Books in Bed

Reading in May

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed /

I’m having a hard time remembering what I read in May — that’s not good. So, let’s see…

I read 26 books and I quit two — one I’ll go back to some day, another I hope never to see again.

3 audiobook (one I haven’t written about, yet)
11 were non-fiction (10 of those were art/journal/collage/mixed media titles)
2 – Cybils Challenge
1 – Nancy Drew Challenge (and also From My Stacks)
1 – Book to Movie Challenge (I still need to watch the darn movie!)

And now that I’ve looked back, I read some good books last month. No idea why I was blanking out on what they were until I reviewed. I blame getting up at 4:30am (again) for no good reason.

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Nancy Drew Sleuth Book

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, From the Stacks Challenge, Nancy Drew Challenge /

Ages ago, Texasebeth sent me a copy of The Nancy Drew Sleuth Book and it’s been happily on my shelf of Nancy Drews ever since.

I finally made time to read it last night and it was awesome. I did not own this book when I was a kid so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Turns out it’s the best (worst) of all things Nancy Drew (from that era.)

– “She’s so fat, someone should put her on a DIET!”
– “Gypsy palm reading is against the law in River Heights!”
– “Don’t all the people in Chinatown have almond shaped eyes?”

I could go on, but you get the point.

It’s awesome in its horribleness. And, Nancy is a great teacher! River Heights is just crawling with girl detectives thanks to her little club!

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168 Hours

2013, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Non-Fiction /

Some people I know (ahem) swear by 168 Hours. Some of those people told me I should read it. Some of those people told others they should read it. Some of those people should be SHOT.

What a waste of time, speaking of time management. AHEM.

I thought the book might have potential and after the first chapter I was looking at time trackers (again.) Also, why isn’t there a 168Hours App? Seriously. You have this book with PRINTABLE PAGES and you don’t have an app? Ho hum. Also. AHEM.

No.

I quit the book half-way through it.

I don’t know if I’m just good at managing my time. Or if I’m not all that unhappy about not having time to do x, y or z so this book doesn’t speak to me. Or… I don’t know.

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Two Mixed Media/Collage Books

2013, Art, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I enjoyed Collage Playground but most there weren’t a lot of new techniques in this one, for me. That doesn’t make it a bad book. I’ve just watched a lot of videos, read a lot of books and done a lot of collages in my day. I think I’d probably recommend this book to someone who hasn’t had a lot of collage experience. The step by step instructions were excellent.

I was a little disappointed with the Collage Discovery Workshop, at first. I think I was expecting more — possibly because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Hellmuth’s work in person and the collages were a little simplistic considering some of the pieces I’ve seen. After I slept on that, I decided I actually liked her book. Rather than it just being a showcase of her talent, she brought collage to a place where anyone would feel like they could do this.

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NOS4A2

2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I love Joe Hill. He’s so much better than his dad.

NOS4A2 was creepy — Christmasland, ugh. That’s some freaky stuff that can give a person nightmares if she spends too much thinking about it.

I loved Vic and Lou and Wayne and also Maggie and Tabitha (though I do find it disconcerting when authors give characters names of family members — I kept picturing Tabitha King, which didn’t work very well for this Tabitha.)

I was a little worried about the end but was happy with it when it was all over and done with. The ornament removal ending was the right ending. (The Acknowledgements and About the Font pages were also good. Don’t skip those and find yourself on the naughty list.)

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Two More Art Journaling Books

1 Comment / 2013, Altered Book, Art, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Yep, still all art journaling all the time around here. Or at least reading about art journaling and watching videos about art journaling. Not a lot of actual journaling going on, though. Not none, just not a lot.

The Art Journal Workshop was excellent. So excellent that I’m going to take a peek at the dvd that’s attached to the book. (I never do that.)

I’m also not much of a “prompt” kind of person but I really liked all of the exercises and prompts in this book. Of all the art journaling and mixed media books I’ve read recently, this is my favorite.

Painted Pages is not my favorite. It’s probably my least favorite. Not because it’s not a technique book but because the pages here just don’t work for me. Not a bad book, just not the book for me at all.

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All Art Journals, All the Time

2013, Altered Book, Art, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I ran into Raw Art Journaling while looking at another art journaling book and figured what the hell, I’m on an art journaling kick – might as well go with that for awhile.

This one was slightly different from the others I’ve read. More life coach-like. I liked it. It was nice to read a book that didn’t forget that words are a part of art journaling. Sometimes we get hung up on the color and the collage and the texture that we leave out the word portion of the journal.

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Acrylic Techniques in Mixed Media is all technique, all the time. Most are techniques I know or have seen but there were some new ideas. And, in a couple of cases techniques I might not have tried were made more appealing. I am going to hold onto this book for awhile and try some of these.

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Art Journaling, Altered Book, Tag Book, The Pocket Scavenger — Gah!

2013, Altered Book, Art, Books in Bed, Daily Dose, Non-Fiction /

I’m seriously into the art journaling thing right now. Big change from the how many years I’ve had this unaltered altered book and the one year that I’ve had two tags of a JMP tag journal and … yea. Totally into it. I think it was the Doodle a Day in April that helped spur me into it.

I did the daily doodle in my altered book, which means I moved away from the idea of turning the book I hated into a book on the topic that I loved. Instead, it turned into art journal, junk journal, inspiration journal — just journal journal.

Giving myself “permission” to play with that book, that way — and keeping it on my desk every day so I’d remember to doodle, well, that did it. I’ve done some type of art journaling or doodling every day since April 1.

And it’s awesome.

I blogged about a review copy of The Pocket Scavenger over at BlogHer and I’ve watched about a zillion youtube videos of art journal techniques and flip throughs. I’m totally into this. My only problem is… my stuff is everywhere. I don’t have one good place to art journal (particularly if I want to keep my stuff safe from the darn dog.)

I’m almost tempted to let TW re-arrange the furniture in hopes of finding a space that allows me to paint a bunch of pages or gesso a bunch of pages or glue a bunch of pages all in one place — and be able to leave them alone to dry. Or be able to leave them out, open, with art materials out so I can walk past or get up and add something/change something whenever the mood strikes.

Blah. It’s such a production to do anything more than doodle with gel pens or markers (the only two mediums that are on my desk all of the time.)

OK enough griping, I’m off to gesso some tags or something.

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