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Causes, Contests, & a Cool Giveaway

February is National Heart Month, and Ella Publishing Co. is celebrating with three days of heartfelt stories and projects leading up to National Wear Red Day on Friday, February 3. For the rest of the week (today, Thursday, and Friday), the Ella blog will be featuring stories and projects from team members who have been affected by heart disease. I encourage you to visit the blog and read the incredible stories that Rachel and our other team members have shared. 

I was honored to be asked by Rachel to tell my story; as those of you who've known me for a while know, my dad died of a heart attack at age 44 almost 12 years ago. Each year, in May, I've commemorated this loss with a post here on the blog. Most of those posts end up on scrapbook layouts so that I can keep them, and Rachel's invitation gave me the opportunity to tell the story I posted on the 10-year anniversary of his death. 

To read my story, you can visit the original blog post; the journaling was pulled directly from here.

Credits: papers and elements: LoveLoveLove digital papers and elements by Robyn Meierotto (Design House Digital); frames: Pinned by Audrey Neal (Design House Digital); font: Olivetti Type2

This week, Design House Digital has a SUPER event for you… in celebration of the Super Bowl we have some fun and games of our own – scrappy style!  Here’s what is going on Sunday, January 29th – Monday, February 6th:

• 25% off Everything In the Shop

• Super Bowl-inspired Challenges

• Hosted Chats on Super Bowl Sunday (all times in MST):

Saturday, February 4th
12 PM – Jen Allyson
1 PM – Karen Funk
2 PM – Karla Dudley
3 PM – Shannon Hegarty
4 PM – Erica Coombs

Sunday, February 5th
12 PM – Robyn Meierotto
1 PM – Allison Waken
2 PM – Katherine Hansen
3 PM – Sarah Schmutz
4 PM – Gennifer Bursett

• The Super Gallery Bowl Prizes:

Play along all week long in our Super Bowl-inspired challenges, and you could win a $5 gift certificate to DHD. In addition, one Super Gallery Bowl Grand Prize Winner will receive Photoshop Elements 10! This winner will be chosen from all qualifying* layouts submitted to the Super Gallery Bowl challenges this week. That’s right… the more challenges you complete, the better your chances to win!

*Qualifying layouts must contain 100% DHD product and be inspired by the challenge. Upload layouts to the Super Gallery Bowl 2012 Gallery for entry in the grand prize drawing, and post a link to your layout in the individual challenge threads to be entered for the gift certificate prizes. Layouts must be submitted by 11:59PM MST on February 6th.

I couldn't resist the change to play along with a layout of my own. If you follow college basketball, you might have heard about a small western Kentucky school that's making big headlines: my alma mater (and current place of employment) Murray State University is currently the only undefeated D1 team in the country! That's right! It's an amazing time to be a Racer, that's for sure!

credits: circle tab, white papers, date strip (Jen Allyson, Up to Date Part 1, Design House Digital); gray paper, chevron paper, button, banner and brad (Gennifer Bursett, Up to Date Part 2, Design House Digital);  photo cluster template (Audrey Neal, 2012: Photo Templates Vol. 2, Design House Digital); alphabet -- recolored (Gennifer Bursett, Favorite Things 2, Design House Digital); paint splatters (Gennifer Bursett, Toolbox: Mists, Vol. 7, Design House Digital)

Shelley Haganman has an awesome Etsy store where she sells flair buttons, which are perfect for all kinds of scrapbooking and crafting projects. She's got so many great designs! 

I'm especially excited about her two recent additions, both of which use some elements from my Just My Type digital collection. Shelley was kind enough to send me a couple of sets for a fun little giveaway here on the blog.

I'm giving away 2 blue sets and 2 yellow sets, so that's 4 winners! Just leave a comment here on the blog to enter. For additional chances to win, tweet about the giveaway and post about it on your Facebook page. Just come back here with a link to your tweet and status update. The giveaway ends at midnight CST on Friday. I'll use random.org to select the winners on Saturday.

