Waterfall Books

As the weather isn't very suited to being in the garden (it was really cold yesterday and although it's sunnier today it's far from warm) I am working on the list of things I want to blog because I don't seem to make much of a dent in it during warm and sunny days.

So here are the waterfall books (also known as step books) that I made following Kiala Givehand's Youtube video in her Book-in-a-Day monthly series for 2014. This was her book for April and you can find the video here.  I finished mine in mid May. Sadly I made a bit of a mistake with my first one and ended up with only 5 steps instead of the 6 I should have had. Still, you learn most from your mistakes!

Here is that first version. Kiala had no content in her book but I can never resist putting things in my books. For the pages in both books I used gelli plate printed papers. For the content I made poems using words or sentences from vintage books and the accompanying images are my own photographs printed onto 2" square by Printagram (I do LOVE this company!). As most of you know I upload my daily picture to Blipfoto but I usually take many more than just one picture every day. The second best one usually ends up on Instagram and it's these pictures that Printagram uses to print their delightful selection of yummy goodies such as these squares, small stickers, buttons and much else. 

 Here is the completed poem for this book which of the two is my favourite. Just a shame I made that oops!

Of Memory

The story without an end

that moment is all time.

My thoughts, are they not mine own?

Memory is not wisdom

I looked, and years had past

The chance is gone for ever.

And underneath is the book as it should be with 6 steps but I'm not as happy with the content as I am with the one above.

 Here is the text of this one:

The Silver River of Heaven

the breath of old romance on an endless voyage

these are other universes like our own,

all the colours of the rainbow

ever floated in a summer sky

Here the tragedy begins,

warnings of coming disaster.

withdraw into the depth of space

these far-distant spirals

the silver river of heaven

know the bright stars

the path of souls

where does the day begin?

I say this almost every month but this was one of my favourite books so far. It was simply to put together and because of the gelli plate printed papers the books already looked lovely and colourful before I started putting in the text and images. I'm also very pleased with the first poem.

I always feel far less confident in putting my writings and poems online than I do my imagery, be it photos or textiles. It's strange as words were always my thing (I'm after all trained as a research librarian!) but changing your first language when well into adulthood means that you loose your confidence in your first one through lack of use,  and it takes many long years before you gain the same trust in getting it right at all times in your second. I have just about reached that stage now but I will never rely so effortlessly on my English as I did once my Dutch.

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You will also notice a difference in my Now Reading item in the sidebar on the right. It has looked in the past like I was reading the same book for months as I just hadn't time to write and change the review. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am as reliant on words for my well being as on food, in fact probably more so. I hoover up books, reading probably more than 10 books per month. Some of these are to learn something regarding mixed media or book making, others are pure entertainment such as detectives and thrillers and others feed my soul with beauty.

I use books to get to know myself better or to learn more about things that happen to attract my interest or attention ranging from books about a shipwreck mentioned on a gravestone to information about vintage nude photography. Regardless of Google (and I use that extensively too!) for me it's books that are the primary source of information and I anticipate that will always remain the case. I love beautiful books (such as One by Victoria Alexander, a work of art in it's own right before even enjoying the content!) but I will also read books on my Kindle (such as the complete works of Emile Zola, even though I have read them once already) and when working (I haven't yet learned to stitch and read at the same time) I listen to audio books. The day I stop reading will probably be the day I die.

So now I'm just going to put titles of the books I'm currently enjoying in that sidebar and if they appear there it means I like them very much, just in case you want to come along for the book fest.