For The Love Of Books

A Gift From Flora!

Dear Readers, Just LOOK at the GIFT I have received from Flora of "La Casa Delle Bambole di Flora" blog! She makes these mini versions of the books by Beatrix Potter and had recently posted about them on her Beautiful Blog! I asked her if she had "The Tale of Two Bad Mice", my favorite of the Beatrix Potter tales and Flora said she would send me one!!!!

It arrived in it's beautiful wrappings with a sweet note! Can you see how PERFECT it is?

I immediately had to run and find my 1:1 scale version....

which itself is only about four inches by six inches.... Not very big at all!

Can you see how tiny Flora's book is??

Thank you, Flora for your generosity! I am so amazed and touched by this gift!

And if you are not familiar with the tale....

it is my Favorite because it is about a Dollhouse!

I am thrilled to have this tiny version of my favorite story..... and so is Annabelle!

It is nap time in the Shabby Sister House, so there MUST be a story first.....

I am still like that, Dear Readers, I like to read myself to sleep!

Did it begin, this Love of Books, with the nightly ritual of bedtime stories?

Passed down from Mother to child, from generation to generation?

I know Joanna certainly loves books.......

she collects them from all parts of the World.....

Old books and New...

She has just found some books that her Great Uncle must have left in the Lovely Old Dollhouse... (made by me..... I am still a novice...)

This one is a reproduction of a Very Famous Medieval Book of Hours........ I used velvet for the cover..... I know it is not authentic or to scale..... but it is beautiful.....

Joanna is going to read while Victor takes his Siesta........ it is a hot Summer Afternoon.....

The shelves of the Folly will someday be filled with mini books....

I have bought some... but I really want to make my own.... and I know I will learn the techniques someday.... perhaps even Soon!

The Lord's Council Chamber in The Castle will have a few VERY Precious Books....

I have even started collecting......

There is a Beautiful Illuminated Bestiary by the very talented Ericka Van Horn........ I could not resist... and was fast enough when she posted it that I have it in my collection!

And as for Collecting..... that started AGES ago..... and I still have some of the tiny books.... actually, I can say I have ALL the tiny books that ever came my way...... and if it won't bore you... here is a little tour of my Collection!

Starting with a small Almanac..... yes it is from 1894!

And another tiny mini book I have had for many years is this Thumbnail Bible........ the top cover is missing but the rest is in quite good shape for a book printed in 1815! It is a little large for dollhouse scale.... measuring about one inch by two inches and very thick!

The inside is readable as it was intended as stories from the Bible to interest children.....

And it has numerous beautiful wood block print illustrations such as this Samson and the Lion...

You can see that I have loved books for most if not all of my life.... but I have also loved MAKING them..... as you can see from this carefully sewn and lettered dollhouse scale Atlas that I made when I was ten or eleven......

I even drew and colored a map of the world inside!

Another tiny book I made myself at about the same time is this cloth covered volume......

I wrote the title on the inside in pencil..... "The Prince and the Pauper" by Mark Twain.

And on the back cover I wrote......

But the book that is the most elaborate that I have made.... although still incomplete... is another that I made in my teen years. The cover is not yet bound in leather......

But the front pages are Illuminated.and carefully hand lettered with ink......

And I even dared to try to write every word on every page......

by hand....... in ink.......

For quite a few pages......... but NOT to the end of the volume...................
Alas, my eyesight and hand are not as steady as they were so long ago..... will I ever finish it???
I think maybe I had better......!

Speaking of Mark Twain, that tiny book I made all those years ago has made me think about the way things in life are so connected... like threads in a Tapestry or pages in a book.... events unfold and reveal a bigger picture if we stand back to look.... Because just last week I was in the local airport with my daughter-in-law, waiting to greet my son, her husband, who was arriving home on Leave from the Army. His flight was delayed, so we had some time to use and decided to go up to the departures level of the airport to see if there was any comfortable waiting area. And when we got to the upper level, I was astonished to see a Miniature House! It was a model of the Mark Twain House.... now a museum in Hartford, Connecticut..... and it was ENTIRELY made of LEGOS!!!! If my son's flight were not delayed, we would NEVER have gone upstairs and would have missed it entirely!
Here is a picture of my Lovely Daughter-in-law in front of the probably dollhouse scale model!

And a closer view of the building.....

And a picture of the poster of the Original House.....

And some more detail of the LEGO building techniques.......

And some more.......!

They even made a LEGO horse and buggy!!!!
(This was the nineteenth century....!)

And to think that LEGOS were always the Favorite toys of my boys!
So we were quite well entertained until my son arrived!
(And I think he would admit to loving books too......)