Oh, and the new azaleas in my front yard are blooming.
And because my wreaths are looking forward to Easter!
What says Easter more than plastic Easter eggs and neon pink plastic grass?
How about a folded bunny?
This bunny is destined for the Eggstravaganza Craft Show at Klein United Methodist Church on April 9. Starting today I'm going to count down the days with pics of what you'll be able to see at my booth.
The bunny book is folded from an RDCB with a cherry pink and taupe diamond pattern and coordinating pastel watercolor-y endpapers.
Wouldn't it look great sitting on your bookshelf to remind you that Spring is here?
Much better than looking for snakes in the driveway. Trust me.
I have an addiction to RDCBs, but I've told you that already. I even told you about how I ran out of room in the attic and started keeping RDCBs out in the garage. But the other day my OCD kicked in and I started stacking all the books with the same designs together.
See!
Look how pretty they are standing like colorful tin soldiers all at attention!
Anyway, it occured to me that if you've never paid attention to RDCBs, you probably don't realize all the fabulous covers they have.
For instance, there's this beauty...
Or what about this one?
There are so many cool covers, that I decided to make a Pinterest board called Fabulous Book Covers just so you could see.
Well, really I made it because of the OCD thing I was talking about above, but seriously, check it out! I was surprised to find that I already have 24 different designs pictured. But I know there are more designs than that.
Like in all those boxes on the couch waiting to be emptied...
Oh, and that box over there.
I'll get to them sooner or later and keep updating my board, but in the meantime, if you see a cover you like and you want a word folded fabulously into it, let me know at my Etsy shop.
My shelves will thank you.
And so will my couch.
And that box over there on the blue and purple rug.
My very famous brother turned a very significant age recently, so I want to to commemorate it with a special gift.
It is now part of family lore that my parents were so quick to pick up on his innumerable talents as a youngster that they put up a storage shed in the backyard of our childhood home for him to use as his personal playhouse. I'm talking playhouse...as in he put on plays in our backyard. Everything from Charlie Brown to magic shows to Shakespeare.
You should have seen him at age 8 give Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy, complete with burning candle, where he finished the speech and blew out the candle all in one terrifying "signifying naaah-thing" breath.
From there it was on to Disneyworld and Broadway (Ever seen Cats in NYC? Or Tommy? Then you've probably seen my very famous brother.) and now he's producing star-studded events like this one..
So like I said, I wanted to make him something special.
The first thing I did was to find a special book.
How about the 1964 Book of the Year for the 1964 man of the year?
Next I had to decide on a word, and no word seemed to sum up my very famous brother more than
I wanted to leave room for a little sumpin'-sumpin' on the end papers, so I twisted the word like I did for Twas which gave me extra space in the corners.
One thing that is different about this book than most of the books I fold is the colored pages. Usually I tear out any colored pages so all the pages look uniform, but this book was full of colored pages. See?
If I tore out all those, there wouldn't be enough pages to fold any word. So, instead of trying to hide the colors, I decided to accent them instead.
That's why I picked a very sparkly black paper to cover the end papers.
Then I added a sentiment in a coordinating aqua. (Hmmm...says the guy on page 49. This is pretty cool!)
...And voila, the finished product.
Here's to many happy returns of the day, very famous brother. Love you!
Thrilled to be featured by Heather Eddy on the Rhymes With Magic blog!
Lots of people ask me how I learned to fold and I always point them to Heather's fabulous tutorials. I bought a couple of them and a bunch of RDCBs a few years ago and it was Katy-bar-the-door.
Check out Heather's pretty heart!
She even has a pattern if you want to fold your own. Check it out and thanks for the shout-out, Heather!
Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Format: Audible
Reading Dates: 31 Dec 2013 - 31 Jan 2014
Rating: ****1/2
First and foremost, big props to the narrator of this audiobook, Allan Corduner, whose performance was right on target with all the voices and accents. I bumped up my rating of the book just for that. It was one of those audiobooks with a combination of compelling story and riveting narration that makes you want to get in your car and drive and drive just so you can listen some more.
Narrated by Death himself, The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl living in Nazi Germany with her foster family and a hidden Jew in the basement during the early years of World War II. Liesel is obsessed with reading and with books, which sometimes seem to be the only comfort in a crazy world. She reads them. She writes them. She steals them. She gifts them. She receives them.
As I read this book, I couldn't quit thinking about Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi, which I read many years ago. Both are stories of what life was like for the every day German during the war--not the soldier, not the Nazi, but the regular guy who just wants life to be normal. Initially for Liesel her life is not much different than usual, but when her family takes in a dispossessed Jew who has a backstory with her family, that all changes.
When I finished listening to the last of the book, I wanted things to end a little tidier, a little happier, but why should books be different from real life? This is a really great audiobook and one I highly recommend!