 

10 on Tuesday: the books about magicians edition

My visit with Erin Morgenstern the other night still has me thinking about her novel, The Night Circus, and how it has so many of the wonderful things that I like reading about most in books, particularly stage magicians. Because of that, I thought I'd do a 10 on Tuesday roundup for you of books that I think are particularly excellent that have magicians (stage or otherwise) in them, plus a few that just have the general feel of The Night Circus to them.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell  |  The Prestige  |  The Ladies of Grace Adieu

Normally, I would put these first two on my list, but since Ms. Morgenstern herself cited them as strong influences on the book, I'll just link them up again for you and then move on to my official list. Let it be understood that I recommend both of these whole-heartedly. (Let me also add that if you haven't read Susanna Clarke's collection of short stories, you should rectify that problem quickly, as well.)

Carter Beats the Devil  |  Something Wicked This Way Comes

(1 & 2) Gold's novel is one of the best about stage magicians that I've ever read. He perfectly captures the time period in this great rambling novel; unfortunately, he's not written anything that lives up to my expectations of his work since. Bradbury's novel is just a classic; I think that Morgenstern has done an excellent job of capturing the sensory feel of the circus, much as Bradbury does in all his novels.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent  |  The House on Durrow Street  |  The Master of Heathcrest Hall

(3) I've only read the first book in this series, but it has that delightful mix of magic and manners that I enjoy so much more than just manners alone. 

The Magicians  |  The Magician King

(4) I can't rave about these books enough. Such a perfect combination of the fantasy novels from my youth, combined with a cynical, adult, literary fiction. I'm still waiting on information about Book #3 to be released.

Sorcery and Cecelia  |  The Grand Tour  |  The Mislaid Magician

(5) This trio is such fun. Again, it's a combination of magic and manners, with a delightful sense of humor. The novels are written in epistolary-style, which normally I hate, but in this instance, it works incredibly well, because each author takes a character, so there are two very distinct voices at work. Obviously, these are YA, but they remain some of my favorites in this subgenre.

A College of Magics  |  A Scholar of Magics

(6) These two take tales of magic and manners one step further -- they're both set on college campuses. And not just any college, but colleges for magic! Squeee! Spazzing aside, the first novel in the series is fantastic; the second is waiting patiently in a stack next to my bed, hoping to be the book I pick up next.

Soulless  |  Changeless  |  Blameless  |  Heartless  |  Timeless

(7) This series, known as The Parasol Protectorate series, is just a lot of fun. These are quick, light reads that combine the best of paranormal romance, Regency manners, and even a touch of steampunk.

The Stress of Her Regard  |  Hide Me Among the Graves

(8) This Tim Powers novel (and its sequel, which will be released in March -- YAY!) is much darker and scarier than The Night Circus, but it still gives me that same kind of feeling. Powers is known for writing "secret histories," which focus on historical events that are influenced by magic. 

Thirteenth Child  |  Across the Great Barrier  |  The Flight of Michael McBride

(9) These novels move the mixture of magic and manners from Regency England to the Old West. The first two are a series by Pat Wrede (who co-wrote the Sorcery and Cecelia series listed above), and the Snyder book is listed because it fits in so perfectly with these other two. Wrede's series will eventually feature a third book, of course.

Neverwhere  |  The Twelfth Enchantment

(10, Bonus) Gaiman's novel really doesn't share any similarities with Morgenstern's novel, except that his "Other London" has the same feel -- what's around the next corner? -- as The Night Circus, so it's more an issue of mood, I think. The Liss novel is a bonus -- I've never read it, but I came across it while compiling this list, and it looks interesting, so it's going on my own to-read pile. 

An Evening with Erin Morgenstern

Thursday was a pretty eventful day for me. I traveled to Russellville that afternoon to do some ACT prep with about 50 juniors and then traveled on to Nashville to the Nashville Public Library to hear Erin Morgenstern read from her amazing novel, The Night Circus. I can't say enough good things about this novel -- I listed it as one of my Top 10 Reads of 2011, and in all honesty, it's in the Top 3. Yep. That good.

