My quote book

Almost a month ago I mentioned my quote book, and I said I would post about it more soon.  Well, with everything that's been going on and with all of the things I wanted to post about, I nearly forgot!  Then as I started writing this post, I could have sworn that I have posted about it before.  I remember my cousin Dawn telling me I should make two - one for her, too.  Maybe that was on Facebook, though, because I couldn't find it.  I looked through my list of posts, skimmed through a number of them, and asked Steve.  So if this seems familiar to you... so sorry!  Hopefully this version will be more interesting.  :D

I'm always fascinated by quotes and poems.  They can be uplifting, inspiring, funny, and motivating.  And they can touch something deep inside you.  I have at least one published book of quotes (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, I think?).  I even typed up a number of quotes, cut them out in strips, and put them in a box where I can pull one out from time to time:

Anyone who looks inside will get a nice surprise!

I was starting to amass too many quotes, though, so I decided to get a book I could put them in.  Another thing I'm very fond of is blank books.  I have a whole box of failed diaries, books for my poems, sketches, and just blank books.  I love blank books.  I don't remember when or where I found this particular book, but I loved it.  The leather was soft, and there was a flap that folded over the top with a leather strip that wrapped around and could be tucked in to keep the book closed.

I happily started writing my quotes in (with a purple pen, of course):

And then....disaster struck.

He looks so harmless, doesn't he?  Caegal, the Pomeranian I had when I was with Dave (this is over 10 years ago, I should mention), loves to get into things he's not supposed to:

We had to take him to the animal hospital once because he got into a closed pillbox of diet pills.  He chews through bags and packages to get to bread (that loaf of bread plus a Ziploc bag of dinner rolls that he had to climb to get to) and chocolate, he loves rummaging around in bathroom garbages and litter boxes, and... he loves leather.  Shoes, purses, and my poor quote book:

He's lucky he's so cute.

Well, eventually Dave moved out, taking Caegal with him, and all my leather products (and my food and my cats...) were safe.

I had this book out to take pictures of it, and Steve said, "What's this?"  I told him it was my first quote book, and he said, "It's been Caegaled?"  He knows Caegal all too well.  We watched him once, and it was quite a dance we had making sure the cats could get to their litter boxes but Caegal could not.  It was like the movie "The Others" - we had to close one door and make sure it was secure before opening the next door.  We had gates up with chairs on either side so the older (and the fat) cats could navigate through the house.  I love the pup, but it was exhausting!

It took me quite a while to find a replacement for this book.  Truth to tell, I wasn't looking all that hard.

Whenever I'm in a bookstore I like to look at the blank books.  They have come out with so many beautiful books that it's difficult for me to not get one every time I look.  This particular day in 2006, though, I was not so strong.

The picture on the left is the front, and the one on the right is the back.

Yes, it's mostly gold, but something about it spoke to me.  (I usually cringe when I see gold things.)  As I mentioned when I posted about the book a month ago, it has a quote on the spine:  "The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears."  The quote is from John Vance Cheney.  I had to look that up - it wasn't on the book at all.  I find that odd.  Anyway.  The the image is a self portrait of Laurel Burch, and I think it's stunning, especially paired with that quote.  It's a PaperBlanks book, and all of their books are beautiful and well made.  There's a magnet embedded in the book and the flap, so when it's closed it stays closed.

Instead of just writing the quotes in like I did in the first book, I decided to make the book a work of "art" on the inside like it is on the outside:

Not everything is motivational, of course.  :)  This one is one of those that speaks to my heart.  I bordered it with heart stamps to tie in with the theme of the poem.

On these pages I stamped a harlequin pattern in the middle of each page, sponged the same color around the edges, stamped some flowers in the corners, and wrote the quotes large, emphasizing a word on each.

Since I love quotes, I tend to get quote stamps, too.  These pages are simple, but possibly my favorites.  I sponged blue around the edges and stamped flowers above and below each of the quotes.

Not all of the pages have just one quote per page:

If I'm feeling ambitious I'll stamp the first letter of the quote and stamp a border in between.  This one also has borders stamped in the corners.

Even if you don't stamp, you can do something similar for your own quote or poem book.  Use different color pens for the first letters and make them large and add a doodle border in between and in various places on the page.  Do whatever makes you happy, and you can have your own book of quotes and poems that are meaningful to you.  You can start with the ones on these pages if you'd like.