A twist on the romantic side of skeletons and ghosts, Plumas Lake
artist Letitia Grace Lauer gets a thrill out of turning her regular
paper crafts into something spooky and beautiful each fall. She spends
countless hours cutting books into bumpy pumpkin shapes or adhering
pages of novels and nonfiction onto skulls, all now on display in the
windows of Dinah’s on D Street in Marysville.

Some of her favorite creations come from repurposed discarded and old
books, and that was how she connected with Dinah Parks, owner of the
Marysville bookstore. Lauer wandered in with a friend and after a quick
chat, a partnership formed where Lauer dresses up the windows
periodically to attract customers and her creations are sold on
consignment.

“I’m not a reader myself, which is kind of ironic,” said Lauer, who
has dyslexia. “For me, it’s a love of art and creating something new.”

Parks told her that was OK because she doesn’t have an ounce of
creativity. And she is happy to have found a use for the unacceptable
books she gets, as well as the foot traffic drawn in by the displays.

“Opposites attract, ‘you complete me,’ whatever you want to call it, it works,” Lauer said.

Parks agrees.

“Without her, my windows would be pretty vanilla,” she said. “Her
Christmas line is the absolute top-seller, with the book page ornaments.
Halloween is No. 2 … She is unbelievably creative.”

Lauer’s artistic streak has been running strong since she was a girl.
She started painting and sculpting when she was young, but now her
passion is for paper crafts and upcycling and repurposing discarded
items.

“I love working with stuff that is going to otherwise be thrown
away,” she said. “To see what else I can get from a worn down item into
something usable.”

Potato chip cans, ostrich eggs, a bird’s nest — she can find a use
for anything. For her Halloween costume, she crafted steampunk-style
Wonder Woman cuffs out of toilet paper rolls, chipboard cutouts and
paint.

The family kitchen table is often taken over by glues, glitter, beads
and found objects, or used as a drying rack for freshly machéd or
painted creations. They eat many dinners instead at the kitchen counter,
because the dining room was long ago transformed into an ornate movie
den with Lauer’s designer touch.

A stay-at-home mother, she said her family is her first priority and
then her crafts. She maximizes her hobby time while her children
Trinity, 7, and Tristan, 10, are at school and will stay up after they
have gone to bed, sometimes becoming so entrenched in a project she is
called back to reality only when her husband, Heath, leaves for work at
Beale Air Force Base near sunrise.

“It does take some time, but it’s also therapeutic,” Lauer said. “Creating restores me, helps me keep my peace of mind.”