I have never had a good imagination. When I was little, I could never think of anything to 'play' with my Barbies so I cut their hair instead. My mom stopped buying them for me. I never loved playing house or school or things like that because it was hard for me to think of scenarios and situations required for those games. Even now, when Malia wants me to play with her I have a hard time pretending to do a voice for her little toys. I have a hard time pretending to be someone else. Maybe that's why I have always loved books.
From a young age (really young. Like 4 years old), I have LOVED reading. Books provided the escape to another world that my young mind needed, but I didn't have to make up the story. The author weaved a tale that brought me into their world. The Enormous Egg was the first book I really remember reading.
I was five years old and had just skipped from Kindergarten to the first grade because I had a seventh grade reading level. My teacher, Mrs. Voorhees took our class to the library to check out books. I went with the other kids to all the fun books. Remember the Mr. Men and Little Miss books? I wanted to check out Little Miss Sunshine. I loved those books. My teacher steered me away from the fun books and made me look at a twirling rack of chapter books near the checkout desk. She asked me to choose one of those books. I ended up picking The Enormous Egg. I hated that she made me do that.
Well, thanks Mrs. Voorhees for seeing my potential because I loved that book. From then on I always tried to pick at least one chapter book, and read books like 'Heidi' and 'A Wrinkle in Time' (still sneaking in the occasional Mr. or Miss book). :)
Well the other day, thanks to a gift card I won at work (thank you Carlie), I went and bought that book...and 14 others. I think that all of a sudden with Malia starting school this fall I have really been thinking about the profound impact that books have made on my life. I want to share that with Malia, so we started reading some of my favorite books from when I was young. We started out with 'Ramona the Brave', which she loved. If you haven't read them, the Ramona books are awesome. We will be reading all of them. Thank you Beverly Cleary. We are now in the middle of 'The Enormous Egg' and have big plans to read all of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. Again, if you haven't heard of them, look them up. They are fantastic!
Malia has been loving our reading time and surprises me every time she says, "Mom, can we please just read one more chapter?" I love it. So grateful for the fire sparked that woke me up and said "Read your favorite books with your child!" And, I encourage all of you to do the same. We have seriously had so much fun.
Now that you've listened to me go on and on about books, just wanted to share something crafty along those lines. If you haven't already, you will soon see these little faux book cards popping up everywhere. I decided to take a stab at it.
KAREN!! IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND I HAVEN'T DROPPED OFF YOUR PRESENT, STOP NOW!!!
My friend Karen had a birthday yesterday and I thought that this would be the perfect house for a gift card to Barnes and Noble. To make the front and back cover I just cut some chipboard to 5x7 and covered it with old book-ish looking paper. Then I stamped and gold embossed on the cover to make it even more book-ish.
On the inside I put the gift card and suspended a banner and a cupcake from the book pages. Also used my handy Close to My Heart Library Card stamp to write a little note for Karen.
Here is a shot of the spine.
And here you can see the book pages. They are just 4 accordion folded strips of paper glued together in a rectangle. You can't see it very well, but I added a little piece of satin ribbon at the bottom to look like a place holder. I love the way it turned out!
Supplies: PP - Basic Grey, Martha Stewart Crafts; CS - Close to My Heart; Stamps - Close to My Heart, Practicing Creativity, K&Company, Hampton Arts; Decorative Tape - 7Gypsies; Ribbon - Close to My Heart; Ink - Ranger, Tsukineko; Embossing Powder - Ranger; Label Punch - EK SuccessEnjoy! Go read a book! Or make one...
HOW ARE YOU SO AMAZING?!?!?!
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