I used my Star Stencil for my projects over at a2z Scrapbooking yesterday and all I can think of is the One Republic song, Counting Stars, even though I didn't actually count any of my stars.
Here's the video if you're singing the song now too and here's one of my projects I have up at the blog. You might want to check out today's post too, from Cornelia, cuz it's gold and fabulous!
Last thing for today—it's the Book Cover of the Week!
Haven't read it, but now I want to since it's so lovely! Happy Monday! Chark
Ok, it's not as catchy as "Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner" but my winner is from the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop, so that's what I went with! Congrats to:
Terri Burson (Waving My Wand)! You're the random winner of the coffee cup stencil from Stamplorations!!
Email me your address and I'll send it to you asap and don't be surprised if there's a little something else in there too!
Thanks so much for the kind comments and all the inspiration during the hop, friends!!
Thought I'd do a book cover of the week, even though it's been a couple of weeks since we had one. I love this cover and I kinda love the synopsis (Dr. Who meets Sherlock Holmes) so I may have to read this one soon!
See what I did there? My sewing card prompted the little play on words. I'm, like, sew clever (yes, I'll stop now).
Ok, so it's not really the weekend, but the son has today off for teacher conferences, so it feels like it here. Plus the daughter is coming home from college for today and tomorrow, and the husband is off today too. It's like a big party here. I made this card at my lss, The Paper Cottage, and thought it was sweet and clever, so I thought I'd show it off. The needle is just a stamped needle, but we put a slit in the eye and ran real string through it. Love it!
Here's the Book Cover of The Week this week. Love the girl-in-a-bottle look to this and the colors are gorgeous. No idea if I'm going to read it, but it does sound interesting. It's YA and I love reading young adult books.
It's so funny that we had a handful of YA writers in the 80s (Lois Duncan, Paul Zindel, S.E. Hinton, Richard Peck and Paula Danzinger are the ones I really remember) and now YA is so diverse and good and engrossing that they are blockbuster movies and breaking records all over the place (Hunger Games, Divergent, The Fault In Our Stars). The crop of YA authors is fabulous right now and I am drawn to their books again and again. What about you? Ever read YA books? Happy Friday, Chark
Apparently, the first week in February is Children's Authors and Illustrators Week—who knew? You would think someone who likes to call herself a children's author might know this. I didn't get the memo, so to celebrate, I will do Book Covers of the Week this week to celebrate kids' books. I love children's books and ya books, along with historical fiction, biographies, and anything I can get my hands on. I just finished Dear Daughter, by Elizabeth Little and looovved the narrator. She was imprisoned for her mother's murder and doesn't know if she did it. It's not the plot that caught me (although a good mystery is a great find) but rather, the main character and her observations. Not a kid's book, but I highly recommend it anyway. Some fabulous kid's books (imo) are:
Lilly is just the best and I will read anything by Kevin Henkes. He rocks.
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. I first found Pooh Bear on tv as a child and didn't even know there were books until I had my child...seriously. Both kids got copies of the adventures of Pooh. It's a fabulous story and adorable illustrations and just so wise. Read it if you haven't, even if you don't have little kids.
Nancy Drew is the penultimate female character who wasn't like other girls. The Mystery at the Ski Jump was the first Nancy Drew book I read and I didn't stop reading them. Nancy was a great role model for me at the time. She is plucky and fierce and she saves herself on lots of occasions. Brave and inquisitive and so flipping smart, Nancy always gets the bad guy. You can get the original stories, manga comics, first-person mysteries, little kid Nancy books and movie novelizations. All I know is that I want to be Nancy Drew someday.
Red Scarf Girl is absolutely riveting. If you know nothing of China's cultural revolution, this is a great read for learning more. It's about society in general and how we are products of our culture but we can also grow beyond our culture to connect with the greater world. I honestly thought this was fiction as I was reading it and realized it was memoir later. It reads like a compelling novel and I think everyone should read it. Everyone. And, lastly, I thought I'd better throw in one last card I made for the nursing home. I used a Project Life kind of card, although I don't scrap with pocket pages. I love the little cards though! You can put together a birthday card or hello card in minutes with them.
I added a Doodlebug enamel heart to one of the hears and alphabet stickers and twine to finish it off. That's it for President's Day! Happy Monday! Chark p.s. If you have a military family, you might want to check out the publisher, Elva Resa, who specialize in books for military families. I love the illustrations for my story and how easy they made the process of my first publication...see the cover on my sidebar here.
p.p.s. There's a newsletter that one of the editors runs that is worth signing up for, as well, called Books Make a Difference. The newsletter isn't just for military families and not just for writers, it's just about books...and how they make a difference. Weird, huh? :)
It's that time of year around here, school has started and the buses are lurching through the neighborhood. There's something pretty cool about starting school—fun supplies, fresh starts, new outfits. But for me, the worst part is and was always the waking up at the crack of dawn. Yikes! I'm not good at it, no matter when I go to bed.
To celebrate, this is the Book Cover of the Week.
It's the back cover that I like best. David is a character that David Shannon made based on one of his childhood drawings his mom had tucked away. And David gets into a lot of trouble. The first book is called No, David! You can imagine what David is like. And here are a couple of free digi images for you that are school-related. I love this vintage one for a teacher card.
Now, I know the old saying that you should never judge a book by its cover...and I feel that's pretty true as far as people and how they look. However, I almost always do judge actual books by their covers. How about you? I saw this cover and loooovved it.
When I looked up the book to find a synopsis, I found this cover. It wasn't as compelling to me as the first.
The second one did make me think of the creepy twins in Stephen King's The Shining, though. While it's a mystery, it's not horror and the first cover represents the antique book shop the main character lives above. Now I have to decide if I want to read it. I'll probably at least check it out (figuratively and literally from the library) just to see if I like it. I'm nominating the first cover I showed you as my Book Cover of The Week. If you've read it, let me know if you liked it. Meanwhile, I'm working on the vacation pics and made this page ahead of time. I like it now, but I really ought to know better and not make a scrap page without pics first...it always gets me into trouble (see this post).
