February? Already?

Didn't we just start January?  Days fly by, weeks disappear, months vanish into the universe. And let's not even start talking about the years........

We're having a rainy morning today..... very warm outside, more like Summer than Spring, and Winter has been a distant memory these past couple of weeks, which is fine with me.  We need all the rain we can get (within reason, of course) to make the wildflowers bloom all over the fields here. I'm waiting for that first April morning when I can look out from the third floor windows and see an ocean of bluebonnets from our yard out into the woods.

Speaking of April, we're looking forward to a wedding that month....... our old-neighborhood  next-door neighbor V's daughter is getting married. V's two 'little' girls used to stop by our house all the time when we lived next door...... they'd come by for tea, or ice cream, or just to say hello and play with Gracie and the cats. "Do you have any new cats, Miss L?"--- that's what they would ask me, since we were always finding strays here and there in the neighborhood. (Nothing has changed... stray cats find their way to our porch here, but we take them to the local shelter.)

V's two little girls have grown into beautiful women.......... one lives up in Dallas, the other is living in Germany.  The Dallas girl, the older daughter, is getting married in April.  I've looked at her wedding web-site, which the 20-something and 30-something crowd seems to do now.... the pictures are beautiful and the engaged couple looks like a perfect fit.  This will be our second Texas wedding.... friends V & S's son got married in Austin--- was it last year, the year before?  As I said in the beginning of this, time is just flying by out of control.

Paper-crafts........ My cousin F sent me these little gift boxes that look like miniature books. She happened to see them at her local Dollar Store and bought them for me because I had mentioned that I wanted to make a Christmas tree for the library, and decorate the tree with miniature books. (Miniature books that don't cost a small fortune, that is.)  So F found these little boxes........ they were covered with red and green paper in a Christmas design. Which would have been fine, of course, but me being me, there's always a way to 'fancy it up' a bit.

The little boxes are only about 3" tall and maybe 2" wide, and the top opens up like a hardcover book, with a space inside which was probably meant to hold a gift-card, or a very small gift.  I got the idea to cover the boxes with artwork from old books..... paperback books from the thrift store, which cost less than 25 cents each.  I found vintage paperbacks:  "East of Eden," "Pride and Prejudice," "Anne of Green Gables," "David Copperfield," and I even found an old copy of "Bridges of Madison County."   I hated to cut up those book-covers, but knowing that it was all for a good cause, I risked the wrath of the Book Police.

I cut the artwork from the front covers and fit it to the size of the little book-boxes..... I used whatever I could from the paperbacks to make each side of those little boxes look like real books..... then I covered everything with clear packing tape. The result.... little miniature books that will decorate a tree for the library.  The little boxes do indeed look like real books, and if I find the right kind of tree, I can just have those little books resting inbetween the branches of the tree. My cousin F suggested that I find the perfect book-lite to use as a tree-top, and to have bookmarks hanging from some of the branches.

So that's how February is starting out.... with a paper-craft project for Christmas.  Love, love, love working with paper.  Hated to cut up those covers on the old paperbacks, though.  I have one more book-box to cover..... so I'm on the search for an old copy of "The Age of Innocence" for that one. I'm hoping that F's Dollar Store gets more of those little boxes.... and I'll be searching the Dollar Stores here for the book-boxes as well.