I love beautiful paper.
I'm an art major. I spend a lot of time binding books. And a lot of my art is collage or assemblage. So I'm a sucker for nice paper.
I'll go to the art supply store and look over all the wonderful papers, thinking about which might be nice to use for the endpapers or contents or cover of a book... looking at sheets of paper that cost six and seven dollars... trying to not buy too many, but more, trying to justify the purchase of a few. Most of the time, I only buy when I have a specific project in mind, something that I need a specific sort of paper for - this keeps me from buying too much expensive paper that I don't need.
Today, I went to the store, in search of a simple Exacto knife, and was lured into buying what is quite possibly the perfect decorative paper:
Alligator skin paper
This is not paper made from alligator skin or leather. Rather, it is 15 x 20 inch sheets of paper that are perfectly textured to mimic alligator skin. The surface is raised, and the texture of it is perfect, matching the reptillian skin. The raised areas are glossy, polished as a nice gator leather would be.
And it is a deep red! Or a nice dark blue! Such absolutely magnificent eye candy. Expensive, too, (US$5 a sheet), but so perfect, so appealing to the desire for shiny things! It is obviously not alligator skin, but it looks close enough that it looks cool.
The back appears to be a paper... perfect for gluing bookbindings. I envision a whole shelf of books, glistening in the late afternoon sunlight, reflecting the light with their red and blue alligator skin spines.