Book 8: The Rest of Her Life

Title: The Rest of Her Life
Author: Laura Moriarty
Date: 1/28/09
Copyright Date: 2007
Rating: 4
Notes: I received my copy of this book from Jennifer, the Book Club Girl at www.bookclubgirl.com. It took me awhile to get going with this book because it reminded me so much of We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. In both of these books a tragedy occurs in a family and we hear about it from the mothers point of view. In both books the mothers feel that they haven't bonded with their first born child and their husbands don't understand. I enjoyed this book more than Kevin because it wasn't as bleak and desperate. The ending here is much more clear and positive than the ending of Kevin. I'd recommend both books, but maybe not one after the other.

Book 7: Roadie

Title: Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer
Author: Jamie Smith; illustrated by Jef Mallett
Date: 1/2009
Copyright Date: 2008
Rating: 3
Notes: This was Tim's Christmas present from one of my brothers and his family. It's a very humerous look at the people who race bicycles. It focuses on roadies - people who ride on the road - but most of it is true for mountain bikers as well (which is what Tim does). It's the kind of book to hand people when they ask stupid questions about bike riding.

The Cats Christmas

The boys had a good Christmas this year. We gave each of them a felt mouse with cat nip in it. It took about 2 weeks for them to demolish the first one. The other two are still being played with and hidden.

For this layout I started with a Whisper White background. The wallet sized pictures are on Baja Breeze card stock. The pattern paper is SU's designer series Holiday Happenings. There are a couple of K & Co. stickers next to the photos, the title is a sticker from American Traditional and the parenthesis are Foof-a-la rubons. The little felt mouse with the pink ribbon tail, I made myself.

Book 6: The Darcys and the Bingleys

Title: The Darcys and the Bingleys
Author: Marsha Altman
Date: 1/24/09
Pub. Date: 2008
Rating: 4
Notes: A very humorous and very well written continuation of Pride and Prejudice. There were several mad tangents to the story which is so very Jane Austinish. I loved how the author wrapped up the lives of the remaining sisters and even made Carolyn Bingley likable - or at least understandable.

More Birthday Cards

During my marathon card making afternoon a few weeks ago I also made a bunch to be used during the year. If I show them to you now, do you promise to be surprised if you get one in the mail? I will be honest upfront and tell you that I got the ideas for both of these cards from SplitcoastStampers.com. It's the best place to get stamping and scrapping ideas.

This first card uses SU's Fabulous Flowers stamp set, that I borrowed from my friend Judi. I made a square base card with Whisper White and added layers in Wild Wasabi, Pumpkin Pie and Soft Sky. The flower image is stamped in Pumpkin Pie and the greeting is stamped in Bashful Blue. I added a little Wasabi ribbon for embellishment. I love the colors of this one.

The next card is a little bolder with Basic Black and Real Red on Whisper White . The little owl is from an

Inkadinkado set called Birds Galore and I stamped him in Basic Black. Be sure to click on the picture to see the detail - I put little rhinestones on his feathers. Tedious, but stunning. The greeting is stamped on a tag and tied on with a little red ribbon. There is even a little red eyelet to tie the ribbon through. A few extra rhinestones at the bottom finished it off.

Book 5: Seek the Living

Title: Seek the Living
Author: Ashley Warlick
Date: 1/23/09
Pub. Date: 2005
Rating: 2.5
Notes: I read this book because the author came to the library this week. It's a Southern Gothic type of novel. The author has a beautiful way with words. But I did not like the characters and I felt the story was disjointed and unresolved.

What a Day.

It snowed! We had a 2-hour delay at work this morning and got to close up at 5:00. The snow was fluffy and pretty. After a few attempts, Fred decided he would venture out into the cold, white stuff.

Thankfully it was a quiet day at work so I could watch the inauguration for most of the afternoon. Now I'm waiting to see what ball gowns the ladies will be wearing.

Happy Birthday Little Ballerinas

Two of my nieces have birthdays in early January. Sydney turned 6 this week and Sarah turned 9 last week. They sure are growing up fast. Both girls are in dance class so I bought this dance stamp set from Close to My Heart just for them This is the first time I inked it up, and I love how the images turned out. It's hard to see in the pictures, but I used some Stickles on the tutus to make them sparkle.

