Ida Clare: Ida Clare, It's the Last Chapter of Bookish

Dear Creative Friends,

Well here we are at week three-in-a-row of blog posts. I have been enjoying the fall-ish weather we have been having and it couldn't come too soon. At my home away from home (Hobby Lobby) there are faux pumpkins ever where there isn't a Christmas ornament or a manger set even though we're still wearing flip flops and cammo shorts to shop. (We may wear cammo shorts but they're tricked out with some flirty lace around the leg openings. Calls attention to our butterfly tat tastefully alight on the Cross at Calvary that we got for celebrating the final graduation of Vacation Bible School.)

I don't have the energy to be indigent any more about Christmas decorations being in the aisles before the Spring Shop of yard art, bird cages and fairy garden decor went to 60% off. I am just thankful that Big Thicket has a Hobby Lobby for me to get a dose of creative potential when mine is running low.

Speaking of fairy gardens, I have two in my yard right this minute that I finally finished. I must say they were a hit - with the cats anyway. Can't say much about the fairies reaction since the mosquitoes have been too pesky to sit out in the twilight to see if I can catch them jetting in from the hills and dales around here. I guess they wouldn't "jet" in, they probably just flit in. Whatever it is they do. Do they ride on the backs of cats? They should. My cats need an occupation other than the sleep-a-thon they seem to be running.

Anyway, here are some more photos from Bookish, the altered book I made for my brother.

I'm not sure why I didn't crop out the hand model's pudgy thumb and finger and I could do it now but I am lazier than I am vain.

This lady reminds me of my neighbor who is too busy having her nose in my business to have her nose in a good book.

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book." -Lemony Snickett

"Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup." This is a tag I made of from the design of bookplates. I drew the dragon myself and printed this version out of an old book page.

"She is fond of books and it has turned her brain." I think this quote is from Jane Austin or Austin Powers, I can't remember which.

"Perhaps I will read until I feel better." Well, duh.


"Ever feel like you spend too much time reading?" And the other intelligent looking chick says, "Yeah, me neither."

Just a burning question here, why is it that other people think they have to right to judge the amount of time you spend with your head in a book? After all it is your head. If you weren't intentionally cramming it with something good from a book, you'd have to fight to keep out the environmental debris and internal negative muckity muck.

I saw a similar painting on Pintrest so I copied it with my little watercolors and added the words. I like this.

"In life we all come with baggage. Mine just happens to be filled with books."

"At times, I think to myself, 'Drop the book and get stuff done!' Then I laugh and turn the page." I like the little envelope for keeping important stuff.

"A book a day keeps reality away." This is the only flower in the whole dang book. It was a challenge to make sure the book was masculine because I am so accustom to making my books girlie. I can't help it.

"Now is the perfect time to develop the structural integrity of your book fort." I don't have a book fort but I pretend I have one in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled. You have to be careful not to drop your book among the bubbles. Books like water about as much as cats do.