On being a bookworm...

I grew up in the tiny town of Shrub Oak, New York. It is still a pretty town with maple tree-lined streets and American Flags on the telephone poles along Main Street. My formal education began at a charming two story brick school, Shrub Oak Elementary School. And, right next door was the Shrub Oak Public Library - a place we walked to once a week during grades 2, 3 and 4.

Wow. A whole BUILDING full of books to choose from! I was always the kid with a huge armload of books who needed gentle reminders from the librarian that we were only allowed to borrow five books each week. Charlotte's Web, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were among my favorites. I would crawl between the pages and became completely absorbed in the stories. I remember bringing a flashlight to bed so I could read my books between the sheets when I was supposed to be sleeping (right, like my Mother never noticed the glow under the blankets, LOL).

Then, my parents purchased a set of World Book Encyclopedia and the Childcraft Library. Book #9 of the Childcraft Library was the arts & crafts volume and I made every project in the book - many times over. My parents encouraged reading and always praised my creative attempts. I destroyed countless bars of soap attempting to carve the turtle shown in book #9!

Through all of that, a bookworm was born.

Book by book, I have created a little library of my own that includes hundreds of books, a small portion of them shown in the photo here. Between my love for books and all things creative, I have built a wonderful resource for just about any technique you can think of.

So, what's the point of all this rambling about books? Well, it brings me to my project, inspired by the wonderful movie "Julie & Julia".

Through the years, I have read books, been inspired by them, marked page after page of projects and techniques I wanted to try, then got distracted by a zillion other things and the marked projects never got made. I now realize that what I need is a PLAN.

So, for the next 52 weeks, I will make one original project a week, each inspired by a different book in my library. Along the way, I'll blog about the projects I'm making and will share my thoughts on the book I'm using. My goal is to accomplish three things: 1) To create a year's worth of interesting, original projects; 2) To continue building my skills; and 3) To improve my computer skills through uploading photos and posting to my blog.

That's it in a nutshell. 52 weeks, 52 projects from 52 books. The name of my project is "Bookworm 52" and I'll be posting several times a week, ending with photos of the finished project. I hope you enjoy following me on my journey - I'm looking forward to your feedback!