Dr Frankenstein Meets Santa Claus

Welcome to my lab where I conduct all kinds of crazy experiments--even on Santa!

I was smelling all my Christmas scrapbook paper the other day when I found a piece with a really cool looking Santa. The problem was he was in the bottom right corner of the page, and I knew if I folded a book  normally about all we would see of him would be his belt.

So I had a little conversation with myself, 

"Self, what if you built a word ladder so the letters stair stepped up to the right and left plenty of room for Santa to peek out?" 

"Would that work?" I answered.

"Well, you won't know until you try."

"Good point. You gonna eat that?"

"Santa?"

"No, those gummy bears on the countertop."

"They look really good and I do need a snack."

"I won't tell. Just leave a few in the bag. Maybe Captain America won't notice that there are a bunch gone."

Ok, enough of that conversation. Anyway, here's the result of the experiment.

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I think he turned out great! Peeking out from that corner...





















giving me the I-know-how-many-gummy-bears-should-be-in-that-bag stare.

You've Got Mail!

Look what I got! The first attagirl for Reading With Scissors from a real customer.

Linda sent me this picture of the Blessings book sitting on her mantle. I love the way it looks next to her other books and book ends. And by love I mean I think I'll ask Linda to take pictures of all my books.

A blessing indeed!

Halloween is Over. It Must Be Christmas.

With all the wedding festivities, I haven't had much time to fold many books, but I did get these on Etsy this week.

Here's my last Thanksgiving entry for this season. 

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For lo these many years my family has met in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for Thanksgiving. But met is really not the right word. We gather. Some, like yours truly, drive north from deep in the heart of Texas. Others drive south from the mother country of Oklahoma. Some, like my cousin who offers her home to all of us, already live in the DFW area. 

I like that word--gather. It evokes the sound of hymns and prayers and laughter and family, all in six little letters.

Some of you may recognize the glittery end papers on this book. They were a runner-up in the Blessings contest, running a close race to the eventual winner, Thanksgiving paisley.

And here is my first Christmas book. I like its old-fashioned font.

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My mom taught me at a very early age to love stories--especially hers. Twas... is the beginning to every story. The possibilities are limitless. Twas the night before Christmas, obviously, especially with these endpapers featuring a vintage Santa, but it could just as easily be Twas a dark and stormy night..., or Twas brillig and the slithy toves..., or Twas in the moon of wintertime... 

Twas..., you hear that word and realize that you're taking the first step on a long adventure, you take a deep breath, and you lose yourself in a story or a million stories.

I'm a Mother-in-Law!

My baby got married this weekend. My baby got married this weekend.

Maybe if I say it enough times it will seem real.

My baby got married this weekend.

The great news is I love my new daughter-in-law! Not only is she beautiful, talented, and in love with my son, but she and her mom know how to throw a wedding. From the venue, to the flowers, to the dresses, to the cakes--it was all stunning.

And you know why I love her even more? She asked me to help decorate the sweets table. Flattery will get her everywhere.

Wedding colors were cranberry and gray, so her grandmother and I teamed up to make a matching confectionary fairy tale. The table was covered in hot tamales, pop rocks, sugared cherry candy, red licorice, and more all in gorgeous crystal and glass containers. My job, of course, was to make stuff with books because that's my best thing. Actually, it's my only thing.

My friend, Debbie, tells me decorating should always have a theme so picking one was my first task. I decided to go with "A Storybook Love," because, well, it was about books. I started by making a banner.

I downloaded a really cool font called Matador and printed out the letters on some of Barb's dictionary pages. I cut them out and outlined them with silver cardstock and then glued them on some sparkly tags that I made. A length of twine, some tiny clothespins, and voila!

... the banner you see below.

Next, I made some kusudama flowers from Winston dictionary pages with a cranberry jewel in each center and placed them in a tall red vase for another pop of color. We added some lighted branches for effect.

Then I folded a couple of books, of course. Mr & Mrs. in this case set on cake plates and flanking the flowers.

And finally I printed a sweet sentiment on another dictionary page, attached a picture of the happy couple, and framed it in silver.

I'm so happy to have been part of the decorations. Thrilled! The whole evening was magical!

Hey, did I tell you? My baby got married this weekend!

Hello World!

Have you ever tried to learn a new programming language? I've tried it a couple of times.

The first thing they always teach you is how to get the computer to spit out, which is computer talk for display, "Hello World!"

The second thing they always teach you is...well, I don't know what the second thing is because I'm always so proud of myself for learning how to make the computer spit out "Hello World!" that I quit and go onto the next thing. (Did someone say OCD? Did someone say umlaut? Maybe I should learn German. German chocolate cake would be good for supper. Where's my grocery list? Wait, why am I standing in front of the pantry? I'll just go fold a book until I remember.)

Anyway, the equivalent of Hello World in the book folding universe is to fold the word "Read." One of the first people I saw do it was Isaac Salazar and Heather has a series of articles on RhymesWithMagic with her version. Now I see examples of it all over the Internet.

I'm a little late coming to the party, but here's my version.

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By the way, it's not just art, it's good advice.

