April 2025 in Books

Pretty good reading month for me, especially on the historic fiction front.  Here are the recaps:

Red Clay - Charles B. Fancher - historical fiction - five stars - Loved this one.  It's a generational story that takes a black family from slavery to freedom.  When the Felix Parker, the patriarch of the family dies, a white woman who no one knows comes to pay her respects, and tells the family about her life, as the daughter of Felix's former owner.  Together, she and Felix's daughter and granddaughter, trace their stories back to learn the full truth of their stories.  Fantastic read.

One Good Thing - Georgia Hunter - historical fiction - five stars - I loved We Were the Lucky Ones, and was so excited to read Hunter's new book.  This one was not quite as impactful than the first, but that bar was very high.  This is the story of Lili and Esti, two Jewish friends in Italy trying to survive WWII.  Esti is involved in the Underground, but become injured, and asks Lili to flee ahead of her with her son Theo.  She will catch up with them later.  Esti and Theo head towards the Allies, finding refuge with many along the way, and hoping that Esti and Theo's father will find them.  Excellent read. 

Black Woods Blue Sky - Eowyn Ivey - fiction - three stars - This was my least favorite book this month, more like two and a half stars rounded up.  It really fell kind of flat for me.  Birdie has been floundering.  She's a single Mom living in Alaska waiting tables at a roadside lodge.  When mysterious Arther offers her a life living out much further from civilization, closer to the land, she is anxious to go.  Arther is not what he seems, and she and her daughter Emaleen are pulled into a dangerous situation.  This was just kind of a weird book.  Kind of science fictioney.  In general though Birdie bothered me, and I had a hard time with her as a parent.  Meh.

The Woman in Me - Britney Spears - memoir - three stars - I listened to this one in the car to and from Boston for a hockey roadtrip.  I haven't listened to a book on tape in a while, and I thought this was interesting.  Michelle Williams read it, and I thought she did an excellent job.  I enjoyed the look at Britney's life, how she became famous, and also the conservatorship.  I think she harped too often on the fact that she was not treated fairly simply because she was a women.  It's a fair point, but I feel like it would have been just as if not more impactful to tell the story, and then circle back and show the list of reasons/examples all together.  In either case, helped me pass the time in the car.

London Calling (City Spies #6) - James Ponti - juvenile fiction - five stars - Our family loves the City Spies series, and this one was quite enjoyable because it draws in Mother's biological daughter Annie as well as his wife Clementine. The is set against the backdrop of a royal wedding, where much of the team is providing security.  Annie, meanwhile, is in danger.  The rest of the team must go rescue her.  Throw in an attack on their home base, and the wedding itself, and you get another great book.  I really enjoyed how this book wrapped up several ongoing story threads, but also opened up a few more.

The Quiet Librarian - Allen Eskens - historical fiction - five stars - I'm a huge fan of Eskens books.  This one is a bit of a departure because it's not one of his legal mystery books.  Rather, it's a look at the Bosnian war.  The main character is Hana, a survivor of the war who is living in Minnesota and has hidden her true identity.  When her best friend, also Bosnian, is murdered, she realizes that it is ethnically related, and she is in danger as well.  Really well done.

Crow Mary - Kathleen Grissom - historical fiction - five stars - This is another book I was really excited about because I love the author.  Her previous books followed a family during slavery, and this is a much different time period.  Mary, from the Crow tribe, marries Abe Farwell, an American trader.  The book does an excellent job of depicting the difficulty in adapting to non-native culture, and also deals with issues of alcoholism and violence.  Mary and Farwell courageously testify in court, both in the US and Canada, to try and convict a group of men who massacred a tribe.  Loved this one.

Kills Well with Others (Killers of a Certain Age, #2) - Deanna Raybourn - detective - four stars - Raybourn's second book depicting a group of female assassins who are getting up there in years.  This time they are drawn in when someone starts killing individuals associated with the Museum (their organization).  The cases are ones they were involved with, and it's also discovered that someone hacked into their system to access/steal some files.  I enjoyed that this book involved their significant others.  I thought Raybourn did a good job of tying together several different storylines, and enjoyed the historical details from their past lives that were added.

On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer - Rick Steves - memoir - four stars - We've definitely watched some of Rick Steves on television as well as used his guides in the past, so I was intrigued by this book.  It wasn't exctly what I thought it was - a memoir written looking back.  It was actually one of his old travel journals, published in whole, with light editing, from a trip he took in 1978.  It's somewhat fascinating, to read what he was able to experience back then, the world is a lot different now, and it would be much harder, if not impossible, to take this trip now given the fact that it stretched through Iran and Afghanistan.  A really interesting snapshot in time.

