My Childhood Bookshelf

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island."  Walt Disney

Who doesn't love the books of their youth? 

I've always been a ferocious reader.  I was an early reader and in fact my reading skills kept me from being held back in 1st grade, or so I was told numerous times by my mother over the years. 

Some of my fondest memories of my childhood is me curled up somewhere, inside or outside with a book and usually a crisp apple.  Books are by far my favorite gift to receive and my favorite gift to give if I know the recipient is a reader.

Over the years I've collected my favorite books from my childhood and re-read them when the mood strikes me.

From Dr. Seuss and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Carolyn Keene to Beverly Cleary, Catherine Wooley, Betty Cavana and Rosemary DuJardin. The characters in all of these books were some of my best friends growing up and it's been a blast locating them and re-reading them over the years.

Yes, that is a picture of me as a four year old girl sitting on top of that stack of books.  

I would be hard pressed to name a favorite among them, but if someone gave me a million dollars to answer, then I would have to go with - 

I was 10 years old the year this book was published and I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it from the  library and begged my parents to let me buy a copy through Scholastic books (they were usually pretty good about my book habit).  Unfortunately, I lost my original copy long ago but happy that it's still popular enough to get a copy.

As a child growing up in small city Midwestern America, we used to have one of these come into our neighborhood every week, a bookmobile that was hosted by our public library system.  I can still remember the smell of those buses, the good and musty library book smell and how the driver would stamp the date due on the card and slip it back inside the pocket inside the book jacket.  I wanted one of those date stamps!  😁  Little did I know that decades later I'd have several of those to use in my scrapbooking.  

I also remember how excited I would be for that bundle of books that I would sometimes request that I knew would be waiting for me the next visit. 

I couldn't argue with anyone that says that books have held a very special place in my life.  I can't imagine life without a book or reading material of some sort at my side.  💓

Do you have a library of your favorite books?  and what is your favorite?

Let's Get Crafty - Whatchamacallits

Book Marks or Page Markers (whatever you want to call them)

A little back story first.  😀
I've got no problem admitting that I like getting crafty and I like lots of different mediums.  I think I was born with crafty DNA.  My mother was artsy/crafty, her cross stitch (which I've shared on my blog) and her quilts are works of art and at one time she even ran a small ceramic shop out of our house part time, mostly for all the ladies that lived in the housing development we lived in.  Even my father had a artsy/crafty side to him, I remember him painting a humongous Bonsai tree in our dining room back in the 60's.  Granted it was paint by number but still a painstaking project and at one time he owned along with my step mom a plaster shop out in Nevada, so I'm not surprised I inherited the crafty chip.

I've stuck with scrapbooking and paper crafts the longest, this year marks 22 years I've scrapbooked, but I've always dabbled in other stuff too.  Everything from calligraphy, stained glass, cross stitch, ceramics, pottery, batik and when I was still in high school sewed a lot of my own clothes.

One thing that I love is when I stumble upon something really fun to make that is for something else I love, in this case, books and it's even better when I already have all the supplies.  This project takes just two things; letter size envelopes and washi tape.  You will need a ruler, pencil and scissors too.

With the collection of washi tape I have, I have carte blanche in which tapes I'm going to use in making my page markers and I usually have a stack of letter size envelopes laying around.  If you don't, go to your closest dollar store and buy thee a box.

First step - with a ruler, mark off both corners of the envelope.  These will be the page markers. Make your angles as small or as large as you want.  I experimented with different sizes.

Next, cut those babies off the envelope.

Once you have the number of page markers you want to make, get out your favorite washi tape and position the tape on the page marker where you want it and snip off the ends.

Easy Peasy!

You want to make sure that you cut off a long enough piece of tape to go completely across the triangle or position where it will.  You can use as many piece of tape as you want.  It's up to you if you want to do the back side of the marker.  I did a couple each way, just one side and both sides.

Here's one where I use a two different designs of washi tape and how it fits on the page of my bullet journal.

Ta Da!  That's how easy it is to make these fun book or page markers.  You can even get fancier and use colored paper to make the triangles, but I find the envelopes make it just as fun.  It's also an easy, fun craft for kids or even fun to make as gifts for all your book loving friends.

Enjoy!  and thanks for stopping by.......