Deconstructing books

Consideration number ONE:
The first thing I needed to consider was do I need another hobby. The answer is no. But would I listen?

I was there to shop for a book on knitting hats -- and that's the book I came away with. Lovely. Knitting is a hobby I can carry with me -- I can knit in the dark -- it doesn't add to eye strain -- and there's an end product that I can share. PLUS, it uses yarn I make on my wheel -- and that is not a hobby -- that's more a life choice.

As I reached for a book called something silly like Hatalicious or Hatopia or some such, my hand slipped to a pretty book just below the shelf of knitting books.

I once took an old book from the free shelf and did this odd thing to it -- circled words down the page. You jump from word to word and don't stop to make it make sense. The fun thing is, it often does make sense. I got some kind of sweet little poems from that. Odd little things, to be sure, kind of Zenish, some of them.

But this book showed pictures of art journals -- pages glitzed over with paint and decoupage -- buttons sewed on and bits of string and such.

So... I put it back on the shelf

But couldn't stop thinking about it.

And eventually bought it for my daughter.

But still couldn't stop thinking about it.

So, today, at the second hand store in Lewisburg, I decided to shop for a book to use for an art journal. You can't just use any book. You have to have a conscience about it.

And that is consideration number TWO.

There was a lovely book, the right shape and size and texture to make a lovely art journal -- but it was about endangered species -- so....

no.

Then I spotted a recipe book by Martha Stewart. There you go. Perfect. I mean after she did what she did, she can donate a book to the cause. I don't mean THAT thing she did. I mean glueing cereal boxes to a curtain rod. Glueing mismatched cups to saucers and saying, "Now they have to go together, they're one thing."  No conscience twinge in using her book.

However, there is a recipe in there for rubarb pie that shall be preserved intact!

Now I have my book.

Consideration number three still to come: buying some gesso, a few tubes of acrylic paint and a new set of colored pencils. Happiness is -- yet another new hobby.