Least favorite this month was definitely Black Woods Blue Sky.  Favorite was harder to pick, either Red Clay or Crow Mary.  How about you guys?

SSS You Are My Favorite Wavy Background IG Hop Cards

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Hi all!  Today I'm participating in an Instagram hop celebrating Simon's new You Are My Favorite release Simon is giving away a $25 store credit at each stop along the hop, so be sure to head over to my IG account @mprantner to leave a comment there to be entered to win.

I've got two more Wavy background cards to share today. These are my favorite cards created with this background because I was really jus playing and experimenting. I started by painting two panels of watercolor cardstock with Distress Paints. I didn't really have a plan, but I wanted something very bold to balance the bold background design.  I used Lumberjack Plaid, Villainous Potion, Mustard Seed, Blueprint Sketch, and Evergreen Bough, and just randomly painted the background, adding some curves ino the design.  

Once the panels were dry, I went to work.  For the first card, I stamped the background with Versa Clair black ink and clear embossed.  The stamp didn't stand out quite as much as I had hoped.  I needed to balance the stamp with the bold background.  I pulled out my Gansai Tambi Starry Colors watercolor set, and painted every other line with the Light Gold paint.  Here's what the panel looked like when complete.

The completed panel was trimmed down and adhered to my card base with foam tape. For the sentiment, I used the Happy BDay die cut from Champagne Matte and black cardstock.  These were slightly offset, and then popped up with foam tape.

For my second card, I balanced the background stamp in a different way. I painted a very light layer of Gesso over my Distress Paint background to soften/mute the color.  Once that was dry, the background was stamped and gold embossed.  I think it almost looks like there is vellum over the painted background.

Once again, I adhered the panel to my card base with foam tape, and then added the Whirl Bay Leaves die cut from Champagne Matte cardstock, a few moonstones, and a sentiment from the Reverse Bold Love sentiment strips.

That's all for me today.  Don't forget to head over to my IG account @mprantner to leave a comment to be entered to win the store credit!

SSS Wavy Background Take 2

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

I've got another Wavy background card to share today.  This bakground is so perfect for watercoloring!

I stamped and clear embossed the background on some watercolor paper, and then after adding a wash of water, dabbed watercolor onto the panel. The set that I used was the Sumikundo Shadow Black set which I bought several years ago. I love these moody colors.

Once my panel was dry, it was adhered to my card base with Sookwang adhesive.

For the sentiment, I die cut my Lovely sentiment from dark blue cardstock, adhering it to a shadow piece cut from the watercolor paper.  This was popped up over my background with foam tape, and I added a couple of secondary sentiments from the Lovely stamp set which were stamped with Night ink.

I've got a couple more Wavy cards to share with you tomorrow.  See you then!

SSS You Are My Favorite, Wavy Background

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Today I'm showing off my new Wavy background.  This background is great for los of different techniques, but today I wanted to color.

For all of my cards today, the background was stamped with Gina K Amalgam ink, colored with Copics, and then stamped again with Versa Clair black to really crisp up the lines.  For my first card, I used B0000, B00, FBG2, and B04.

Going along with the wave theme, I pulled out my So Swell set, stamping the sentiment with Versa Clair black, and popping up the die cut sentiment up with foam tape.

Next up, I couldn't resist coloring a rainbow.  This time I used RV09, R29, YR07, Y18, G05, B06, and FV2.  I also colored the negative space with 100.

I went with a big bright sentiiment, cutting the Sending Good Vibes sentiment yellow cardstock and adding a black shadow piece.

Finally, I thought it would be fun to do some fussy cutting to create a little trio of cards.

I stamped the background once, and then colored three of the sections with three different color families: RV20, RV23, RV25, and RV29; BG11, BG13, BG15, and BG49; and YG00, YG06, YG07, and YG09.  

Once I had completed the stamping with Versa Clair, I fussy cut the three sections.  They were then added to white panels, and sentiments from the Be Bold set were stamped with Versa Clair.

I went with colored cardstock that coordinated with the colored images for the card bases.

That's all for me today, come back tomorrow for another Wavy card.

SSS You Are My Favorite Release, Receding Square Stencil

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

There's a new release over at Simon Says Stamp today, the You are My Favorite release.  I've got two new designs in the release, including this Receding Squares stencil. 

