Lauren Conrad butchers books, backs off

Lauren Conrad of “The Hills� fame -- and also fashion-line fame and “L.A. Candy� novel series fame -- has an online video series called Crafty Creations. In it, she undertakes low-end DIY projects, such as melting crayons on a board and calling it art, making a bracelet out of washers, and building corkboards from wine corks. Supportive commenters leave messages like “Lauren~ Just when I think you have done it all you come up with Crafty-creations, Absolutely LOVE!!!� and “You are still so adorable! Love this video!�

But the lovefest was interrupted Thursday when Gawker posted a link to last week’s Crafty Creations video with the headline “Watch Lauren Conrad Rip Apart Books to the Sounds of Soothing Guitar.�

In masterful Gawker style, Caity Weaver described Conrad’s craft video: “The clip, a kind of literature snuff film, opens with Lauren resting her hand on her victims: a stack of books whose spines she will soon rip out. Lauren explains that this project ‘is a great way to display vintage books or slightly used books,’ though, by ‘books’ she means ‘the spines of books,’ for there will be no reading here.�

Waver continues, “What Lauren is creating is ‘a unique storage space,’ also known as a box. This box will have the spines of several books glued to one side of it, making it look, to the untrained eye, like a line of books rather than a unique storage space.�

So the book-spine-coated box was born.

And so it died.

Just a few short hours after Gawker posted the video, it was taken down from YouTube and removed from Lauren Conrad’s website. No explanation was posted as to why.

If you’re intent on making a book-spine-coated box, Gawker’s description of the video is just about detailed enough to provide guidance. You’ll need a glue gun, a box, a razor blade and, of course, some books. May I suggest Lauren Conrad’s “L.A. Candy�? The covers are bright, and it, plus its sequels “Sweet Little Lies� and “Sugar and Spice,� can all be found online for just 99 cents.

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