Fairy Parties review and Wild Rose printable box

I recently got Fairy Parties by Colleen Mullaney to review.
A lot of girls go through a fairy phase. I'm not sure I ever actually got out of it. This book is all about creating a perfect fairy themed party .The introduction is only a couple of pages, explaining the basics and a bit of the history of fairies. The chapters are separated by fairy types and the instructions and recipes are planned for a party of 6 girls. The range of fairy types should suit any girl who loves fairies.It's not all pink and froth or wild woods, there are some great variations and ideas.
Each chapter has costume instructions including a skirt, a top,decorated shoes and a wand. The chapters also have game suggestions, a craft or two, and recipes to fit the theme.
The first chapter, Fairy Sweet is a confection of pink, froth and so very feminine. The drink is a pink punch decorated with sparkling pink decorator's sugar and the costumes are very flowery.
The second theme is Sugar Plum Fairies, a purple theme with fruity drinks and tarts and a lot of sparkle.
Rainbow Flower Fairies is a multicolor summery party, and where the first two chapters had decorated ballet slippers, this one has decorated sneaker type shoes to suit a garden theme. Fruit kabobs and rainbow parfaits, it's a very colorful party.
Fairies Rock is for the Diva Fairy. Think rhinestones and hot pink, feather boas wands and stylish elastic headbands. If Fairy Sweet would thrill your average 5 year old, this one suits older girls. The foods include pizza purses and a pomegranate punch.
The last theme is Woodland Fairies. This one is my favorite, and I'm going to adapt some of the ideas adult sized for going to this years Renaissance Fair. It's a good party for outdoorsy girls, and like the Fairies Rock theme, appropriate for girls who are in the tween set. Flower crowns and bare feet with ankles wrapped in ribbons and flowers. The foods are pizza, strawberry punch and a trail mix.
The final chapters are a collection of fairy themed crafts and one with more games. Some of the crafts can be done by girls with some adult supervision, but most of them are better done by adults to set up for the party. There are only a few games, but they include instructions for setting up a maypole for little fairies to dance around.
You can get Fairy Parties from Chronicle Books or from Amazon.The Amazon link is an affiliate link and helps pay some of the costs of maintaining this site.

Another 100 ppi 3x3x1" box. I'm playing with a couple effects and really liked the thorny look so I put a couple wild roses on it and put it on a box. I hope you like it too.

Ducky Love and Lost

Still playing with my new camera and we went back out to Potter's Marsh yesterday because some of the ducks are back. I got this set of 3 pictures that look like they tell a story. All pictures are resized to 50% but otherwise unedited. Click on the images to see the bigger versions.

Peanut Butter Loves Jelly mini book and note card

I make these little tiny printable mini books for fun and you can find a few plus assembly instructions here.
This is one I wrote and illustrated yesterday.

Here's the story which you can print out to use for a notecard or anything else you might like.

If you print it at 200 ppi, you get the tiny version and two copies will print on one page. If you choose 100 ppi, one copy with fit on a page and that makes the larger version. I've seen my miniature books used in earrings, doll houses and other crafty uses. I've done a layout for both 200 ppi and for 100 ppi. Click on the images to download the full sized versions.

200 ppi

100 ppi

I hope you like them! I told my husband I wrote a book and made him read it. He said it was very sweet and maybe it needs more plot development which led to a very silly conversation about writing a 32 page children's book and illustrating it, then selling the movie rights and being very disappointed when the movie version had explosions and all sorts of things that weren't in the original story. At which point we concluded that maybe it was best not to develop the story more completely and just leave it where it's at. A little bit of whimsy.

Shiny new camera

Recently I got a shiny new camera. I've been wanting one for ages (well, last summer?) that I could take pictures of eagles with because my little camera with it's 5x zoom couldn't get more than vaguely eagle colored blobs. I'll admit though, I know very little about the art of photography, aperture settings, ISOs and all that. But I wanted those eagle pictures.
It looked like an DSLR was the only way to go, but then hybrid cameras started coming out. The one I have is the Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
It's a reasonable price, the lens is all inclusive with 30x zoom so no lens changing to get a nice close up shot. The question becomes, will it work for taking pictures of eagles for someone is keeps mixing up what all those photographer commands do.


All of the following pictures were taken using the factory settings and auto-focus.







Well, we went out to where we saw the eagles nesting last summer. There were birds to be heard but none to see there but I took a couple pictures of the trees where the eagles were last year.

See the arrow? That's the tree the eagles nested in. This picture and the next were resized to 25 percent, but otherwise, I didn't muck with them at all.

And this is zoomed all the way. If an eagle were there, I think it would have shown up as an eagle. Not an eagle colored blob.

So, I'm impressed. Next question is how will it do for the pictures I need to take for my sites? Well, the current project on my beadwork site is a simple wire cage pendant.

This is using the flash from a few inches away.

This is simply the best camera I've ever had, and people who really know how to use all the functions are getting simply amazing shots, so it's a good camera for me to learn a lot more about photography with, but still usable while I learn more.

This loses a lot of detail in resizing. If you want to see the full sized picture that I took last night, click here.

Loving my new camera so much! I'm looking forward to lots of pictures this summer!