Erin was completely adorable and funny and smart and talkative; she read a small vignette from the novel (and I totally picked up on some things in the vignette that I didn't catch the first time around because of the overlapping linear narratives -- this is not a bad thing, but it does mean that I'm now itching to go back and reread the book). After that, she answered questions. She talked a lot about art (she's a visual artist), theatre, book design, movies, and influences on the novel. She spent a lot of time talking about the evolution of the novel, which she started in 2005 as part of NaNoWriMo; initially there was, according to her, this Edward Gorey kind of thing going on, with characters in weird fur coats. But at some point she started getting bored, so she took the characters to the circus. That's when the circus from the novel was born, and she spent much of the rest of the time writing about it. There's so much that's visual about her writing when it comes to the circus, and after listening to her talk about her painting process, it's evident that this background strongly influenced the novel too. 

She named a couple of my favorite novels as influences on the book's structure: Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Christopher Priest's The Prestige, and Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams. After the reading, while getting my book signed, I told her how much I loved Lightman's novel, and she proceeded to gush about his new book -- which means one more thing to add to my TBR list. 

If you've read the novel, you know that the followers of the circus call themselves reveurs and dress in black and white (with a dash of red -- typically a scarf). Two little boys attended the reading with their dad and came dressed appropriately. They each got their own copy of the book signed and had their photo taken with Erin Morgenstern; such a cool thing for their dad to encourage. Everyone was absolutely in love with them.

The fun doesn't stop there, though. The weather was pretty terrible in Nashville -- heavy rain and a dense fog. Combine that with interstate traffic and lots of semi trucks, and you've got one sucky driving experience. I took it slow, though, and was soon out of Nashville and headed home. I was starving, though, so I stopped in Clarksville to grab a bite to eat. While I was waiting in the drive-thru, I checked Twitter and saw that the bridge closest to Murray that crosses Kentucky Lake was struck by a cargo ship and had collapsed. This is one of the bridges that I would need to cross to get home, the same bridge I had crossed just hours earlier on my way to Russellville from Murray -- a bridge I use weekly to travel to and from several of the schools I work with. Luckily, I saw the tweet before I traveled through LBL and had to turn around to find a detour; instead, I just headed north of the LBL area and took the interstate bridge. It wasn't too far out my way, but I was counting my blessings that I wasn't on the bridge when it was struck (that could've easily been the case, had I been slowed down by bad weather or stopped to eat in Clarksville) or didn't come up on it before emergency crews responded. 

Here are a few images of the bridge and cargo ship (click on the photos to be taken to the original source):

 

 

 

sale: featured designer at DHD

Don't forget about my Featured Designer sale this weekend with collaborator Karla Dudley! Our digital collection A Life Recorded is 25% off all weekend long; I created the papers and Karla created the elements. The creative team at DHD put together some sample layouts with this kit, and I think you'll agree that it is absolutely gorgeous! I love seeing how each of them put the different pieces and patterns to use in their layouts.

layouts by Wendy

by Celeste

by Jennifer

 
by Jen

by Missy

by Janell

by Jennifer

by Shannon

In addition to my collab with Karla, my entire shop is 25% off all weekend long. Plus, you can pick up Olive You for FREE and grab the Modern Fall alphabet for just $1.00!

new releases: 2012 product line

Last week I mentioned a new line of products that I'm releasing at Design House Digital. These items are designed to bring a cohesive look and feel to your Take Twelve photography challenge layouts. Whether you are sharing your pictures on your blog or you're creating a layout with each set of photos, it's nice to have a unified set of products to make the process easier and less time-consuming. That's the idea behind my 2012 line. Last week I released a set of Photo Templates. 

This week I'm sharing Photo Templates, Vol.2 with you, as well as 2012: The Digital Kit. This kit features a fun and funky color palette, sketchy word art elements, a selection of basic cardstock papers, a handful of graphic patterns, and tags and epoxies to finish it all off. But that's not all -- over the next couple of weeks, there will be additional products released to coordinate with this kit, so you can continue to scrap your Take Twelve projects in style.

