On the Twelfth Day of Christmas . . .

My True Love gave to Me: 

Huge Discounts & Free Stuff in the Etsy Store.  Thank you for everyone who's been following along as we've counted down the Twelve Days of Christmas in the Etsy Store, each day with more discounts and Free Stuff.  Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas - Merry Christmas Everyone!  :)

For Today's Orders, the Biggest Prize Packages Yet:
Each order will receive:
      *24% off using coupon code:  11thDay
      *Free Washcloth or Scrubbie with all orders $25+
      *Free Laminated Bookmark with all orders (my choice of colors)
      *$10 OFF your next order of $25+


This Christmas, I'm thankful for my wonderful friends and family.  This year we have 3 full days of feasting and visitings with different family members.  We cook together, talk together, play games, and just enjoy ourselves.  I hope everyone else is also having such a good Christmas holiday.  Wishing the Joy and Peace of the Season is upon you.  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

                                                                                                                ~Miranda

11th Day of Christmas

It's Christmas Eve.  Merry Christmas Everyone. 

12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit!  Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code:   11thDay to save 24% on all orders + TODAY, on the 11th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive a FREE WASHCLOTH or Scrubbie on every order of $25+, plus a 10% off coupon for your next order, Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).

Today's the Eleventh Day of Christmas!  Follow along each day, and earn increasing coupons, prizes, and free stuff each day from now until Christmas day for any order in the Etsy Shop!  :)

For today's promotion, get a Free Washcloth or Scrubbie with each order of $25+, and get 24% off Today's Order, get a 10% off coupon for your Next order, Free Gift Wrap, PLUS a Free laminated colorful bookmark.  What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!

Today's the 10th Day of Christmas! We're almost there!

12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit!  Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code:   9thDay to save 20% on all orders of $25+, Plus TODAY, on the 10th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive a FREE WASHCLOTH or Scrubbie, plus a 10% off coupon for your next order, Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).

Today's the Tenth Day of Christmas!  Follow along each day, and earn increasing coupons, prizes, and free stuff each day from now until Christmas day for any order in the Etsy Shop!  :)

For today's promotion, get a Free Washcloth or Scrubbie with each order of $25+, and get 20% off Today's Order, get a 10% off coupon for your Next order, Free Gift Wrap, PLUS a Free laminated colorful bookmark. 
What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!

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I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and is almost prepared for Christmas.  My family Christmas events start tonight and last for 3 days with different meals at different houses.  Today's goal involves some cooking for tonight's family dinner, finishing up some super secret crafts that will be presents for this weekend, and knitting more on a custom scarf that is almost finished.  What are you up to?

9th Day of Christmas

So, what did my True Love bring to the Etsy Customers today?

For today's promotion, get 20% off Today's Order, get a 10% off coupon for your next order, Free Gift Wrap, PLUS a Free laminated colorful bookmark.  What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!

On the 8th Day of Christmas

My True Love Gave to ME:

12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit!  Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code:   7thDay to save 18% on all orders + TODAY, on the 8th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive a 10% off coupon for your next order, Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).

Today's the Eighth Day of Christmas!  Follow along each day, and earn increasing coupons, prizes, and free stuff each day from now until Christmas day for any order in the Etsy Shop!  :)

For today's promotion, get a 10% off coupon for your next order, Free Gift Wrap, a Free laminated colorful bookmark PLUS take 18% off any order.  What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!

       

Seventh Day of Christmas

12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit! Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code: 7thDay to save 18% on all orders + TODAY, on the 7th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).

Today's the Seventh Day of Christmas! Follow along each day, and earn increasing coupons, prizes, and free stuff each day from now until Christmas day for any order in the Etsy Shop! :)

For today's promotion, get Free Gift Wrap, a Free laminated colorful bookmark PLUS take 18% off any order. What will tomorrow bring? In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!
         

New Bookmarks

Tonight just posted the first bookmarks to the Etsy Store.  Some bookmarks have tassels, and some are double sided.  All are laminated to make them tough enough to last for a long time.  I also plan to start adding some fun ribbon and bead embellishment to the tassels on future bookmarks.  :)

6th Day of Christmas

12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit!  Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code:   5thDay to save 16% on all orders + TODAY, on the 6th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive a Free Shipping Upgrade (1 step), Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).

