Tell a Tale: The Help

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Summary: (from Goodreads):
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

Review:
I thought because I had seen the movie already that it might be hard to get through the book...not so.

I absolutely love this book. I love anything that can really get me to feel something 'out loud' and this book did that. There were moments that made me laugh and scenes that had great big fat tears rolling down my cheeks. I've read other reviews and critiques but I can't help it, this book really touched me. I loved all of the characters and the fact that Skeeter gets her own insight, even deeper than the racial divide, late in the book.

This is one of the few books that I will probably read again someday~

When I fall in love with a book, I'm in.  I'm always caught off guard when I find out that other people find fault with it.  Many people think that this book doesn't take the issues of prejudice and racism of the time seriously enough.  It may be true that characters would most likely have been introduced to much more dire consequences than what they did in the novel, but it is a work of fiction.  This is not based on fact and so I don't mind holding reality back just a bit while reading it.

Even if you haven't seen the movie, you will be able to envision each of the characters so well, it'll be as if you have.  This is another one of those books that you won't want to put down.

Have you seen the movie?  Make sure to take the time to read the book too, you won't regret it.  What do you think of books that are made into movies?  Does it ruin things for you or does it heighten the experience?  Leave your thoughts below~

Super Easy Christmas Card

Are you getting ready for Christmas yet or do you need to make it through Halloween first?  Well, hang on, because I'm already diving in.

Here's my first Christmas card of the season.

You know how there's usually one sheet in a pack of paper that's a collage of a bunch of the other patterns in the pad?  That's what this paper is and that's what makes this card soooooooooo easy to put together.

Other than that I just used some plain ivory card stock, stamped it with my awesome text stamp, roughed up the edges, inked it and glued it down with a little extra bling.

Provo Craft Text Stamp

Easy peasy!

Glow in the Dark Masks

What perfect timing!  I was lucky enough to be sent a pack of fun new Glow in the Dark Dimensional Paint from Tulip and iLoveToCreate to show you this week!

With Halloween coming up soon I decided to try out a fun project I saw on pinterest.

Here's what you need:

Materials:
-Tulip Glow in the Dark Dimensional Paint
- lace, netting, or other lightweight fabric
-scissors
-ribbon
-glue gun and hole punch (not shown...because I ALWAYS forget to include at least one thing in the materials photo!)
-mask template and plastic wrap

Steps:
1) I'm never very sure of my own artistic skills so the first thing I did was download a couple of different Halloween mask templates.  If you're a little more creative though, you can just make your own on a piece of plain white printer paper.

2) Tape your template down to your table and then tape some plastic wrap down on top of it.  This will stop the paint from seeping through your material, onto your paper, and possible through to your table.

3) Tape a piece of very fine, lightweight fabric over top of the plastic and the template and tape down.

4) Start with the outline of your mask and draw along the lines with your dimensional paint.  One of the best things about the paints I tested were the lovely fine tips.  It took a little practice but eventually I was able to get some very nice lines.

5) Let your paint dry overnight.  When your paint is completely dry, cut along the outside edge.  Then cut inside the eye holes.

6) Use your hole punch to create a hole on each side to slip some ribbon into.

7) Cut two pieces of ribbon, glue or tie to each side of the mask and then tie around your head.

So easy!  And it looks super cool when you're in the dark!

My niece and nephew had fun trying their masks on too~

For more fun dimensional paint ideas check out these projects or find iLoveToCreate on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest:

*I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with iLoveToCreate and Blueprint Social.
 The opinions in this post are my own.

This project was featured here:

 

Tell a Tale: The Paris Wife

“Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved”
― Paula McLain, The Paris Wife

Summary (from Goodreads):
A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill-prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

Review:
Parts of this book I loved and parts annoyed me to pieces. This book gives us an idea of what life was like living with Ernest Hemingway when he was still a struggling writer waiting to be discovered. The scenes created make you want to step back in time and become part of their crazy circle of friends but sometimes I just wanted to shake the characters to knock some sense into them. It's about real people though, so maybe they really were like that, just like the rest of us mere mortals.


Ernest and Hadley Hemingway - 1920

I am quite embarassed to admit I've never read a Hemingway book.  Have you?  He has a very distinct way of writing and over the years gained a reputation as a 'manly man'.  I'm not sure if his writing would appeal to me, but I guess I'll never know unless I try reading one of his books.  Any suggestions on where to start?

Mummy Card

Here's the last of my Halloween Cards (look out Christmas here I come!)

This one is so beyond easy.  Just rip up some white copy paper and glue googly eyes on.  The only reason I embossed it is because I'm borrowing my friends Cuttlebug and have yet to put it to use.

This one is ALL over pinterest.  Just do a search for 'Mummy Card' to see all of the other variations.  Here's the one I pinned:

Source: splitcoaststampers.com via Etcetorize on Pinterest

Want to see what other pins I'm working on?  You can find them all HERE.

This project was featured here:

Draped Dress Tutorial

I just came across this neat video tutorial for a dress with some easy to learn draping techniques and thought I'd share:



Check out Kanaal van 7iggy's YouTube channel for other fun sewing projects!