 In addition to the 2012 product line, I had a chance to work with the insanely talented Karla Dudley on a collaboration kit for our Featured Designer sale this weekend. I love Karla's modern graphic style, the touch of whimsy in her handwritten elements, and the focus on authentic real-life memorykeeping that she brings to her work. I'd been working on a set of papers with a color scheme that I LOVE but I hadn't gotten around to working on the elements yet. When the opportunity came to work with Karla, I showed her the papers and asked if she'd be interested in doing the elements -- and she jumped on the chance. I'm so glad she did, because this kit? Wow. It's called A Life Recorded, and it's 25% off all weekend long.

Karla and I will be hosting a chat in the Design House Digital chat room on Friday night at 10 pm CST (that's 11 pm EST, 9 pm MST, and 8 pm PST) -- we hope you'll be able to drop by for a bit and visit with us. We're both Featured Designers in the shop this weekend, which means free kits, $1 kits, and 25% off our entire shops. It's a great time to pick up some of our newer releases, or to grab a couple of older kits you've been eyeballing for a while. 

 

 

 

take twelve: special themes and other options

Have you been playing along with the Take Twelve Photography Challenge on the Ella Publishing blog? If you're just now thinking about joining, it's definitely not too late! This is a project that you can start at any time -- the "twelve on the twelfth" format is actually much more flexible that you'd think at first. If you didn't get a chance to snap twelve photos (or more!) on January 12th, here are a few options for still joining in the project during the month of January:

• Select any day of the month that works for you -- the 5th, the 14th, the 28th -- and take your photos on that day
• At the end of the month, choose twelve photos from your photo stash and use those to create an overview of the month's activities
• Put the internet to work for you -- if you don't have photos from a particular day, grab screenshots, Facebook status updates, tweets, or other digital images and use them instead of photos
• Do you have creative kids? Use their artwork or let them recount your month, comic-style 
• Opt for a February (or March or April) start and document your 12-of-12 from that point for an entire year

If you'd like even more ideas for your photo options for this project, pick up a copy of Ella Publishing's Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit. It's chock full of photo checklists for each month, plus great variations on the Take Twelve concept. One of my favorite parts is that each month, in addition to featuring a photo checklist, the book offers a theme with related photo tips. 

As you can see, January's special theme is "collections." I love the idea of photographing and capturing all the things that we collect, so yesterday I spent some time seeking out the various collections in our family. It wasn't hard to come up with twelve photos; I tried to keep things evenly balanced, although you'll see that Chris doesn't really collect as many things as the rest of us do (maybe it's a girl thing? Or maybe his hoarding gene isn't as dominant?!?)

credits: My Favorite Things 2 kit by Gennifer Bursett; numbered journaling list from My Favorite Things kit by Gennifer Bursett; fonts are LiebeErika and Pea Sugar Noodles

No matter how you choose to play along with the Take Twelve photography challenge, we want to see your photos and layouts! You can upload them both to our Flickr group and if you're sharing via social media (Twitter, Instagram, etc.), make sure to use the hashtag #take12. For easy reminders about Take Twelve monthly contests and other events, sign up for the email reminders too!

sale: 25% off selected kits

Quick -- stop by my shop and check out our selection of items still on sale as part of our Mad Monday promotions. I've got the following kits all marked 25% off, so grab them while you can get them cheaper. I'm not sure when these items will be taken off sale, so if there's something you want, make sure you act now. (Click on the image below to be taken to the store link for each item.)

 

10 on Tuesdays: the books I want to read edition

source

The YALSA awards were announced yesterday; I spent a lazy hour in bed, curled up under my warm comforter, following the tweets as each honor book and winner was announced. It was pretty amazing to see BOOKS trending nationwide. As a result, my to-read list has grown immensely in just the past 24 hours. In particular, I'm always interested in the winners of the Printz award and the Alex Award. For those of you who enjoy YA fiction but like to dip into the adult shelves at your local library or bookstore, the Alex Award winners offer a great crossing-over place. In looking back through the past few years, I've read and enjoyed a number of each year's winners. Here's a look at the ones I recommend, as well as 10 books I've added to my list to pick up on my next library visit.