Today's the Sixth Day of Christmas!  Follow along each day, and earn increasing coupons, prizes, and free stuff each day from now until Christmas day for any order in the Etsy Shop!  :)
For today's promotion, get a Free Shipping Upgrade (1 step), Free Gift Wrap, a Free laminated colorful bookmark PLUS take 16% off any order.  What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!

Currently featuring handmade knitted items including baby hats, baby booties, scarves, head kerchiefs, headbands and other unique items from Tulsa, Oklahoma in the United States of America.

5th Day of Christmas

On the 5th Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me . . .

16% off all orders PLUS Free Gift Wrap Plus Free Laminated Bookmark with each order.

12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit! Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code:   5thDay to save 16% on all orders + TODAY, on the 5th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MirandaGabrielle?ref=si_shop

              

Book Review: Suburban Safari

 Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn
by Hannah Holmes

Miranda's review Nov 25, 11

 

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This fun mainstream nonfiction book takes environmental awareness to a new level. Hannah Holmes resolves to spend one year examining, in minute detail, her yard. She brings in experts to help her learn about some areas of her yard (entomolgy anyone?) and does historical research into the past life of her yard. Hannah Holmes writes in a very down-to-earth style that is extremely easy to follow. She shares her personal thoughts intertwined with the stories of the "characters" found in the yard. You'll never look at your yard the same way again. My favorite take-away message - mowing infrequently and not worrying about weeds in the yard is an environmentally healthy behavior. Go green! :)

Now for some fun photos of my yard: 

LOL - looking back, I found this excerpt from one of my very first blog posts last summer.  See how I reference the book, Suburban Safari.  :)

"Yes, that is definitely some tall grass.  And for those of you that are observant, you'll notice the grass in the foreground is fairly short.  If we zoomed back, you'd see patches of tall grass all over my yard, with most of it being fairly short.  I call this my Freedom Lawn.  I found the term in a book once, and have adopted it for my own.  The idea is that you keep your lawn free from chemicals, and so lots of different organisms can make it their habitat.  I think the idea has ecological principles.  For me, whatever gives me less interaction with my lawn is the way to go, so my usual practice is to scalp it about every two weeks, come what may.  Looking at this, it appears it is time once again to do battle with the lawn mower and tackle the yard.
. . . . . . . Lawn mowing really doesn't take that much time, if I can get the mower started (my next mower will be a key start {turns out is wasn't} ).  As I'm mowing, I notice all the different types of small grasses and weeds that grow short to the ground.  They grow 2-3" tall, so have adapted to survive under the range of the lawn mower blades.  One species has pretty, tiny yellow flowers right now.  Another - white.  The flower stalks are all sacrificed to the lawn mower blade.  Most of them have a very quick blooming cycle, so will probably be able to get some other flowers up and pollinated by all the insects in my yard before the next mowing cycle.  My thoughts turn to our school guinea pigs, Tallula and Bella.  Now that it's warm, I need to start bringing them out to graze in the yard.  They would surely enjoy all these different types of grasses {turns out they didn't}.  And now it's done, and the yard looks smooth and green:"



4th Day of Christmas

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me . . .


Free Gift Wrap on All Purchases!


12 DAYS of Christmas Spirit!  Celebrate these last few days, and gather last-minute gifts, by using coupon code:   3rdDay to save 14% on all orders + TODAY, on the 4th Day of Christmas, all orders will receive Free Gift Wrap and a Free Laminated Bookmark with order (my choice of colors).


Today's the Fourth Day of Christmas!  Follow along each day, and earn increasing coupons, prizes, and free stuff each day from now until Christmas day for any order in the Etsy Shop!  :)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MirandaGabrielle?ref=si_shop

Making Bookmarks

A few weeks ago, I was browsing around on http://www.goodreads.com/ and came across this thread on "What do you use for a bookmark?".  As an avid reader, bookmarks are fact of life.  I read several books a week (usually sequentially), but rarely do I finish a book in one setting.  Hence, a bookmark. 

I have a hidden passion for bookmarks.  Beautiful ones with colorful tassels, cartoons with jokes, inspirational quotes, even those impractical metal ones with the beads and ribbons hanging off the end.  When I was younger I had quite the bookmark collection going.  In my modern, book-reading life, however, bookmarks are most often a scrap of paper, a receipt, an (unused) Kleenex, or even a dryer sheet.  In short, whatever happens to be near at hand at the exact moment that the book needs to be set down.  I've found over the years that my fancy bookmarks are often top-heavy and fall out of books while I read, or I put them down and then don't find them, or even more likely, they end up staying in the book and I move on to a new book with no bookmark.

