musty

I love to use old children's books in my crafting, ones where the spines have been broken, ones where there is some "original" art work inside, ones that seem a little unloved. The problem with these books is they have often come out of "hiding" before they hit the shelves at the local thrift stores and they smell, well, like they've been hiding! At first I used to stick the whole book outside on a sunny day, often for many, many days till the musty smell had gone. Now I have a new system. I remove any pages that I think I'd use and pop the rest in the recycling bin. I punch a hole in the top corner of each page and pop a metal "snap it" ring through and pop them on the clothes line. That way they can flap about nicely in the breeze and freshen up, and I'm not worried about local cats sitting on them. It seems to work quite well and I can snap the rings onto a coat hanger and hang the whole lot up! Easy. 

I found a couple of books by Joan Walsh Anglund, they have the sweetest illustrations! When I did a quick search on Joan, I found this link with some printable paper dolls that look very sweet.