Sepia Saturday #187 What To Do With Your Old Books

On Sepia Saturday this week the photo prompt is of some old bibles. I don't have any old bibles, but I sure have a lot of old books.

I'm a real sucker when it comes to old books, especially children's text books. But sometimes these books are literally falling apart. Can I throw a falling apart book away? NO!

So what can I do with these old books? Just lately I've been using the book covers as art. I carefully tear off the cover of the book (saving all the old pages) and then do a collage on the back of the cover. Besides old books, I have stacks and stacks of ephemera that can go into the collages.

When I saw the photos of the old bibles, it reminded me of one of the collages I did. You know how people keep track of their births and deaths in the family bible? Well I found an old book (here it is)

It's called Poetic Jewels. Someone had used the inside front cover to record the births of their family.

I thought this was kind of unusual. Maybe the Duke's didn't have a bible. They used this poetry book to record their little "jewels" instead. There is Landis, Charley, Virgie, Winnie and Elvin, all recorded in the poetry book.

So I decided to make a collage incorporating this family information. We looked up all of these people on Ancestry and found all of them.  So I used the census listing of the Dukes in the collage. They were all listed - Landis, Charley, Virgie, Winnie and Elvin. Isn't Ancestry wonderful?

Here's the completed collage of the Duke's "family bible".

The photos aren't really Dukes. I couldn't find photos of them so used some old yearbook photos instead. I'm thinking he looks like a Charley and she looks pretty much how I picture Virgie.

So that's something you can do with an old falling apart book. It's fun, it's creative and it's recycling. And I thought this was just going to be a hobby. But Barbara posted some of my book cover collages on her blog and one of our local art dealers saw the blog and wanted to purchase four of the collages!! So I guess it's not just a hobby anymore. I'm going to have to get serious.

For other stories about vintage books and bibles see Sepia Saturday. 

Sepia Saturday #186 Women with Sticks

When I saw this week's photo of the woman warrior, I immediately thought of this photo in my collection. There is a similarity, isn't there? Although the woman on the right doesn't hold a spear and shield. Instead she holds a banner for K. Lundberg Clothing. Let me introduce you to the model - her name is Alice Staten. I could find nothing about her. I thought she might have been the Christi Brinkley of her day, but if so, there are no traces of her. 

I also could find no trace of K. Lundberg Clothing. But there was a K. Lundberg listed on a 1900 census for Marinette, Wisconsin and he had a boarder named Edward Staten. Mmmmm. Could Alice have been Edward's sister? Mr. Lundberg in urgent need of a model for his new clothing line offered Alice $2.00 to pose for this photograph. Do you think her gown was a Lundberg creation? And why the funny crown? There's writing on the crown but I can't make it out. Maybe some of you photo sleuths can figure it out. 

In the meantime you might enjoy this You Tube video that goes along with this week's theme. It's from Wagner's Ring Cycle. I thought the opening scene was spectacular. Is Busby Berkeley still alive? Only he could have rigged up those popsicle stick-looking slides for the Valkyries to make their entrance. Genius. But don't watch the whole video if you don't enjoy opera, just the opening number. (And when you're finished watching, click here for other stories about women with sticks Sepia Saturday.)

Sepia Saturday #185 Parapluies, Umbrellas & Bumbershoots

Whatever you want to call them, umbrellas are a necessary and functional tool in all our closets. But they're also colorful and arty and make for some nice photographs.

Here's a group of people from a tour we did in Ireland. It was a little wet that day as we viewed the Wicklow area.

That's me with the red umbrella.

While on a visit to the wine country in Northern California I encountered this little bus stop - it's not quite an umbrella - but it's there to keep you dry.

 

Here's my favorite kind of umbrella. The type that shelters you from the sun as you sit around a pretty pool having a glass of chardonnay. This was from the same trip to the wine country.

While traveling around the internet, I found these other umbrella photos which are quite fascinating.
This is a colorful canopy of umbrellas in the streets of Agueda, Portugal.

And this one is really amazing - cement figures dangling from umbrellas within an office building in Prague by Czech artist, Michal Trpak.

I'll end this umbrella blog with the trailer for one of my all time favorite movies - what else but the Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I'd suggest that you just view the first minute of this video, unless you really like watching two forlorn lovers singing into each others faces for about 5 minutes. But the music by Michel Legrand is beautiful you'll have to agree.
For other umbrella-related stories click here: Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #184 Beware of Ticks

This week's Sepia Saturday is very timely for me. It's about the discovery of the rabies vaccine by Pasteur. I'm not concerned about rabies right now, but another deadly disease called Babesia. This dog disease is caused by those deadly little insects called ticks.

Unfortunately my poor little dog is suffering from this tick disease. She's been under my vet's care for the past month and it's been a real roller coaster ride. Her blood platelet count has seemed like a yo-yo going up and down drastically depending on the medication she's taking. She's had pills, shots and 3 days in the hospital.

She's very pitiful and looks at me like she's saying "Please help me":

Babesia is a tick disease more commonly attacking cows. It was discovered in 1888 by Dr. Babes. It's transmitted by the brown dog tick. Babesia affects red blood cells, and as a dog's immune system tries to eliminate the infected blood cells, anemia, pallor and general weakness results.

Luckily, Tootie (sorry, she was named by my late mother-in-law before she died and willed her to me and I didn't think it would be proper to change her name) is doing lots better. She has one more treatment and then hopefully she'll be back to normal. I have my wonderful vet, Dr. Jones to thank for her recovery. He's been absolutely obsessed with treating and curing her. 

If you have a treasured dog, you'll appreciate this video which is a little corny but very apropos:

So keep Advantage or Frontline on your dogs and cats. Those little tubes might seem expensive but in the long run it will save you lots of money. I can't even tell you how much I've spent so far!! But it's worth it, especially when I see little Tootie getting stronger and better each day. It's been a crazy month.

For other rabies related stories, see Sepia Saturday.Sepia Saturday