Alice Hoffman: The Probable Future (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
See my blog post for a review. (****)
Sarah Addison Allen: Garden Spells
See my blog post for a review. (****)
Sarah Dunant: The Birth of Venus: A Novel
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florence palazzo. A child of the Renaissance with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra has the will and talent to be a painter but not the training or social opportunity. She and her family are caught up in the governmental and religious turmoil after the influence of the Medicis transfers to a radical priest. The story contains many types of love and longing and one woman's search for herself. (*****)
Here's another LO I made a while back. I wanted to capture how I feel about snow, and I used a photo I thought captured it. We didn't get that one good snow this past winter, so I'm already looking forward to the next winter season. AFTER I enjoy the rest of spring, and summer and fall.
Last month I made quite a few layouts, but I haven't gotten around to posting them. It's gardening season, folks, and I'm spending every sunny moment in the garden. Except for now, where I'm sitting inside with the AC cranked up, suffering from a reaction to sunscreen. Pass the calamine, please!
I made this one in response to a challenge at my scrapbooking friends' website - OK, OK, I posted the challenge! Still, it felt good to use some older photos and product and get this memory scrapped. Oh, my was he EVER cute!
I'm finally getting around to posting a few LOs I did a while back. No, I haven't been scrapping lately, but I wish I had. It's Spring, and that means gardening season. But I'm not complaining, no sir. I love gardening season. And the only reason you are seeing this LO is because it's raining and I can't get out into the garden!
Here's a peek at some things I've been working on. I learned to make these ribbon flowers long ago in two classes I took with Faye Labanaris, quilter and teacher extraordinaire. If you ever get a chance to take a class with her, I give her a hearty recommendation. If you want to make some of these flowers, check out her book Blossoms by the Sea, a tribute to Celia Thaxter and the story of the quilt Faye made to commemorate her life. And I see she has a NEW book which I just might have to have: Ribbon Treasures from Celia's Garden.
I made these ribbons with new and vintage wired and unwired ribbons and silk ribbon. And beads, oh, yes, beads! To give you an idea of size, the largest pansy in the lower left is just over 3 inches at its widest point. The sweet little violets in middle left are just over an inch in height.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
The third and final chapter in the Inkheart trilogy. I love the concept behind the books, that a special reader can read characters to life out of books and in so doing, can end up taking the original stories (and the story they've been read into) in directions never intended. The Inkworld Ms. Funke created is populated with fascinating creatures and humans both good and evil. While the trilogy is quite dark, there is a lighter side as well. The trilogy may have been intended for young readers, but there is much here for an adult to enjoy. The three books are classic good versus evil stories, but the characters are so interesting you get lost in them.
Between spring cleaning and painting and reading and working a lot of extra hours, I've been doing a little scrapping. Here's one I finished recently. It's ultra simple, but I wanted to get back to more of the stories about us, people we love, things we do and places we go.
Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Marley and Me is not just another dog book, it is so much more than that. It tells the story of the Grogan family through the eyes of the author, John Grogan, a newspaperman and magazine editor. I found myself laughing as much at exploits of the Grogan children and I did at Marley's exploits, and there are plenty of both. What touched me the most about this book was how much love the Grogan family had for their hooligan hound and what wonderful things he taught them in return. Marley may have been an obedience school dropout who forced continuous home improvement on his owners, but they loved him anyway. And Marley loved them back with everything he had. We, as humans, find such unconditional love far too infrequently, so I thank The Man Upstairs for Marley and his fellow fur people.
I have been wanting to scrap for a while, but life has been getting in the way. The weekend I'd planned to take down all the Christmas decorations, I got a horrible stomach virus. Needless to say, it was days before I felt like doing anything. While I wanted to scrap, I needed to get the tree down and the decorations put away. Then Casii offered me a wonderful day of antiqueing and junking, and I couldn't refuse that! I'm glad I didn't, too, because I found some treasures that will find their way into paper projects.
I'd planned to go through all our Christmas stuff this year and weed out those things we were no longer using. I needed to get things better organized, too. I'm happy to say I got those things accomplished, but it took a little while. Now I have a huge pile of unwanted Christmas stuff in the dining room to deal with, but that's a project for another day.
Yesterday was the annual 3K Christmas Lunch, something I look forward to all year. Karen, Kathy and I had lunch at Mike's, one of my most favorite eateries, and we did a bit of shopping, too. We opened presents, and all I can say is that my best buddies sure know what I want and need. It was a great day.
And today, I scrapped! I have some other ideas brewing, but I need to get a couple of photos printed (from negatives). I worked with what I had, and this is the result. Not perfect, as I ran out of journaling room, but it tells the story. That was my objective, and I accomplished it.
And I must say, he's a much neater eater these days!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
OK, so I don't REALLY want one of these for Christmas, but I love this song. Part of it is the music itself, part is the fact it's being sung by a little girl and she's singing with such authority, and part is the fact the song is so ridiculous that it's just plain fun. And it's scientific. See if you can locate the science fact in the song!
