I Spied October

Color, lovely dark and deep is how I think of October. Golds and red and umber. And warm nostalgia for autumns past - maple trees and east coast vacations, brown suede shoes and school years not yet devoid of their newness. I photographed a collection of papers and trifles that seem to capture the month and they rather reminded me of the "I, Spy" books my brother and I had as children. For some reason those slight hardcovers only came down from the shelves in winter; we'd sit on either side of my mother and see who could first spot the be-riddled objects each time she turned the page. So in the spirit of colder evenings and old fashioned indoor pastimes, I created a handmade "I Spied October" booklet.
After taking the picture, I wrote a riddle to include all the objects. For the book I printed it in dark brown ink on kraft paper.Bay leaves in bronze, a spool of gold thread.
Deep olive velvet and words to be read.
A farmhouse facade, a still life emblazoned,
Floral and fiery, luxurious and brazen.
In chestnut and ivory, two bits of down,
Five pins and a ribbon in taffeta brown.
Tiny bouquet of glass petal and wire,
Sepia valley with lonesome white spire.
Lady in linen and black satin brim,
Antique brass button, tarnished and dim.
Papers, a snapshot, a glittering four,
In a deep maple orange, one button more.
A gentle winged beauty called to watch over,
And the muse of this poem, a gilded October.The front cover is printed on vellum. The back cover is a pocket created by sewing the short sides of the last two pages together - inside the pocket I tucked a mini craft envelope with a tiny magnifying glass enclosed (from an eye glass repair kit - I added gold paint to the rim and a seam binding bow to the handle).Beneath the vellum front cover is a thin layer of sewing pattern paper. You can just see through to the "I, Spy" photograph beneath.A page instructs the reader on "How to Play."And of course no game is complete without a solution.A page printed on vellum breaks the riddle down into numbered objects. Then the following page shows the original photo with corresponding numbers on each of the objects.You can commemorate October by making a book of your own. Find the download and instructions below.

Click the button above to download the printable pages of the book. Pages are 4 inches by 6 inches - you can cut papers to size and print on a photo printer. For the look above, print pages one and five on vellum. Pages two and six are best printed on photo-friendly papers. Print the remaining pages on papers of your choice (card stock or even kraft paper!). You can also add additional papers to customize your book - I added a page cut from an old sewing pattern between pages one and two. If you'd like to have a pocket in the back cover of your book, place pages six and seven back to back and sew short edges together using a zigzag stitch. Now align all the pages of your book together and sew with a zigzag stitch along the spine. Enjoy!