I immediately thought of books. When I suggested this to J, he laughed, and said, "You know my friends will be like, 'WHAT?', at the wedding. What do books mean?" Mustering all my womanly tenderness, I chided in dovelike tones, "Oh dear, books represent us more than any other thing next to the gospel." It was my weak attempt at saying his man-friends are sometimes denser than I'd like, and don't appreciate fine literature (am I perpetuating a stigma?). Of course they wouldn't understand books as decorations.
We decided a nice compromise would be to cover the books with vintage fabric, and include on them words, poems, or quotations that represent milestones in our relationship.
For example, some words we've picked include:
Family, power, sacred, seal, marriage, panache, virtue, and temperance.
With this in mind I set about looking for appropriate fabric in our potential wedding colors (burnt orange, raspberry, emerald green, and gold/brown).
However, one late evening, I picked up one of these intended-decoration books and started reading. I was unaware that I'd read for nearly three hours, and had come across beautiful and forgotten words. I was passionately transported to my high school days when I'd stay up all night reading, much to the chagrin of my dear mother who could never get me out of bed. I remember asking my eleventh-grade teacher for the entire collection of Steinbeck's works, because reading just the required two books wasn't enough. Indeed, I did read every book she had. I loved to read.
I'd somewhat forgotten this past-time in the craziness, and non-literatureness, of scientific papers and journal articles in which I've been stuck lately. That night was a blessed sip of the springwater from my youth. Since then, I'm too much in love with my vintage books to desecrate them by covering them in fabric. This means I'm on the hunt for antique books that have, well, less value, if you can say such a thing of a book.
How could you mod podge the fabric covers of the following books?...
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| My collection of antique books- I love them too much to turn them into wedding artwork! |
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| Old Chelsea by Franciscan; made in Staffordshire, England. China purchased for display at the wedding! |
- 1898: Selections from Shelley, Alexander
- 1908: The Heart of the Red Firs, Ada Woodruff Anderson
- 1908: The American Commonwealth: Volume I, Bryce
- 1908: The American Commonwealth: Volume II, Bryce
- 1922: Readings in English History, Cheyney
- 1924: Within a Budding Grove, Proust
- 1920: I've Married Marjorie, Margaret Widdemer
- 1921: Victory, Conrad
- 1925: Quo Vadis, Bienkiewic
- 1927: Lectures on Theoretical Physics, Lorentz
- 1929: Joseph and His Brethren, Freeman
- 1930: Cimarron, Ferber
- 1931: 'R You Listening, Tony Wons1946: Before the Sun Goes Down, Elizabeth Howard
- 1936: Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson
- 1936: Precis Writing for American Schools, Thurber
- 1936: Lafayette, A Life, Latzko
- 1936: While Rome Burns, Alexander Woollcott
- 1937: A Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms
- 1942: Western Civilization, Tschan, Grimm, & Squires
- 1942: The Ox-Bow Incident, Clark
- 1942: A Conrad Argosy, Conrad
- 1944: Pilots Also Pray, Harmon
- 1945: English Readings: Beowulf to Shakespear; Gerould, Jones, Bernbaum
- 1945: Great Son, Ferber
- 1947: Kingsblood Royal, Sinclair Lewis
- 1947: Favorite Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- 1948: Practical Chess Openings: Reuben Fine
- 1950: Nurnberg, Wesen und Schiksal enier Stadt (Essence and Destiny of a City), Sieghardt
- 1951: Return to Paradise, Michener (this is what kept me up all night!)
- 1952: My Cousin Rachel, Maurier
- 1953: The Bridges at Toko-Ri and other Short Stories, Maupassant
- 1953: The Scribner Treasure: 22 Classic Tales
- 1953: A Stillness at Appomattox, Catton
- 1954: Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. Q, Aldrich
- 1955: Island in the Sun, Waugh
- 1959: Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak
- 1961: Heidi
- 1961: Pinocchio, Aesop's Fables
- 1961:Robin Hood
- 1961: Alice in Wonderland
- 1963: Amy Vanderbilt's New Complete Book of Etiquette, Amy Vanderbilt
- 1966: World Atlas, Rand McNally
- 1970's Russian Chemical Engineering Textbooks!
- 1972: To Serve Them All My Days, Delderfield
2 comments:
Where did you get all these books?????
Now I am curious which book you picked up and read for three hours. Fabric covered books are so lovely! We have one of a compilation of some of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and when I need a break from the regular I delve into that book for some sweet word relief. :) I love this!
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