Saving a book!

I picked up this book at the library sale. I've been wanting it for my personal library for a while, so when I saw it there I snagged it. 

But the binding was falling apart and the pages were coming out of the book. 

I knew I had to do something to preserve it and so I started searching the internet for ideas on how to save a paperback book. 

Here you see the pages coming loose...

I found instructions for Japanese book making and decided that that would be the easiest, least expensive way to try to save this book. I began by removing each page from the old glue binding.

Removing the pages from the binding. Felt strange to tear pages from a book.

Then I removed the spine part of the cover and kept the front and back covers. I poked 4 holes through the covers and pages in the recommended places according to the instructions. Then I used a length of dental floss and reassembled the book, following the directions.

Here you see what it looks like inside the book...

I was not as satisfied with the dental floss as I wished. It has a bit of give and it slips off the ends when the book is opened. My intention is to find some thicker, stronger twine and rethread it, but it's not high priority right now.

I am happy that the book is in one piece and can be used with care and I'm thrilled to have found a way to inexpensively save books that seemed doomed.

Good Things:

Christmas Movies as a family

Reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever as a family

More snow!

Shoe Redo

I finally decided to be brave and attempt some minor shoe fix-up. Paint scares me for some reason but I decided I had very little to lose with these two pairs of shoes. I've had these LEI ruffly flats for a year since I began dressing my truth. They were a great color to begin with, but you can see the wear on them and they were becoming quite useless to me. Not nice enough for Church anymore.

you'd think I used them for brakes when I ride a bike or something.

This pair of wedges I bought a couple of years ago looking for a fun pair of sandals. I think they have T2 characteristics. The cascading flowers and the straps are soft suede. Unfortunately they are black. Yup, that color I don't wear anymore. So it was either paint them or DI them. 

You can see my expert painting techniques here. Stuffing them with grocery bags and taping off the heels. Pro.

I used Krylon Brushed Metallic spray-paint in the Brushed Nickel color. Here are the results. I am pretty happy with them and I think I'll get lots more wear out of them. You can hardly see the scuff marks!

And here are the wedges. I think they turned out very cool. The flowers are more visible and the straps have an almost sparkly look because of the suede. Can't really see that in the photo. So excited to have some heels to wear now!

And just for fun, thought I'd share the new sandals I found. Another LEI shoe from Walmart. I got them to wear to Youth Conference because we were going to be doing a lot of walking and I didn't want to wear something between my toes or shoes that would give me blisters. I need to get some silver nail polish and cover the rivets which are a yellowy color, but they are so comfy and have a slight wedge heel to them. Sort of dressy but comfy casual at the same time.

Cause I'm Cheap Like That

I found this jewelry kit at Walmart when I went to Club Night in April. It was discounted to $7. I liked the shapes of the earrings in the kit and the pink was good as well so I threw it in my cart.

 I broke it out a few days ago and made a matching set of earrings and necklace. I have found that I really like making jewelry and it's not as difficult as I thought it would be.

 Here are the earrings. I like the oval shapes and the dangling pink beads and thought they were very fitting for my Type 2 wardrobe. Below are the earrings and 30"necklace. The whole set came together in less than an hour. And thanks to the marked down cost of the kit, each item cost a whopping $1. That makes me smile, cause like the title says, "I'm cheap like that."