Free Ice-cream cone printable gift tags

I was trying to be more systematic with my blog entries and post my latest book read on Friday’s. Well this is Friday and as you will quickly notice, this is not a book post. Last week was the culprit, because I can blame the week vs. yours truly, right? It was one of those weeks where a million of this and that’s cropped up and thus even though I had the entry all ready to post on Friday, it did not get input until Tuesday. I am hoping to get back on track by next week, which trust me, that will be a pretty big feat.

Meanwhile, I discovered that All Us All the Time site has added free ice-cream cone gift tags to their printable gift tag page. And really, shouldn’t all Friday’s be filled with free cute stuff?

More Curious Curse

The Edible Raven Blog has posted another sneak peak of The Curious Curse that will appear in the magazine's debut issue....love the Hotel Rue.

Stories Told in Stone: Cemetery Iconology A Manual for Genealogy Research by Gaylord Cooper

My sister and I got this book for our Mother for Mother’s Day. I am not a big non-fiction reader but since my sister and I have starting cemetery walking, I decided to give it a quick read before putting it in the gift bag. My sister and I are more in to the art and history of cemeteries and needless to say, per its title, this book is geared towards those researching their genealogy. However it still has some sections that I found very interesting. One was a listing of the major epidemics/pandemics by year and region. Another was gravestone symbols and their interpretations. I also found interesting the chapter on how to properly do stone rubbings as well as gravestone weathering and repair. BUT the author emphasized several times in these sections to check with the cemetery management before doing any restoration or taking a rubbing to ensure it is allowed.

For those into genealogy, the book also contains genealogy-related terms, relationship charts, family group sheets, and cemetery worksheets. My only complaint would be the size of the book at 11” x 8”. Since it is a field guide to use when visiting cemeteries, I think a smaller travel size would have been more convenient to carry around. Or perhaps I just need a bigger bag.

Sleeping Gretel

Such a little angel...when she is sleeping.

The Curious Curse - Sneak Peak

The Edible Raven Blog has a sneak peek of one of my stories, The Curious Curse, they will be publishing in their debut issue. LOVING the illustration by Pamela McCarville! If you have time and are curious please go and take a look.

Fables Volume 5: The Mean Seasons by Bill Willingham

**Spoiler alert for those who haven’t read Bill Willingham’s Fables Volume 4: March of the Wooden Soldiers.The 5th volume of Fables, The Mean Seasons, starts out with a story of Cinderella entrapping a Fable who is collaborating with the Adversary, but exactly whom is she working for? The Cinderella story is followed by a couple of other short stories about Bigby Wolf’s secret mission during World War II. Then on to the main event where we pick up after Fabletown survives its attack from the Adversary’s wooden soldiers. Snow White has resigned as deputy mayor and has moved out to The Farm to raise her children since they do not pass as humans. Boy Blue has disappeared and is believed to have gone back to the homelands to search for his long lost love, Little Red Riding Hood. Angered over the fact that Snow has taken his children to The Farm where he is not allowed, Sheriff Bigby Wolf also resigns from his posts and leaves Fabletown. Needless to say, the civil administrative offices are in chaos and the Mayor is not exactly the toast of the town. The recent unresolved murders in the Fable community are not helping make his job any easier. Meanwhile up at The Farm, Snow White received a perplexing letter about her sextuplets from Witch Totenkinder. It is not until the children’s grandfather arrives does Snow realize the grave nature of the witch’s message.

Can’t wait to start on Volume 6.

Sister Weekend

Had a whirlwind weekend with the sis. On Saturday we were planning on beginning the day at the Paris Flea Market but did not get the early start that we had initially planned thus had to pass that one by. They have the flea market the first Saturday of every month May through October at Aspen Grove, we are hoping the timing works out that we can still catch it before it ends.

Jerry’s Artarama ended up being our first stop of the day for sketching materials. Okay actually Starbucks drive-thru was our first stop, and then it was on to Jerry’s. After that we hit the garage sale at Meininger’s Art Supply Store. Besides more sketching materials, my sister picked up a very cool purple and black candle with spiders and cobwebs, as one does at an art store. Lunchtime! So off to our favorite cereal and cupcake shop, The Shoppe. Which, we found out they are now open on Sunday’s for brunch which includes a waffle bar AND you can get frosting on your waffles, if that isn’t reason enough to get out of bed, I don’t know what is.

After a fortifying bowl of cereal, we headed off for the Sketch Crawl at City Park. To make things more interesting I took several wrong turns heading us in all directions except towards the park. Once we finally arrived, an hour late, we found us a nice shady spot. My sister sketched a building while I finished up Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Volume 10: The Wake. Next we headed home via Tokyo Joes for an evening of playing with Gretel.

The following morning we went to our new favorite Comic/Coffee shop, Enchanted Grounds, where we sipped lattes, brainstormed on library sketches, and of course, looked at comics. Then we headed off to Parkerfest to take in the festivities in old town Parker, including the farmers market and live music from the best blues band in Denver, Roadhouse Joe. Unfortunately the day was cut short due to inclement weather (i.e., a tornado), thus it was back home for more playing with Gretel.

I took my camera with me as I was going to take lots and lots of pictures to have a visual documentation of our weekend, instead, these were the only photos I ended up taking:

Crazy Hair by Neil Gaiman

Okay I now have a new favorite book by Neil Gaiman. I absolutely adore Crazy Hair! It is an amusing rhyming tale about all that goes on up in his crazy hair.





In my hair Gorillas leap,
Tigers stalk,
And ground sloths sleep.
Prides of lions
Make their lair
Somewhere
in my crazy hair.

The artwork of Dave McKean is just as fun. I love his hairy illustrations. They are tangled with lots of vivid nuances. In other words, great eye candy.

And though I am not one to usually place a dare...
I would challenge him on who has the craziest hair.