2012 winners:
Ready Player One
The Night Circus
Salvage the Bones
The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens
The Talk-Funny  Girl
The Lover's Dictionary
In Zanesville

2011:
Room
The Radleys
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
The House of Tomorrow
The Lock Artist
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden 

 2010:
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Magicians
Soulless
The Bride's Farewell

Have you read any of the titles that I didn't link? I've been aware of several of them for a while, but there are a few others that have made it onto my TBR list because of the awards. 

What about you? Are you more or less likely to pick up a book if you see it's an award winner? Sometimes I'm a little worried about the hype, because I do try to go into every reading of every book with an open mind, but it's oh so hard to do...

on sale: just my type elements

Every Monday at DHD, we feature four products on sale as part of our Mad Monday promotions. This week, my Just My Type elements are on sale for $1.00 (that's a savings of $4.99!!!) -- but it's only for today, so you'll want to grab them quickly!

There are three other great kits available as well; to find out more, check out today's 4Play post on the DHD blog. I got a chance to put together a quick layout "OH RATS" using this week's 4 featured kits, and here's what I came up with:

If you like the Just My Type elements pack, there's a coordinating paper pack and word art pack that you can pick up to go along with it. 

Bookmobile Monday: 5 Notes

That's my J-scribble and the Hanklerfish in my signed copy of The Fault in our Stars, John Green's newest YA novel. Here's a great video from John and Hank explaining what a Hanklerfish is; if you haven't been converted to Nerdfighteria yet, you really are missing out. 

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Maggie Stiefvater wrote an interesting post commenting on the recent situation at Goodreads involving bloggers who review books and authors who apparently don't care for some of the reviews being written. I missed all the drama -- and I'm glad I did, because it doesn't sound like something in which I'd like to be involved. I've toyed with the idea of becoming more serious about reviewing books; since I'm working on my LMS (Library Media Science) certification, it's likely that books reviews will have a very real place in my future work. But I don't consider the short blurbs that I post here and on Goodreads to be "reviews." Usually what I'm posting is the same thing I'd tell my friends or students about a book -- it's my own personal reaction. I don't think that I've ever been exceedingly harsh about a book, even though there've been some (and quite recently too) that I just could not recommend for any reason to any reader. I don't consider Goodreads to be a location for "official" reviews either, not like the New York Times Book Review would be -- but then again, perhaps authors and publishers and agents are looking at sites like Goodreads from a much different perspective. What about you -- what's your opinion on the reviews at Goodreads, the reviews you post on the site (if you do), and book reviews in general?

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Cami just finished reading Tuck Everlasting at school, and she loved it. I'm so glad she did -- I enjoyed talking to her each day about what had happened in the chapters they'd read that day. Cami has always been more of a reluctant reader; she is a good reader (after getting off to a rocky start), but reading is not her first choice when it comes to choosing a "spare time" activity. She enjoys reading while she's actually doing it, but picking up a book is not what she does when she has time to herself -- instead, she's playing with her rats, or her Barbies, or building things from all the bits & pieces she scavenges from our garbage cans (ha!) She's also not as interested in the types of books that Cass and I have always liked to read; Cami prefers "girlier" books, if that makes sense, like Madonna's English Roses series or the Ivy+Bean books. That's why I get excited when she really enjoys one of my childhood favorites like Tuck Everlasting. (We also had good luck with Because of Winn-Dixie.) I'm still holding out hope for The Penderwicks -- I do believe she would love them if she ever got started on them.

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Speaking of Maggie Stiefvater, she did an amazing post a while back, showing what her revision process looks like. It's an amazing peek inside her writing process, whether you are a writer or a reader. She indicated on Twitter the other day that she would be sharing similar information from other writers soon, so if you are interested, you'll want to keep an eye out on her blog. 

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Right now, Amazon has a lot of e-books at really good prices. There are a number of juvenile fiction books available that I highly recommend, including most of Kate DiCamillo's work (all priced at $5.24 or less) and a great series by Chris D'Lacey called The Last Dragon Chronicles. Amazon's 100 e-books under $3.99 is a great place to begin searching for more books to add to your collection, if you're interested.