I Love Old Books

I just love old books! I always pick one or two up at yardsales or thrift stores. They work very good for decorating and they provide insight into how people thought at that point in time, even a turn of phrase and can tell you a lot about the time with the book was written. I really love old history books, I think it is fascinating to see how things change. I have one book about the British Commonwealth and Empire, and another one called "Standard Canadian Speaker and Reader" which I think was meant to teach but it's not like the other old schoolbooks I have come across.

This picture is a shelf where I used a few of my old books to decorate in my home office. Don't mind the mess! This is the shelf Rob bought me for my birthday last year because I wanted something to hold all of our old textbooks from college. The shelves get narrower at it goes up so the top shelf was only really good to hold a variety of knick-nacs and some of my vintage finds. You can see a couple pieces of my milk glass, and there is an old singer sewing machine tin my grandma gave me and the little rocker used to be my Oma's (great grandma). The vintage books used here are mainly Shakepeare and some philosophy which I thought appropriate for an office.

The two red books in this picture are the ones I mentioned earlier. I got them at a yardsale, they were more than I usually pay for old books at about $5 each but I thought they were worth it because I found them so interesting, and really to buy a new softcover book you are looking at at least $10. The white one called "The Cornflower and Other Poems" Was the first ever vintage book I bought, I did have a few others my grandma gave me but this was my first step into vintage. I got it at a small antique shop in the town where I grew up, It's from 1906. The shop is no longer there and neither am I but I still have the book, I would have been around 16. The bottom book is called "In the Time of Roses", the cover is very damaged, I got it for $2 at the local thrift store, but I still think it is a very pretty book which I would like to use in decorating my living room when I get to redecorating that room. After flipping through it I would also like to read.

These are my two most recent thrift store finds. One is to add to my vintage history collection, it's from the 1960's. The other gold coloured one is from the 1940's but I didn't realize that when I first picked it up. I was reading the forward thinking it sounded like an interesting and amusing book then I noticed that it was from the 1940's. The other picture I was trying to get a picture of the bookmark I got for $2, someone made it using vintage jewelry and it looks so pretty with the gold book. But ever since I brought it home the cats think it's a new toy for them, as you can see in the picture Sally Cat is playing with it.

Here is a better picture of the book mark, it has really pretty sparkly red stones. The disappointed cat was removed to the floor. I just love this idea though, it's a great used for bits of old jewelry that might just get tossed out otherwise. I love reusing things, much better for the environment than just throwing things out.