Book Club Ideas Part 1 for "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" {by C.S. Lewis}

“To the glistening eastern sea, I give you Queen Lucy the Valiant. To the great western woods, King Edmund the Just. To the radiant southern sun, Queen Susan the Gentle. And to the clear northern skies, I give you King Peter the Magnificent. Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia. May your wisdom grace us until the stars rain down from the heavens.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

12 Days of Christmas Book Advent Countdown

One of my favorite Christmas traditions when I was a kid was ticking off another day on our advent calendar. Some years our advent calendar had a treat to eat on each day, or a little prize . . . but this year we're doing the ultimate book-lovers' advent treat: a new book to read each day as we count down to Christmas!

DIY Holiday Craft Ideas Using Books

(Photo by Kellie)

I love Books! So I love to see pages and books reused into beautiful creations. What a wonderful time of year to be creative and make decorations to use during the holidays with fun creations we make from books.

We had our annual Christmas Book Club and I thought I would try a few things this year to give to the members of our book club who moderated each month. So I decided upon a Christmas Ornament and a Garland. At the end of the night I gave these things I made to the wonderful and talented women who helped out so much this year to make the year so fun. There is a picture of one of the ornaments I made in the picture above and the garland pictured below.

(Photo by Kellie)

The Ornament Tutorial

Step 1: Buy Supplies

First I bought some plastic ornaments from Hobby Lobby (and I went with plastic because I thought that way I won't have to worry about them breaking). I decided to get the larger globes and they looked like this:

Here are the supplies you will need: ribbon (which I buy at Costco because it's such a great deal and you can choose from so many beautiful selections they have), Jumbo Glitter, Green crafting wire and double sided tape, also you need a little bit of fishing line which I found in my garage.

(Photo by Kellie)

 Step 2: The Picture

You can put anything inside these ornaments if you can get them through the tiny hole. I wanted to highlight the books we read each month but you could also put your favorite book you read this year etc. I printed two copies of each book about the size of 3" x 2" to fit nicely inside the globe without it feeling like it didn't fit right. I wanted it to loosely fit inside so that it could move freely and spin if needed. I printed these out and cut them and then used the double sided tape to match them up exactly. Before I put them together I cut a 5 inch piece of fishing line to hang the picture inside the globe without seeing the line that it is attached to. I put the fishing line in between the two pictures then sealed them together with the tape. I was able to fit two books on one 4x6 picture as you can see in the picture.

Step 3: Assemble

1. Next you want to put the glitter in the globe. I poured a generous amount that sits at the bottom. I didn't do this but if you want to try spraying glue inside the globe the glitter will stick to the inside and stay on the sides of the ornament. I didn't think of this till it was too late but doing it again I would most likely do that.

2. Next you will want to quickly roll the picture as loosely as possible to fit inside the globe. When it is inside and you have the fishing line to hold on to it use your finger to straighten out the picture to lay as flat as possible.

3. Then put the top back on and tape the fishing line to the top so that the picture is at a good position inside the ornament and doesn't fall down.

4. Now I cut a piece of the green crafting wire about 6 inches enough to hook it onto my tree later and looped it through the silver circle on the top.

5. Finally, I cut a long length of ribbon to tie a bow on the top of the ornament, then I cut the ends to look the same.





(Photo by Kellie)


The Books Garland Tutorial

Step 1: Get Your Supplies

You don't need too many things to put this together just an old book, rubber cement, a glue stick, gold jumbo glitter, hemp chord, baby wooden clothes clips, ribbon, cardstock paper and a paper cutter.



(Photo by Kellie)

Step 2: Assemble

1. I cut the cardstock in half so that I had two papers 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches.

2. Now I cut pages out of the used book I had. I just used scissors to score the edge as close to the binding as I could get. I used 4 pages for every piece of cardstock I had cut out.

3. I folded the pages at angles to cover the paper. Then I took the rubber cement and glued each one down until it was fully covered. On the back of the paper I glued one whole sheet so that it looked clean and nice.

