Animal Bookends, Oh My!

I got this idea from (where else?) pinterest. It was a take on a Pottery Barn Teen set of bookends. The pin shows what I believe to be the PBT version. This is mine!

Notes:

1) I got the Elephants from the $1 section of Target 

    about 6 months ago (they were deceptively 

    $3/each)

2) I spraypainted them with Valspar Metallic Silver 

    Paint (available here)

3) I had a really hard time finding a block that I liked 

    the size of in reference to the elephants.  I ended 

    up wrapping a foam block from Michael's in a 

    heavy paper and spray painting that with a matte 

    black spraypaint.  You can see in the pictures that 

    didn't turn out p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y, but you can't really 

    notice the difference that the glue on the corners 

    makes unless you're really looking at it.

Related Notes (similar projects):

1) I made a set of these, using small elephants painted in gold metallic and small boxes with lids that I 

    painted black.  I just glued the elephants onto the boxes and gave them to my mother for Christmas.  

    Though she just put them on a side table right next to the couch, she said she liked them, and they do 

    look really good there.  I think I spent less than $5 on that project (yes, I got her something else).

2) I made a set of these for my brother using dinosaurs and painting them green and putting them on 

    little wooden plaques I found at Michael's, which I painted gold.  He did not like them, and wasn't 

    particularly shy about telling me so. (in his defense... they did turn out kind of crappy, I wouldn't use 

    a green gloss spray paint for the animals, it was too dark to pick out the details.)

Here they are on my mantle, above the TV.

3) I cut a lion in half (inspiration), painted it matte black, 

    glued them to a gold plaque and then glued the plaque to  

    those plastic picture frames that the pin suggests. But those 

    kinda suck because they're too flimsy, if I did it again I'd 

    spring for real metal bookends.  

       3b) Another note: cutting the plastic animal was pretty 

             difficult, even using a really good serrated            

             knife, I messed it up and had to glue part of it back 

             together - be careful with that.  

       3c) Another thing to watch out for is the placement of the
             animal halves - I tried to get them even, but they
             didn't line up the way I wanted because the lion's feet
            were too far down.