Children's Picture Book Day

Since I love kids' books, I was happy to see today is National Children's Picture Book Day. If my kids were still little, we'd probably celebrate with a reading tent under the table and tons of books. I'd probably have snacks to match too. In Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, she brings cheesy snacks to her teacher, so we could have had those. Lilly and Kevin Henkes are some of my favorites. This book came out when my daughter was little (1996) and it's how I discovered the author. Colleen loved Lilly and actually had a purple plastic purse with a flower on it, so that made it even better.

If you've never read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom aloud, you're missing out. It has the best rhythm and I found it when the kids were little too. It was published much earlier (1989) but I hadn't heard of it. 

One of my son's favorite picture books was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, another classic for a good reason. Great illustrations and the board book has sturdy holes in the food that kids can poke. Ben loved that part. This book is almost my age, as it was published in 1969!

Lane Smith has a ton of books but one of our faves is The Happy Hocky Family (1993). It's cute and has clever little asides for the adults and older kids.

I found Mo Willems through my kids too. His Pigeon books are adorable, Knuffle Bunny has great illustrations and his Elephant and Piggie books are favorites of my daughter's students. Yep, Colleen became a school librarian and she is fabulous at it—she's even dressed up as Elephant for her kids.

If you're looking for some children's books written by women, here's an article that highlights some. I have several of these on my library list to read, including this one, with the cutest illustrations.

And, since I was a Go-Gos fan back in the 80s, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this new picture book featuring the lyrics of We Got The Beat.

To wrap it all up, I'll share this card I made recently featuring Where The Wild Things Are stickers from The Paper House. I added nuvo drops accents and clouds and drew in a ground and added a sentiment.

I think I need to revisit some old friends from the book shelf today to celebrate!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Where the Wild Things Are

So, I found this paper from Paper House Productions and it has the iconic book characters from Where the Wild Things Are...since my daughter is an elementary school librarian and she needed a baby shower card, I made her the fastest card ever. 

I trimmed a panel from the 12x12 paper and adhered it at an angle to some dotted paper and added twine. I frayed the ends of the knot, because, well, they're wild! And though this shot doesn't show it, I added some matte gold sequins to the card. I just felt it needed something. And regular gold sequins wouldn't have worked for this card. I used Nuvo clear drops on his scales and horns and on the boy's crown for texture. Ta Da! Ready to go in 5 minutes!

This baby shower card was just as fast...the sequin elephant is a sticker from my stash...ever have something crafty so long you forget where it came from? Yep, that's this elephant. (I searched google for sequin elephant sticker and this ebay listing came up if you need your own).

I bought it years ago and it just sat there. Finally I figured it was time to use him. I used some School Days paper (yep, old stuff from my stash) and yellow cardstock and this one was finished too! 

Inside I stamped a sentiment, which I stamped crooked, so I re-stamped it on the yellow cardstock and adhered that over the messed up one. That took the longest. I ought to know by now not to stamp directly in a card!

And my last baby shower card uses a free stamp I got when I ordered some stamps but I can't even remember who sent it...that's when you know it's time to stop buying stuff! It's so sweet and small. I used a watercolor background and purple ribbon. Getting that watercolor just right took me the longest time. Too dark, too crooked, too whatever. But this one worked for me.

Happy Friday!

Chark