But, back to the book forum.  Reading through this thread of fellow book lovers re-inspired my thoughts of beautiful, fun, creative bookmarks.  There were several readers, like me, who used household scraps to hold the place in their book.  There were several more who told of creating all sorts of fun personal bookmarks.  After reading several people's ideas, I decided to try for myself.  Here are the results of my first set of bookmarks.

My plan was to use colorful scrapbooking paper and a small personal laminitor that I've bought for my classroom.  My first night of efforts turned out pretty good, but kind of rough.  They were different lengths as I adjusted what felt most comfortable to me.  I used several different sheets of scrapbooking paper, so ended up with a fun variety.  I shared a few of those with some of my fellow teachers who like to read.  I did want to go a bit further, and get a bit more elaborate, so on my next go-around, ended up with the bookmarks pictured here. These were inspired as 2 individual sets to give to some friends as a host/hostess gift slash Christmas present.

In this first set of pictures - for her.  She's a Harry Potter fan, and has read the books and watched the movies.  In fact, we've watched 2 of the movies together, so I can attest to her fanhood. I decided I wanted to create something Harry Potter themed, but give it a fun, girly twist.  In the set of 5 bookmarks, each has a fun tassel, ribbon, or beaded ribbon that will stick out of the book.  On the front, on white cardstock, I printed out some fun phrases and pictures that have to do with Harry Potter.  On the back of each bookmark I put a fun colored pattern of scrapbooking paper.

Here is a close up of the tasseled bookmarks.  I actually found a website that gave instructions on making bookmark tassels, so they worked well here.  I have a Super Fun tiny hole punch that punches a Star instead of a round circle.  I used that on the bookmarks to create the hole for the ribbons and tassels to thread through.  For these bookmarks, the pink tassel has a quote from Luna Lovegood, "You're just as sane as me" with her fun glasses.  The blue tassel has a quote from Albus Dumbledore to Harry in the first movie, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

This is one of my favorite fun tassels.  This tassel consists of 3 different ribbons, beads, and some charms.  The main ribbon is a colorful white with bright stars.  The thinner two ribbons are complimentary colors that match some of the stars.  Each of the solid ribbons are threaded with bright, primary colored plastic tube beads on one strand and a metal star charm on the other.  The beads and charms are spaced out using knots to give it more dimension.  The star ribbon is also tied at the end (to prevent fraying) and has a small black bead at the knot.  On the bookmark itself, there is an envelope, complete with stamps, addressed to Harry Potter in the Cupboard under the Stairs.

This bookmark is one of my favorites.  It starts out with a quote from Hermione to Ron, "You've got the Emotional Range of a Teaspoon."  It has an elegantly simple tassel of a soft, satin-finished deep maroon ribbon.  This thick ribbon drapes elegantly from the book, reminding me of Hermione's simple elegance.

For this last bookmark in the series, I chose the quote that applies to many of us, "I grew up with the boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs."  I think this is true, especially for this series.  This was a long series of books, realistically appearing about every year, so you really did feel like you were growing up with Harry and living his life.  Having the movies come out in the same timespan, with the same actors who we watched grow up, reinforced this idea.  Now that all the books are out, people will be able to read the books much quicker and not have quite this same experience.  I wanted this tassel to be simple, but again, a little more interesting than the basic tassel.  I chose a two-toned black ribbon with a thin gold ribbing.  I cut it just long enough that it will stick out above the books pages perhaps an inch, and cut the ends into a finished V shape.

Here are the backs of all the above bookmarks.  I chose color-coordinating prints to go with the tassels and what was on the front of the bookmark.  After putting the scrapbooking paper together with the front of the bookmark, each was laminated, and then trimmed to shape before the tassels were added.  Overall, I'm fairly pleased with these bookmarks and hope that they will be enjoyed for years to come.

Now, on to the next set.  They aren't as "bookish" - being more themed based for the person they were made for than related to any literary excerpts.  The theme of this was for a first-year science teacher.  He's teaching middle school science, so a little bit of all the basic science themes.  My plan for his set was to have some sort of science or teacher related graphic on the front, and colorful paper on the back.  No tassels here, because - well, are tassels manly?  Not sure about that. These bookmarks will work equally well for reading books or to mark the place in the textbook between classes.

