet though and really, there are 6 now??!). They are both so good at writing truly disturbing books.

TILT: Book Lovers Unite! +Random Thoughts

Today's Things I Love Thursday was easy-peasy...books. Book lovers. Passion for books. You got it? Good! :)

(click picture to make larger or here for details)

And a few random things that popped in my head this morning:

*I'm at 58% on my reading challenge for the year. Woot woot. Did you make a challenge for yourself? How are you doing on it?

*You know how on my last TILT I was totally disgusted with my bookshelves? Well, last week I suddenly had the bright idea to turn my extra shelf (that I had wanted to get rid of) on its butt in front of my window and push my old, ghetto plushy reading chair (that is too heavy to get rid of right now lol) to the corner. Can you say a big, fat DUH!? Here's the shelf a few years ago, on it's side...I put the stuffed animals away a while back and lately it's just been holding my to-reads. So I did it over the weekend and totally reorganized all my books and I LOVE IT!! I am so happy with it, I don't know WHAT took me so long!

*Going along with that, I still want to hang some pictures and stuff up and then I was thinking of doing a bookshelf tour on video. What do y'all think? I really like the vlogs but I've never done one. It'll have to be on my iPhone, so I'm not sure how well it will turn out. But I'm going to try!

TILT: Crazy Bookshelves!

Yay! Back to Things I Love Thursday! :) Now....as you may or may not know, I have issues with bookshelves. Mine is old and rickety and exploding at the seams and overflowing onto my trunk and another shelf that I really want to get rid of. And yet, I haven't replaced it because it's really hard to find the perfect one! I'm sure I'll eventually want one custom built. But for now, let's enjoy these crazy bookshelves I found on Pinterest, k? Oooo-tay!!

Spiral Bookshelf: I think this would be awesome for my Baby-Sitters Club books, don't you? I'd probably need two or three and it to go around the outside too though lol.

Piano Books: What a great way to upcycle an old piano! I have a family friend who plays the piano that this would be perfect for! ;)

Under the Stairs: Even better than a cupboard under the stairs, how about some book storage?

Dr Who Phone Booth: Okay, I know nothing about Dr Who, except that there is a phone booth a lot of the time? Does he change costumes there? Travel back in time? Or maybe just store his books in there? I don't know, but this is cool!

(my apologies for not giving the original links; if you are the owner of one of these fabulous bookshelves/pictures and want credit or your pic removed, please contact me or comment below!)

My Bookshelf...

Okay, I do have reviews to put up but I've just run out of time today! I'm still recovering from being sick and we had no extra spending money, so we stayed home all weekend long...and it was wonderful! :) I cleaned up my room, and reorganized my bookshelf as promised and read 4 books! So I should have at least one review up tomorrow, maybe more.

Anyway, on to the bookshelf...here's my before. Yuck right? I've had this bookshelf forever, since I was a teenager. And before that, it was my parents! So it's old. It creeks and don't touch it too hard, because it will start swaying! O.o But, I do kind of love it.

My biggest pet peeve about bookshelves at like Ikea and such is that 1. They are super wide. I like my shelf to be only wide enough for my biggest book, not have all that extra space at the front or have to pull the books forward. Ugh. And 2. They're boring. I like all the varying heights and lengths of the shelves on this bookcase. I even like the varying stacks and rows of books. It makes it feel like an old cramped bookstore full of treasures. :) So that's the 2 reasons I haven't replaced it yet. Please tell me I'm not the only one this picky about bookshelves!! So, since I haven't found a good replacement, I end up stacking books on the trunk next to it too.

And here's the after...a bit better right? Right! ;) I even have room to grow...like I need an incentive to buy books! And, yes that bottom row is all Baby-Sitters Club books. Plus a small stack on the far right right above it. And OMG! I realized I'm still missing one of the reader's specials for Logan. Dagnabbit!!

And a closeup of my trunk...there's another stack of Christopher Pike books in that middle section. Also, I realized while I was fixing these up that I am missing the Vampire Series by him!!?? Um...where did they go?? Did I sell them? I don't see that happening, but I don't know what else I could have done with them. Weird.

Okay, so there's my bookshelf. What does your's look like? Do you like it? What's your dream bookshelf? Mine's a full wall (or 3) of shelves, custom built, all different heights, all the way up to the ceiling, crammed full. :)