I'm very happy with how this design turned out, partly because it's a single stencil, so easy on the budget.  The stencil creates this great optical illusion of receding blocks and is very simple to use.  Place your stencil, ink it up, then remove it and flip it taking the top right corner and essentially turning it down towards the bottom left corner.  Then ink again.  Really easy!

I had a great time playing with it and created these cards very quickly.

This first card was very straightforward to create.  The stencil was initially inked with Morning, then flipped and inked with Dusk.  The panel was trimmed down, adhered to my card base, and for a sentiment, I used the Just a Note dies.

For the next card, I used two different shades for each inking, masking off the different parts, so the parallograms were inked with Morning, and the triangles with Dusk, the stencil was flipped, and then the paralellograms were inked with Dusk, while the triangles were inked with Night.  A darker blue mat and sentiment from the Clean Line Stacks set completed the card.

I love a gray monochromatic card, so for this card, I pulled out the Pawsitively Saturated Ink Trio 20, using two shades of gray for each layer.  I inked in an ombre/gradated manner, so lighter at the top, and darker at the bottom.  Flannel and Earl were used for the first inking, and then Earl and Charcoal for the second inking.  The sentiment is from the Well Wishes set, and I added a secondary sentiment from the Reverse Well Wishes sentiment strips.

This next card was similarly inked, two shades for each inking.  I used Blush and Paprika for the first inking, and Sherbet and Pucker after flipping the stencil.  I accidentally did not line the stencil up exactly for the second inking, so there's a bit of space between the shapes, but I actually loved how that turned out.

The sentiment is from the Yay You set, and I added a few enamel dots for a little extra something.

Finally, for the last card, I inked with Blush on some light pink cardstock, and then spread Ranger Metallic White texture paste through the stencil once flipped for the second portion of the pattern.  The Love You sentiment was cut twice from white cardstock and once from Matte Silver, adhered together and then directly to the stenciled panel.  A few clear moonstone embellishments were added as well.

I hope this gives you some good ideas for how to use these stencils. 

Be sure to head over to Simon to check out the full release!

Ranger Ink Bonus Cards

*This post contains product links to Ranger Ink, and affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp. 

I've really enjoyed working with Ranger Ink this year. Usually my assignments are to make a certain type of card featuring a certain type of product.  If you've been following me for a while you know that I generally don't have a specific idea in mind when I am making cards, I experiment and try a few things before I decide on a direction.  Because of that, I have a bunch of card panels in my stash that were ideas that I created for assignments, but ended up setting aside to go in a different direction, which is what happened with these tow panels

Both of these card front panels were super easy to create.  For the one on the left, I simply randomly swiped Archival mini inkpads (Vivid Chartreuse and Library Green) down my card front.  For the panel on the right, I used the rectangular outline stamp from the Curiosity Shop set, and randomly stamped it with those same ink colors to create a patterned paper.

For the swiped panel, I just adhered it to my card base (Wendy Vecchi Perfect Cardstock Card), and then added the Simon Says Stamp Fancy Thanks cut from black cardstock and white for the shadow piece.  This was popped up with foam tape.

A sentiment strip from the Reverse Lucky Sentiment Strips was also popped with foam tape to finish the look.

For the second card, I adhered the panel to a green cardstock base, and then stamped the sentiment, from Simon's Spring in My Step set onto white cardstock.

This was die cut using the coordinating dies.  I die cut a second shape to layer with sentiment, slightly offset.  The completed piece was popped up with foam tape.

Even if I hadn't had the background panels created already, these would have been quick makes, but getting to use the previously created panels was a bonus.

Hope your week is going well!

March 2025 in Books

Pretty decent reading month, with some real gems. I haven't been great about balancing out the genres, mostly because I'm a bit at the mercy of the hold list at the library and trying to get the books done that are due the soonest.  Here are the recaps:

Pictures of You - Emma Grey - fiction - three stars - Evie Hudson wakes up in a hospital room with no memory of how she came to be there, or of her recent life and her husband who died in the accident that landed her in the hospital.  She realizes she is estranged from all the people she remembers - friends, parents, etc. She runs away from her husband's funeral to try and find answers with the help of a photographer at the funeral (her husband was rich and famous) who isn't actually a stranger to her, she just doesn't remember him. This one was a bit meh.  It was pretty predictable and just so far fetchced in parts it was hard to play along.

