In amongst a box of home made dolls house furniture made of perfume boxes, tiny knitted blankets, draws made of match boxes (a classic), little rag dolls with dresses and biscuits made from modelling clay. No dolls ever lived in the house I made from a big cardboard box, but they did have a library...
I think these were the first books I ever made, and it seems I liked tiny books from the start...
This one's a diary, dated '95, which would make me 11 or 12. I suppose that's how I occupied myself in the days before the internet :)
I think it's funny, that if someone asked me at that age what I wanted to do in my life, I probably wouldn't have had an answer, might've said actress or some other not thought out cliche, an answer to be polite (because the future really didn't concern me that much, it doesn't seem real does it?!) And I've always felt a little aimless, like I've ended up where I am through chance.
But looking back at things like this, it seems like perhaps I did know all along, it was just too close, couldn't see the wood for the trees...
Has anyone else ever felt like that?
9 comments:
You may be on to something there. As a child I think working in a bookshop probably was a fantasy of mine, but ruled out in later life for reasons of practicality (such as earning enough money to eat).
ha ha! i used to boss other people about and make stuff out of fabric and paper. hang on a minute, that's what i do now, only they call it teaching and i get paid.
Those are so much fun! We do seem to go full circle. I read Little Women at 5, and was always making things, and would always try to find ways to fix broken or damaged things, and was obsessed with books and reading (would read ANYTHING -- was given a children's dictionary one Christmas, and read it!), and went away from all of that (well except for the reading) for twenty years -- and now I work in a library archives, do book restoration, and have just taken up book making -- and have become an amateur Alcott scholar and was reading Little Women while cooking dinner!
what a nice little mementos you found.
How lovely that you still have these. I've always made things from fabric and stitch but it's only in the past 6-7 years that I've made it my work.
Dear lovely books. I used to make these when a child. Lovely to be reminded.
I love hearing all your thought on this, it's great! (and dangandblast, reading the dictionary?! I'm impressed!) Thanks guys :)
Oh my heart... Sarah these are just priceless! Isn't it incredible really? The whole 'purpose-in-life' question. I do think children know in their bones, if we just let them be. They figure it out.
I have a sweet collection of books made by my guys so far. Definitely something to keep. Thanks for sharing!
How wonderful that you still have them. I used to make tiny poetry books like that. One of mine I remember even had a leather cover from a scrap of leather, with a little bead hanging from the top of the spine. I don't have mine now :(
Yeh, that's what I did to pass the time as a child too! :-)
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