January 24 Daily Journal Challenge: A Gift

I've misplaced the ability to create a gift spontaneously. Or so I thought. True, I'm stymied this morning by a time crunch. Have to pack and leave for weekend in Blue Ridge. So, instead of a journal page or a separate piece of art, I'm giving my hostess one of the journals I made just a few weeks ago.

I love the coptic stitch and while most of my books are bound with rich red thread from Volcano Arts, for this volume, I chose a beige, wanting the blues and creams of the papers (Ikea sells good-sized rolls of handmade paper in their giftwrap section. Each roll a variety of shades. I took some each from the blue collection and made this.) Today, I will give it to Sarah, who owns Out of the Blue in Blue Ridge, Georgia (do we see a theme here?).

Happily, I hadn't yet chosen end papers for the inside of the front and back cover so this morning I (spontaneously) chose and buggered up, I mean distressed, a Xerox copy of end papers taken from an old children's book. We all remember our Nancy Drew hardbacks, but in a bag of books taken from my mother's attic last year, I found a copy of a Dana Girls mystery. Have no recollection of ever reading this particular series or volume "The Secret of Lone Tree Cottage." The vocabulary is richer and more varied than in the Nancy Drew series.