Bountiful Harvest

I made this book this week. It is one of my new favorites for a lot of reasons...

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For one...Those of you who voted for the dark scrapbook paper on the Blessings book, you got your wish on this one and I think it's beautiful.

For another...I wish you could all come over for Thanksgiving dinner because the colors of this book are even richer in real life. The pages are really oxidized into a gorgeous ochre color. They were more brittle than most books--not that the broke off into my hands or anything, but they did leave this very slightly rough edge as I folded them, which is pleasing to the touch. You can almost feel that rough edge in this picture.

But the the most important reason I like this book is the word Bounty. It sums up my life. I have been blessed with more than enough for as long as I can remember--not just food and clothes and that kind of stuff, but love, and family, and serendipity. (Also sometimes deer legs.) My life is bountiful!

Here is another book I made. Harvest is another of my favorite words.

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It reminds me of when I was a little girl and I would go with my mom and grandma to feed the men in the field as they cut the wheat. Here is a picture of my first harvest.

My favorite part of this book is the cover. It looks like wheat to me.

Here they are next to each other. 

It's funny that the book on the right is 20 years older than the book on the left. The pages on the right are still a beautiful cream color, thick and supple.

Bounty and Harvest. It's nearly Thanksgiving. (Happy sigh.)

Me, the zookeeper

Those of us who live in the swampy, piney woods realize that occasionally one has to deal with the pesky varmint who wants to take up residence in one's house. I thought I had insulated myself fairly well from that circumstance by specifying in my wedding vows that Captain America would be solely responsible for taking out the trash and removing said varmints from our home. Being the ingenue that I was at marriage, however, I did not take into account that Captain America's occupation would require that he spend at least half of each week away from me and said varmints.

Although I still make an especially loud request for him to exterminate every giant, flying cockroach that seems to delight in greeting me when I open the bathroom door first thing in the morning, I have learned to be fairly resourceful in removing said cockroaches when I am alone. (Interestingly, the decibel level when I make my request and when I must remove the cockroach myself is the same.)

In the past year, however, the varmints have gotten bigger and/or creepier and frankly, I have had it up to here with them trying to invade my house!

Case Study #1: You already know the spider story.

Case Study #2: The copperhead that I saw squiggle across the living room floor at 1 a.m. and then disappear into the darkness about a year ago. My next-door neighbor and personal hero, Carlos and his lovely wife Debbie, came over at 1:10 with boots and a shovel to lead the search and then came back the next night until we found the snake and sent him to snake heaven. (That's right, the snake lived in my house for 24 hours.)

Case Study #3: The pair of raccoons who recently chose my attic for their new starter home. One evening they came down from the attic into the garage and knocked a bag of cat food off of a countertop onto the floor. Captain America and I were watching TV at the time when we heard the big kaboom. My heart leapt to my throat until I realized that finally my knight in shining armor was home when varmints struck.

"There they are!" I exclaimed. "It's the raccoons."

Captain America carefully considered his options and then bravely responded, "Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it." 

Seriously.

To his credit he bought a raccoon catcher the next day and then took them both to their new home in the woods when we caught them.

Which brings us to this past weekend.

I live in a very modern house with lots of glass and clean metallic lines. Normally that is good when I try to take pictures of folded books, but when I tried to take pictures of the turkey, eh...it needed something more than stark white.

It needed the warm, rich hues of Thanksgiving. So I started looking around.

Which brings us to... 

Case Study #4: Our TV room has a built in entertainment center with big lighted cubbies above the TV. I decided to see what the turkey looked like there. I pulled the ottoman close to the wall and climbed up and just as quickly jumped down. What was that in the cubby? My first impression was that it was a stick but with something on the end. Was it a snake head?

I took a deep breath climbed back on ottoman. The "stick" was in exactly the same position it had been in a minute ago. I was pretty sure whatever it was, it wasn't alive. I moved in a little closer and then I saw it was...a leg!

And when I say leg I mean A BIG HONKING, HAIRY, CLOVE-TOED LEG!

And then I realized that there was another leg in the back of the cubby.

Worst of all, I have no idea how these legs got in the cubby in the first place. I know I didn't put them there. I pretty sure Captain America hasn't been sawing the legs off teeny-tiny deer. So now I am wondering if perhaps someone has put a voodoo curse on us. (Although life has been treating us pretty darn good recently so I am considering leaving them there.)

My nerves jangled, I hopped down from the ottoman and took the turkey into the living room, the one with lots and lots of light and windows that discourage varmints from making an appearance, or so I thought until I ran into 

Case Study #5: As I reached down to position a table just so before taking a picture, I saw something scurry across the windowsill and then stop. I jumped back and then quickly realized it was a gecko.

Now normally I have nothing against geckos, they make funny insurance commercials and I see them frolic on my back porch all the time without raising my blood pressure one point, but this one had particularly bad timing as I was still reeling from the animal  parts in the cubby and so I screamed and the gecko, sensing my panic, jumped down and started to scamper across the floor which brought the pandemonium in my house to a whole new level until I realized that I was actually quite prepared for this moment. And that is when I introduced the gecko to my new cat.