Hues of Oz with a giveaway

Click on the image to visit the hop.

Oma Linda over at Olde Baggs n' Stuft Shirts is hosting another fabulous Wizard of Oz blog hop.  

This year her theme is "Hues of Oz."

When I got to thinking about this one my mind kept returning to the amazing moment when the movie goes from black and white to vibrant color.  Then it occurred to me, would that moment have been as impressive if there wasn't an absence of color?  

So, I have selected black and white as my hues.  Because without them, colors just wouldn't be what they are.

 I've recently learned a new technique for blending colors and I did that for the background.  Whites, greys and even a little black make up the background for this William Walace Denslow illustration reproduction.

The book, The Wizard of Oz, would not have been the same without his illustrations.  I find it interesting that the colors used in the book are few and far between, only a handful of the illustrations are in full color.  

Toto, Dorothy and her house are drawn using micro fiber pens.

This piece is available in my Etsy shop.

 But what would a blog hop be without a giveaway?

 So to go along with my Black and White theme I will be giving away, to one lucky winner, a set of Oz Inspired Seam Binding.

You will receive Black, White and Silver (for the big Silver screen).

Simply leave your name and a way for me to contact you to enter and I will select a winner March 28th.

Thank you for stopping by

I hope you enjoyed your visit.  

One Night In Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore

If your children were forced to testify against you, what terrible secrets would they reveal?

Moscow 1945. As Stalin and his courtiers celebrate victory over Hitler, shots ring out. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl lie dead.

But this is no ordinary tragedy and these are no ordinary teenagers, but the children of Russia's most important leaders who attend the most exclusive school in Moscow.

Is it murder? A suicide pact? Or a conspiracy against the state?

Directed by Stalin himself, an investigation begins as children are arrested and forced to testify against their friends - and their parents. This terrifying witch-hunt soon unveils illicit love affairs and family secrets in a hidden world where the smallest mistakes will be punished with death.
I was looking forward to reading One Night in Winter.  It has great reviews on Goodreads and has all the elements that I love in a historical fiction. However I just couldn't get into this book at all. Maybe it was because I don't know much about Russian history and Stalin.  

But I think more than anything it was the abundance of characters that seemed poorly developed.   And when I say abundance of characters I mean a total of 57!  The author even puts a list at the start of the book so you can keep them all straight.  But who wants to continually flip to the front of the book to keep everything straight? On top of that they all seem to have nicknames.  It was just exhausting.  

It is writen in 3rd person multiple points of view.  The issue is the voices weren't balanced.  I would get really interested in one story and then the author would switch and not come back to the previous character for pages and pages.  Other characters he just had a paragraph or two.  It left me feeling like the story wasn't well rounded.

I am the minority when it comes to not liking this book.  So if historical fiction is your thing be sure to check out the other reviews.  It might be just the book for you.

I'm linking up, come join us!

The Friday 56, Book Beginnings, Literary Friday

 Book Beginnings
The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable.  To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford's Bodleian Library.

Friday 56
The daemon's eyes were focused on a spot in the middle of the room. "Of course, you're a witch,too. Perhaps it's wrong to talk to you.  I would have thought you of all witches would be able to figure out how they did it thought..."

Altered Book Box, A Secret Box Tutorial

 The March Kit over at Alpha Stamps is French Corsets.  And y'all know how much I love anything French, soft and girly.  In other words I had WAY too much fun with this kit.

 I constructed the book from scratch so I was able to customize the size to the chipboard corsets provided in the kit.  To achieve the textured look on the corset I used Modeling paste through a stencil and then painted over it with Distress Paint - Spun Sugar.

 Inside I used more images from the Collage sheets as well as doilies that I stained.

But what is really cool about this book is that it isn't a book at all, its a Secret Treasure Box!

I put together a tutorial on the construction of the little box.  But have no fear, I'm working on a tutorial to show you how to alter books and create them from scratch.

)

 

To finish the book off I added a few collage images. 

 

This book as well as the one I made in the tutorial is available in my Etsy Shop.

 

Thanks for stopping by!



Soar

 This piece started as a journal entry, but the paper curled from all the paint.  So off to the store I went to find a canvas and reproduce it. 

 After watching some video's on how to produce the background I tried my hand at it and I'm pretty pleased with how smoothly the colors blend into one another.

To add texture and depth the birds are modeling paste painted with shimmery paint.  Then I added some washi tape and the chipboard letters.  This one was a lot of fun to make and I love the phrase I came up with.

This piece is available in my shop

.I'm linking up with Manonpopjes: Paper Saturday

and

 Thanks for stopping by.

The Heiresses by Sara Shepard

The series follows one of the most prestigious and wealthy families on the Upper East Side who have built their entire fortune on the business of diamonds.

Due to a clause the grandfather placed in his will, only his granddaughters are set to inherit his massive fortune…these are the heiresses. After the death of their cousin, the remaining heiresses try to figure out if the family curse is real or not, and if not, who killed their cousin, and more importantly, which one of them is next on the hit list?

I enjoyed this one.  It was light, fast paced and enough of a mystery to hold my interest.  A great beach read. 

 

The Heiresses is the first in an intended series and I will be reading the others.  To me this is very similar to the TV show Pretty Little Liars (also written by Sara) but for those readers that are no longer into YA and still want to read books by Shepard.  A marketing genius!

 

There are a few too many characters mentioned in the first chapters which made my head spin a bit.  But that gets smoothed out and it's clear the characters will be in the next book.  The book is written in 3rd person multiple points of view.  Each character has a distinct voice and even if you don't relate to the character you can still get a sense of who they are and what motivates them.

 

Some of the 'twists' were predictable and the solving of the mystery was an information dump but it was well supported and plausible. 

 

The only writing flaw that I found was that some of the transitions between past memories and present story line were a bit too abrupt.  So occasionally I had to reread what I had just read to ground myself in the story. 

 

I would recommend this book to anyone that likes light mysteries and strong female relationship books.  4 stars from me.

The Friday 56, Book Beginnings, Literary Friday

Book Beginnings

Just moments after the shots, as Serafima looks at the bodies of her schoolfriends, a feathery whiteness is already frosting their blasted flesh.

Page 1 Prologue June 1945

 

The Friday 56

'Why would anyone want to kill me?' asked Marlen, looking around. 

'Because you are so important in the school.  Our enemies will certainly know you're school Komsorg.'

Page 56

 

 

Birds of a Feather ~ With Tutorial

 One of my favorite things to make are altered matchboxes. 

 Using Alpha Stamps February Kit - An Odd Bird, I came up with this little creation.

 

 A lot of the time I don't want to put anything on the inside of the boxes so I can add little treasures.  But I thought this mini bird nest was perfect and there is still room to add a little treat.

I love to use various beads for the eggs, it makes it look more like nature since no egg is exactly the same.

I have pulled together a quick little tutorial on how I created the mini wire birds nest.   

Thank you for stopping by.

 

This Birds of a Feather Mini treasure box is for available for only the cost of shipping in my Etsy shop.

50 Shades of...Orange!

 Over at Kindred Souls Art Group we've done another Post Card Swap.

 This time the theme was, 50 Shades of ___________ and our partners got to pick the color.

I was given Sandy, who selected Orange.

Orange is not a color I use, in fact I could probably say, Never use.  But I was amazed to find so many orange things in my stash.  I hope she likes what I have created for her.