These first two.  A mad scientist.  What else for a science teacher?  As a science teacher myself, you have to be a bit mad during class, and the crazier the experiment is, the more the students will remember it and get involved.  (And anyway, they probably think we're crazy anyway because we care about all this science stuff).  Then, the second one has a basic science rule that is true, but always makes us laugh during the safety video,  "What I learned in the Lab:  Hot Glass Looks the Same as Cold Glass."  Oops.  It's funny because it's true.

Next up:  "Trust me, I'm a Science Teacher."  Just a fun science phrase.  Then, "Warning:  Mad Science At Work."  Same reasoning as the mad scientist.  And my favorite, "Back in my day, PLUTO was a planet."  LOL.

And here are the backs of these bookmarks.  Some repetition, because I'm afraid I had quite a few girly scrapbooking pages, and not so many neutral ones.  That's okay - I think that makes this look more like a set, anyway. 

On the Third Day of Christmas

On the 3rd Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me........

14% off and a F-R-E-E Bookmark with every order.  Yeah!

Use Coupon Code:  3RDDAY

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MirandaGabrielle

Book Review: Deadly Straits by R. E. McDermott

 Deadly Straits
by R.E. McDermott (Goodreads Author)

 Miranda's review Dec 08, 11 

 

Bookshelves: first-reads

Recommended to Miranda by: R. E. McDermott

Recommended for: anyone; it's a fine example in this genre of action thriller

Read from December 04 to 08, 2011, read count: 1

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Very impressed! This is one of my "first-read" books, which is awesome. In fact, I didn't win a print copy of the book, but Mr. McDermott sent me a Kindle book to read. My first "first-read" book, and the first book I read on my new Kindle. Double awesome! :)

Reading this book, I would never have guessed that Mr. McDermott was a first time author. The story line is smooth and well-written, characters are developed and interesting, and the plot moves along very quickly with lots of twists and turns. I was definately always interested in what was on the next page.

The plot line was complex - moving from one character's viewpoint to another, reminiscent of David Baldacci's books. That is a very intricate style of writing - to be able to keep track of several different viewpoints and what is happening in the plot in many places, and make them blend together to make sense in the story's timeline. Again - kudos to a first time author here!

The topic of the book deals with political terrorism involving industries & economies of many different countries around the world. The main industry was the shipping industry, particularly big tanker ships, but involved many other types of merchandise that would be shipped across the ocean on the ships. The main characters involved shipping CEO's, national political leaders, spies, fanatical terrorists, and general "worker class" people. From early on, it was easy to connect with the 'good guys' and I was rooting for them throughout the story.

The book starts out with a bang, and is a page-turning, action-packed story all the way through. Several times I was suprised by where the story turned, but in the end it all tied together and enriched the plot.

I give this book 4 stars, as it was interesting, well-written, and one I highly recommend to anyone interested in this genre of book.

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Join me at http://www.goodreads.com/ to read books, create reviews, and share information about books with friends.  :)

On the 2nd Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me . . .

Good Morning.  Welcome to the Second Day of Christmas.  My Etsy Store is counting down the days until Christmas.  Each day there will be a new prize/coupon with each order. 


So, on the Second Day of Christmas my True Love gave to me:  a FREE Laminated Bookmark with each order AND 12% off all orders with the coupon code:  1stDay.

What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!

Bedtime

My eyes are crossed,  fingers weak.....it's highly time to get some sleep!

12 Days of Christmas: On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....

Today's the First Day of Christmas.  Only 12 more days left until the big day.  Are you excited?  Nervous?  Anxious to get that last minute shopping finished?  Me too.

I'm very excited that I have two more days of final exams, and then I'm free for Christmas break along with the kids. 

To finish our of Christmas season, I have one last promotion for the Etsy store.  The 12 Days of Christmas.  Each day from now until Christmas, check back in to see what new coupon, discount, prize, or free stuff you can get when you make a purchase. 

Today, to kick us off:  Take 12% off any order using Coupon Code:  1stDay.  What will tomorrow bring?  In the spirit of the song, each day the coupon+prizes get larger until Christmas itself!



Some of my favorite things: