Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Happy lamps & book covers

Greetings from the land of Barnes and Noble! Tonight is my "night out" so I'm here soaking up a bit of time in the cafe while perusing various art and project books. I just have to share a project from one of the books I'm reading:

How to make a book cover
1. Measure the length and height of the book when fully open, then cut a sheet of kraft paper 3" larger than the length and height of the book.

2. Fold down top and bottom edges until the height equals the height of the book.

3. Fold ends around book and turn left and right flaps into the inside of the front and back covers. Finish with a binder clip.

Now, I don't condone plagiarism. If I thought this was an original idea, I would never have given you the instructions like this. But HELLO??? Covering books like brown paper? I did that 25 years ago in junior high school! Only we were cheap and we used paper grocery bags...you know, the ones they used to give you before they decided they were killing too many trees? This just cracks me up, that this project is in a book published by a very popular scrapbooking company. But I will say...thanks for the inspiration. I plan to go home and cover a few books later, just for fun. The best part of having book covers in school was being able to draw all over them, and writing funny notes to friends. My best buddy Mel still has most of those book covers with all of our crazy rantings on them. WTG Moosie!

In other news, I bought myself a happy lamp today. Yes, they really do exist. My "special friend" (aka counselor) mentioned a store that sells them here in town, and right after my appt. this am I darted over to pick one up. The jury is still out on whether the thing actually works, since I've only used it for one day. I will say that I found it to be extremely bright and on a gloomy day I imagine it's quite useful. Today wasn't a good test day for it because it was actually SUNNY here ALL DAY!! LOL

I got to visit my friend Heather again tonight. She will have a c-section on Friday to deliver her little girl, who will be 34 weeks along at that point. I pray that both she and the baby, who will be very small, will fare well. If you are the praying type, please say a little prayer for Heather and baby. :-)

I want to congratulate my friend Melinda on being a Prima Hybrid Flower Girl (aka creative team member). She is so talented making altered projects and totally deserves this honor. If you haven't checked out Prima's new site, do so...they have some wonderful inspiration there, and a group of very talented designers.

(Hey, maybe they should make book covers....)

Okay, better sign off before I say something stupid. Nite nite!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm glad you got out! Barnes & Noble is my favorite place to be! That book cover instruction cracks me up. It brings back fond memories of an English book my best friend and I shared in high school - she still has the cover from that with all our "I *heart* so-and-so"s all over it.

You'll have to let me know how the lamp works out - I've been really considering getting one. My trip to Hawaii seems to have helped but I don't do well without sunlight... thanks for letting me ramble on your ramblings. Wish I was at B&N with you!!! :)

Tracy Blankenship said...

ayayayay on your night out. I wish we had one here in town...we will soon, I am sure...but I would have to drive 50 mins right now to get to own. sighhhh. Oh...I remember writing on book coversssss! how cool that ppl saved them. I wish I did. And yay on the happy light too! how cool! let us know how it works!!

Robin said...

I want to know if the lamp works too! I def. don't get enough sunlight with my night owl hours and think that's part of the reason i'm so darn cranky! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Maybe that's my problem! I need a happy lamp! Because according to my husband I'm not a very a happy person.

You will have to show it to me. You should drop by my crop tomorrow.

Dawn

Anonymous said...

Hej! That is hilarious about the book cover instructions. Yeah, those things were great esp. after we decorated them. I know I still have them somewhere, you got it. PS - it's funny you called me Mel and I will have to tell you why sometime, remind me! So, they sell these happy lamps right here in town? Interesting. :) The sun is out today but the extreme cold is offsetting any uplifting effects of the sun! TTYL...

clc said...

Hope the happy lamp helps! Maybe I should try to find one. We had to cover our books in junior high and high school and mine were usually covered in brown grocery bag covers decorated with LOTS of doodles.