Best selling book of all time.

Last week, my son and I went garage saleing for the first time all summer (I know, you'd think someone who is hosting a barn sale in six weeks would have been hitting them every week!). As we walked up the drive, it appeared to be another one of those sales that the "garage sale police" should be notified of. You know the ones. The ad reads "HUGE SALE" or "VINTAGE GOODIES" and you get there and the HUGE SALE is actually some spoiled brat's closet sale full of designer onesies and rhinestone cover baby tees! And the VINTAGE GOODIE equates to Tupperware from the 1960's...and it has food stains on it! Yep, that's when I want to call the garage sale police to issue them a ticket!

So anyway, as I approach the garage, there are only two tables and it appears to be a meager selection of books and some knick knacks. Sigh, another waste of time. Wait, what is this? An old Bible? I pick it up and run my hand over the gold gilded cover with brass edges and clip...the leather is so smooth. I think of the who might have owned it and how many years did they open and close this grand book full of wisdom...and more importantly, why wasn't it kept in the family! I carefully open the latch to find its age. It's marked with Roman Numerals--and I'm not so good with those--so I ask the woman working the sale. She and I decide (and we were right) that the book was published in 1873!  As I flip through the pages I see it's illustrated with fabulous drawings.





She tells me that these Bibles came from a farmhouse in New Hampshire. Did she say "Bibles", as in plural? I look down again and that's when I realize that all the books on the table are Bibles!!! Oh my goodness...a bevy of gorgeous covers, worn leather, some with gold trim, some with handmade book covers. I didn't know which one to pick up next. So I gently choose the Daily Praise & Prayer Book, fabulous worn leather with gold gilded printing on the cover. Each page devoted to a single day's prayer. Here's today's...

 As I open it an ancient book mark falls out...a needlepoint stitched with "Rest in the LORD". Oh my! And when did this little beauty come off the press? 1884.

The third one I pick up has leather so worn that it is almost glossy. The binding is damaged, and only bears a simple HOLY BIBLE on the spine.

As I turn the first page the paper is so thin I can barely feel it in my hands. Gasp! 1823!!!! This Bible is just shy of 200 years old!

 The reverse side of this page is inscribed withthe words: The Property of Maj Irena Grover, Sandown, Nov 16th 1825. A piece of someone's history...I wish I knew who found such joy in this book.

The next is a small, almost pocket size Holy Bible, simple brown cover with black inscription.

The inside cover in inscribed with: James M. Taylor, Rock Lawn Farm, Foxboro, Mass. June 5, 1888 "Enter not into the path of the wicken, and go not in the way of evil men". Your true friend, Chas. N. Morse.

The last one I pick up is the largest and is covered in a homemade version of a bookcover, similar to the ones I made as a child out of a brown paper bag to protect my school books. Only this one is striped leather, and when I open it, the inside is stitched with thread! It is dated 1848--one hundred years before my husband was born! I am amazed. I so badly want to know what the cover looks like, but I don't dare remove the cover that someone long before me thought it needed.

As I stood there wondering who these belonged to, and why have they been separated from the family which once owned them, I kept feeling the smoothness of the leather, and running my fingertips over the ingraved covers. The beauty is striking. The content amazing. The beauty too much to describe. Which one should I buy? How can I not buy all of them? Needless to say I didn't buy all of them, but I did choose these five fabulous, gracious books of God...not only for what's on the outside, but also what's on the inside.





Paper thin walls.

On a recent trip to see my friend Kim, from Serendipty, we visited a local antique store in Clarendon Hills, Illinois. One of the vignettes in the store was all black and white, and the wall had been covered in newspapers, scrapbook paper and other odd pieces of memorbilia. I fell in love with the wall and decided to duplicate in my stairwell. I knew I'd have to alter it a bit, because I didn't want all black/white/gray colors. I needed it to be more on the tan/cream/brown side of the color wheel.

You might remember that last year I painted my family room two shades of tan, but when I got to the basement stairwell, I never finished the bottom half. Partly because I ran out of steam, and partly because I couldn't decide what to do on those walls. I contemplate wallpapering the bottom half, but stewed about what paper to buy for weeks and in the end, I never did anything. And now a whole year has passed and it remains unpainted! The yellow bottom you see here is the old wall color--and that's what I wanted to cover.

The walls are covered in wood paneling, so I wasn't sure I wanted to permanently adhere layers of paper to it. After much thought I decided to line the walls first with brown Kraft paper. Then I could paste the newspapers and other layers to the Kraft paper! Great idea, right? I got right to work.

My supply list was fairly simple--6 rolls of Kraft paper (got them at the Dollar General); newspaper; scrapbook paper; wall adhesive; razor blade; staple gun and tons of staples.

I decided to staple the Kraft paper directly to the wall vs. wallpapering it to the wall. With this method the entire project could simply be ripped down when I get tired of it. It was easy to staple up the Kraft paper. I simply held it even at the top and started stapling. I stapled down the center first, so I could smooth the paper out toward each side as I worked. It only took about 40 minutes to get the walls lined.

Now came the newspaper layers. When I started looking through my local paper, I realize that they use an awful lot of colored ink nowadays. That's not the look I was going for. So I drive to the drug store to get a copy of the Wall Street Journal thinking that's more black and white, right? Wrong! So I had to really scour the paper for the right pages without color. The majority of what I used was sports scores, weather map, stock exchange info, tv listings and crossword puzzle pages. I did add a few pages of cartoon funnies, for just a bit of color.

For my adhesive I had decided on liquid wallpaper paste, which I had to run out to get at the local hardware store. I buy a gallon--and open it up. It had completely turned to a soft solid and couldn't be used. So back to the store I go and bought a pourable paste instead, which I rolled on with a foam roller. As soon as I started rolling it on, I knew it was a bad idea! The paste was too liquidy and caused my Kraft paper to warp. Yikes! Back to square one. After calling Kim to cry on her shoulder, we decided that spray mount/spray adhesive might work. Luckily I already had a can because now it's too late to go back to the store. I decide to just spray the edges of the newspaper pages and for the double spread pages I also ran a bit down the middle. Then I just lined it up and stuck it to the Kraft paper! I worked from the largest section of the wall, and moved way to the smaller part at the top of the stairs.

After the newspaper layer was done, I used vintage dictionery pages; other old book pages with interesting images on them; coordinating scrapbook paper; sheet music; S and H green stamp book pages; my son's report card; a science paper he had from school with a 100% score; and other paper memorbilia.

I really like the finished product. I'll warn you though, having the layer of Kraft paper does not give you a perfect finish, as far as how "flat" it lays against the wall. There are some  areas that aren't totally flat--but that doesn't bother me. If you're a fanatic, you might want to spray mount your paper items directly to your wall....but remember, at some point, you might want to take them down--and who wants to do all that scraping?

I'll leave you with some before and afters of each view...