Homeseeking - Karissa Chen - historical fiction - five stars - I loved this one. It's the story of childhood friends/sweethearts Suchi and Haiwen who are separated when Haiwen joins the Nationalist army during the Chinese civil war. He is eventually evacuated to Taiwan and then ends up in America, never really knowing what happened to his family back in China. Suchi life also eventually brings her to America where they meet again decades later. Extremely well done.

Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love - Marianne Cronin - fiction - five stars - This is another that I loved.  Eddie Winston is 90, and has never been kissed.  He works in a thrift store, and befriends Bella, who is mourning the loss of her true love. Eddie helps Bella deal with her grief, and you also hear about Eddie's story, and the love that he lost.  I loved the characters, and it's just a really great feel good book.

The One-in-a-Million Boy - Monica Wood - fiction - five stars - When his son dies unexpectedly, Quinn's ex-wife asks him to fulfill the boy's Scout commitment to helping out 104 Ona Vitkus on Saturdays. It's awkward at first, but as he gets to know her, he gets to know the son that he had a very hard time connecting with. This is a really sweet story with characters that are both flawed and so likable.  Such a good book.

Ragtime - E. L. Doctorow - historical fiction - four stars - I picked this one up because I really love the musical Ragtime.  Sadly, I never got to see it, but after listening to the soundtrack again, I was inspired to read the book.  It's a pretty powerful story, and I'm guessing if I was just reading it cold without the soundtrack running in the back of my mind it might have been more like three and a half stars. It's about three families whose lives intersect in the early 1900s.  The book addresses issues of racism, equality, and feminism, but not necessarily in a preachy way which I feel like is the way a lot of more modern books do it.  It just puts it all out there an allows you to draw your own conclusions/parallels.  I really like how Doctorow weaves historical figures throughout the story, and I enjoyed seeing whole sentences/parts of the story that were used in the musical. There were definitely some changes/differences.  I did enjoy the younger brother's backstory and that they kind of tell what happened to him after the events of the book.  I will say the one character that I liked less in the book than the musical was Tata.  I thought there was some hypocrisy in his character that the book seemed to just gloss over.  Good read, and definitely listen to the musical too!

What Happened to the McCrays? - Tracey Lange - fiction - four stars - This one took me a while to get into. I feel like the setup could have been a bit shorter or more focused,...I was probably still wondering if it was going to get better 75 pages in, but once it got going, it was excellent.  Kyle's father has had a stroke, and he goes home to see/care for him after being away for two and a half years.  Of course his childhood home is essentially across the street from where his ex-wife Casey still lives, and she has an excellent relationship with his father. You know at the beginning that something terrible happened to drive Kyle and Casey apart, but what that was isn't clear until much later in the book. I loved that hockey was a theme in the book, and I really enjoyed the characters themselves. Four stars because it really did have a slow start, but definitely worth the read.

Yellowface - R.F. Kuang - fiction - four stars - Juniper's friend Athena Liu is a best selling author who dies in a freak incident.  Juniper is with her at the time, and has just read a bit of Athena's new novel, for whatever reason, she steals it that night, and ends up publishing it as her own. Complicating this, Juniper is white, and Athena is asian, and the book is a historical fiction work about Chinese laborers during WWI.  There was a lot of hype about this book, and I had very high expectations, which this one didn't quite meed, this was more of a three and a half stars rounded up book for me.  I thought the premise was interesting, and how one wrong mood leads to another, and another, and another. I thought it was also an interesting commentary on social media and how that is used for and against the famous.  Decent book, but I never really connected with the character.

We All Live Here - Jojo Moyes - fiction - four stars - I really enjoy Moyes' books. I do think that her historical fiction is a notch above regular fiction, but this was a good solid read.  Lila Kennedy's husband has left her for another mom at her kids' school, and to make matters worse, that woman is now pregnant. As a result, he's having to decrease the child support he provides, and she has spiraling costs due to the house needing repairs.  Her mother also recently passed away, and her stepfather has been living with them to help out and to be near family. She's an author whose next book is due, but she can't get in the mood to write, she's also dealing with a surly teen daugther, and then her estranged father shows up on her doorstep. I enjoyed the chaos that abounds in this book and most of the characters. In truth, Lila herself wasn't my favorite. I found her a bit frustrating not that I hated her, I just wished she was a bit stronger/less blind, but a solid book.

Favorites this month were Homeseeking and The One-in-a-Million Boy, least favorite was Pictures of You.  What have you guys been reading?