Search for the perfect book

I know it's been a few days since my last blog, but I've been so busy and haven't had chance to get on the computer much or take photos of my new jewellery makes. I spent hours this morning in town, hunting for the perfect book for a new crafty project.

I saw this brilliant idea on a craft forum I go on...... Making a bag from a book, and I was inspired to make one as a wedding gift for my friend so she can keep wedding memories and bits and bobs from the wedding in it. The lady, Kaz, who posted about it on the forum blogged about it here

It all seemed so easy when I was sat in the library with a cup of tea and some toast, feeding Emily. Get a cheap hardbacked book from a charity shop and there are a few of those in Barnsley, and some nice co-ordinating or contrasting fabric. So how hard could it be?

Well in the first charity shop I spotted a shelf full of hardbacked books and soon realised that the majority of hardbacked covers are black, brown, dark blue or dark green - not really wedding keepsake colours.
So there I was, knelt on the floor pouring over the books, just focussing on the colour of the backing boards by titling each book towards me and I spotted one that was cream, slipping the dust cover off, I saw it was a lovely cream and in perfect condition, brilliant I thought until I noticed that the title of the book was "How to murder your husband" and this was printed onto the spine - not so brilliant. Would have been great if I'd wanted to make a comedy, fun present, but I want this to be serious and something for them to treasure, so I headed to the next charity shop. So not only was the colour of the backing boards important, but the title also had to be appropriate. I continued my search, avoiding anything with "dead", "blood", "murder", "affair" etc in the title. I eventualy spotted another potential candidate in one of the charity shops, entitled "The Perfect Day" (so far so good), the backing boards were white (not as nice as the cream but still good) and they were in good condition, but then I realised it was a bit too slim - the hunt goes on. Six charity shops and £11 later I still hadn't found the right book, I had accumulated a door frame baby bouncer (£4), a leaf shaped glass dish that I'll use for displaying my bracelets in at craft fairs (£1 - bargain!) and a long pink beaded necklace with light and dark pink faux pearls, pink seed beads and 7 large dark pink beads in bead cages (£4 - not such a great bargain, but need some pink beads and pink seed beads and the bead cages will come in handy) and some super glue and fabric glue from the pound shop. I was debating whether to trek over to the larger charity shop near the train station as I was feeling a bit deflated by this point and my feet where aching, but remembered that this shop does have a lot of books, so off I went. On the first shelf I spotted a book with a lovely purple hardback board for £1 so I decided to get this to practise on and if all else fails purple is my friend's favourite colour anyway. A few shelves later and I found one with a lovely light teal-blue cover which I thought would also make a nice bag and that was also only £1, then just when I was about to give up, I tilted a shabby looking book toward me and saw its backing boards were a pale colour, white or silvery or maybe grey, I slipped off the dust cover and to my surprise found that it was a lovely shiney silver! It was just perfect and a good size as well so I quickly checked the title, praying it would be something suitable - "Rite of Spring" - well, could be worse, in fact a marriage is classed as a "rite of passage" and the wedding will be in Spring (next March) tenuous I know, but better than "How to Kill your Husand". I gave the cover one last check for damage and realised, to my utter joy, that the book title wasn't printed along the spine, so it was indeed the perfect book and only £1 as well.

I was so engrossed in finding the book that I completely forgot to look for fabric to line the bag with and by this point I could face going into another charity shop, so that'll have to wait until another day.

Oh, I also nearly lost Emily in my jaunt around the charity shops, I left her parked (in her pram) at the back of the shop, out of the way and was just looking at books a few feet away from her, when two ladies started wheeling her into the back of the shop! I went over and told thhem the pram was mine and apollogised for
leaving it in the way and they thought someone had left it to be sold! It's a tandem pram, and Emily was in a car seat, cocooned and hidden from view inside the two hoods (car seat hood and pram hood) so they hadn't seen her! I'm glad I spotted them before they got into the back of the shop, otherwise the hunt for the book would be out of the window!