It’s a long, rambling story but stick with me it ends with Free Books! Since opening a book store one of the most surprising and most wonderful perks has been the number of advanced copies of books publishers send to me to get me to read them and hopefully order them to share with you. But because they are advanced copies you cannot then sell them so they pile up, we trip over them, we give a few away, we thought about skeet shooting with them…but they are books, we can’t do that! So I have been trying to come up with a creative idea of how to share them with you, our loyal customers.
In planning for Christmas in the Country I thought wouldn’t it be great to let customers choose from these books as a Bonus Book Gift with every $25 purchase? Great Idea! But how to display them for you to choose? Sure, I could have just thrown them in a box and called it a day but where is the fun and life threatening adventure in that? So instead I thought “They should be displayed on a book shelf shaped like a Christmas Tree! And I will design and build it myself.” I mean, how hard can that be, right?
So first there was the conceptual sketches. Rob and I (both obviously engineering geniuses) collaborated on these. Then I wrote up a supply list and Rob went over to Pat’s Hardware to pick up the supplies – had to get out the pickup for that. Then it was time to lay out the design and pull out the power tools. At first I thought a regular cordless saw was the best choice, but it did not have the heft necessary to get through the incredibly thick plywood Rob choose, so then I went with a corded jigsaw – that was much harder to cut a straight line but really why does a Christmas Tree need to be symmetrical or straight – that is so boring!
Then came time to cut up the 4x4 fence post – sorry, my power tools were not up to the task so back to Pat’s where the guys were great about helping me out to get level straight cuts (thanks guys!). A layer of green paint and then it was time to put this beast together. Tried screws, that was going a bit badly so nails. In hindsight nails may not have been the best choice. As I sat in my garage building the sections one nail hit a knot and instead of going into the board the nail flew towards me and actually hit me square in the eye – thankfully I am extremely lucky , blessed and apparently have excellent blink reflexes and I closed my eye in time so other than a red lid I am fine. Kids, don’t try this at home, or if you do wear the darn safety goggles. Well, now to put the layers together, but no matter how I tried scattering the columns I could not figure out how to attach the top section. That was, until Kelly Ward wandered into the shop (did I mention I actually nailed the “layers” of the tree in-situ at the shop because I was afraid it would be too heavy to lift once together?) Well Kelly borrowed some tools from Charlie across the street and WE HAVE A TREE! (Thanks Kelly, thanks Charlie!)
So off to the storage unit I went to pick up boxes (and boxes) of books, then Mel arranged them on the tree . Next we decorated it and photographed this beauty and in the immortal words of everyone who has ever seen an idea of Pintrest and then tried it themselves “I NAILED IT”.
So after that rambling beast of a story the result is this: Come to The Conundrum this weekend and for every $25 you spend you get to choose a book from the Fabulous Bonus Book Tree. There are some great titles on there, you are sure to find something you like, Mel and I sure had fun going through them with a constant refrain of “Ooh, I loved that one”.
Here are the rules: Choose 1 books for every $25 spent between Friday Dec 7 and Sunday Dec 9, while supplies last. All books are marked with a red dot on the top because with many of the books being advanced copies they cannot be sold or traded back under our Used Book program. We Look forward to seeing you this weekend during Christmas in the Country, join us for fun, food, drinks, festivities and books!