4. Next I used the glue stick to go along the edges of the front of the glued down pages. Then I sprinkled the jumbo gold glitter on the edges. See below.



(Photo by Kellie)

(Photo by Kellie)

5. Next I rubber cemented the picture of the book on the front of the paper.

(Photo by Kellie)

(Photo by Kellie)

6. Then I strung up the length of hemp chord that I wanted and used the baby wooden clothes pins to clip them on the chord. Lastly I put bows of ribbons on the ends of the garland.

(Photo by Kellie)

These are some DIYs I found on Pinterest.

Follow Kellie's board DIY Holiday Ideas with Books on Pinterest.

Good Luck with your DIY but you won't need it. It's easy.

xoxo, 

Kellie

Book Club Ideas for "Shadow on the Crown" {by Patricia Bracewell}



For our Christmas Book Club we read the most unexpected gem of a book. This book is a historical fiction and sometimes you never know if it is going to be captivating or more on the dull side. We were all really impressed with this fabulous book and were left wanting more! Most of us flew through this book being captured by its plot, characters, writing, relationships and historical story. Patricia Bracewell did such an amazing job bringing this book to life.

Brooke was the moderator tonight and she did such a great job bringing the night together. She even got a hold of the author, Patricia, and asked her to Skype with us and she said yes!

Here is the lovely Brooke dressed up like the main character from the book, Emma.

Decorations
were a little more simple this time because of Christmas but Brooke brought in some royal items and spruced up the place. We used candle light to set the ambiance. 

Because it's December we had a Christmas tree and festive decorations all around. Kellie H made some cute ornaments to give to each moderator of each book we did this year and made a cute garland with the books we discussed this year.

The ornaments and garland turned out so cute and sparkly. Kellie is doing a DIY on this soon.

{Food}

There was so much good food tonight. Because it was the end of the year we wanted to put our favorite dishes of all the book clubs we did this year.

We used the veggie platter from "Bossypants" book club.

The Roasted Brussels Sprouts were from "The Monuments Men" book club.

The Festive Fruit Salad was from "Carter Beats the Devil" book club.

The Roasted Chicken was from "Ruin and Rising" book club 



The Cream of Pumpkin Soup was from "The Haunting of Hill House" book club.The Tomato and Cucumber Salad was from the "Walt Disney: An American Original" book club.

The yummy rolls and breadsticks we had at our retreat for "Black Moon" book club.

And the oh so delicious Spaghetti Carbonara is from our "Goldfinch" book club.

Desserts

Who can't resist Baklava which was our favorite from "The Golem and the Jinni" book club.

The Snowflake sugar cookies or cupcakes are from "The Snow Child" book club.

The yummiest Pavlova was from "The Husband's Secret" book club.

The scones were from this book club because the author Patricia Bracewell loves them.

After we ate and stuffed ourselves with all the delicious food and visited for a while, we got a Skype call from

Patricia Bracewell

We were so lucky to have all our questions answered by Patricia and talk to her about any tidbits she could give us on book two "The Price of Blood" coming out Feb 5, 2015. Yes, people this is going to be a trilogy and thank goodness for that.

Brooke took Patricia (on the iPad) around the room to meet everyone and see all the decorations.

Group Pic

Thanks Patricia for joining our book club tonight. We can't wait to read what happens next.

Now it's time for our Favorite Thing Gift Exchange game. Our theme this year was your favorite Beauty item of the year. We play it like a white elephant game were there are only two steals then it is yours. And we write notes in the gifts talking about why it's our favorite then that person has to guess who brought it before they can open it. You think you know someone then you play this game and find you don't. Elizabeth wrote a fabulous post on all our Favorite Beauty items, check it out.

I was so excited to get this palette of eyeshadows only to have it stolen by Elizabeth.

Elizabeth got it temporarily. I stole it back first chance she got.

All these photos were taken by the fabulous Summer of Summer Nicole Photography

Hope this gave you some great ideas for your own Shadow on the Crown book club.

xoxo,

Kellie