Happy Birthday Baby Brother

We have several early January birthdays in our family and I always get their birthday cards out late. My baby brother's birthday was on the 7th and I just sat down this past weekend to make his card. I made a bunch of cards this weekend, and I have almost enough for the rest of the year. So hopefully everyone else will get theirs in a timely manner. A really smart person would make cards for next January wouldn't they?

I made several variations of this card

so I have some on hand. I used SU Wild Wasabi cardstock for the base and Soft Sky pattern paper from the retired Creative License Simply scrappin kit. I also used the adhesive die cut elements from the kit and a punch star from Not Quite Navy card stock to decorate the front. I did stamp birthday greetings on the inside. Simple, colorful and masculine. Perfect.

Book 4: The Dream: A Memoir

Title: The Dream: A Memoir
Author: harry Bernstein
Date: 1/9/09
Pub. Date: 2008
Rating: 4
Notes: This is a follow up to his first memoir, The Invisible Wall. This book starts when his family receives the coveted tickets so they can move from England to America. Poverty follows them to their new home and the father still drinks. But life in America is better. And Harry meets Ruby and falls in love.

Every year I vow to read more non-fiction. So this is a good start to the year for me. And hopefully the romance novels I've read have moved me past my reading slump.

Waiting for the Tooth Fairy

My youngest niece lost her first tooth on January 1st. I just had to get the picture scrapped right away. So this layout is my first for the new year. I used a black background because I knew I wanted to use a lot of bright colors on the page. For pattern paper I used two My Minds Eye papers. For the solids I used SU tempting turquoise, old olive and pumpkin pie. For embellishing I used Prima flowers and added black brads to the centers. The title I stamped with the lower case Best Friends font. The Tooth Fairy brought her one paper dollar and one golden dollar.

Book 3: To Sir Phillip, With Love

Title: To Sir Phillip, With Love
Author: Julia Quinn
Date: 1/6/09
Pub. Date: 2003
Notes: A quick read. Follows Eliose, of the ABC Bridgertons, as she sneak off to visit Sir Phillip. They have been corresponding for a year and he writes with a marriage proposal. Cute story.

Book 2: Casting Spells

Title: Casting Spells
Author: Barbara Bretton
Date: 1/4/09
Pub. Date: 2008
Rating: 3
Notes: A quick read. Sort of a cross between Debbie Macomber's knitting books and Sarah Addison Allen's magical books. Chloe is a knitting store owner who lives in a magical town in Vermont. She comes from her magical family, but does not have any magic herself. Until she falls in love.

Book 1: A Lady's Secret

Every year I keep a written log of all the books I have read. I keep note of the title, author, date I finished reading, date of publication, a rating, and a few brief notes. If you only come to my blog for the stamping/scrapping stuff, just ignore the book stuff. I do read a lot of different kinds of books, so you might just find something that interests you.

Title: A Lady's Secret
Author: Jo Beverly
Date: 1/1/09
Pub. Date: 2008
Rating: 3.5
Notes: A classic Beverly romance with good characters and believable plot. The hero, Robin Earl of Huntersdown, was manly without being overbearing. The heroine, Petra d'Averio, was smart and saucy and not insipid.

Week One: Project 365

For all my nonscrapping friends, Project 365 is a project started by Becky Higgins of Creating Keepsakes to take one picture every day this year. One of my goals this year was to focus on and improve my photo skills. So I am doing this project as a way to work on those photo skills. I bought the project kit and am waiting for it to be shipped. So I thought I would share my first week's photos here since I don't have the album to put them in yet. I know some people are creating their own albums and not buying the kit, but I wanted to focus on the photos and not get bogged down in the album creation part of the project.

My boys taking a nice Sunday nap.

Our cool Envy phones.

My Walk Away the Pounds 2 mile DVD.

The pile of never ending dirty laundry.

My morning cup of Folgers with French Vanilla creamer.

Our front porch with lighted garland and wreath. All taken down for the season. Ti took me out for a night time photo session. I'm pleased with the photos I got.

After a Saturday of driving around Charlotte to find a Wii, we stopped at the Phat Burrito for lunch. It's a little hole in the wall close to downtown Charlotte.

My Mother's Gift

Since my Mom finally got her Christmas box, I can show you what I made for her. These are beaded ornament hangers. I made 20 of them for her. I saw them at a craft show I went to this fall. I bought one for 50 cents to use as a pattern. I hadn't played with my beading stuff in awhile so I had to quickly relearn the skills. And mine didn't turn out as perfectly as the one I bought, but I think they turned out pretty darn well.