Yeah, Write

Catch Up On Your Books & Crafts

With all the travelling I've been doing lately, I've forgotten to keep you updated about our latest episodes of Books & Crafts. If you've got some time to kill, I highly recommend the following. Or, you know, make the time. It'll be worth it. :)


Book-themed Circle Journal
We present a one-of-a-kind project to tackle with all of your reading friends! This circle journal features lots of unique ways to scrapbook about your love of reading—and to get great book recommendations from your favorite readers while you're at it. Find all of the featured books from this episode at ellapublishing.com/bookpicks

 

Conversation Keepsakes
Inspired by Beethoven's famous book of conversations, we share a fabulous handmade gift for newlyweds plus two scrapbook pages created using an interactive couples' conversation quiz. For this quiz and others, download our Quick & Creative Quizzes eBook or the Quiz Printables booklet , which contains printable quizzes and sketches designed by Cathy Zielske. As always, weekly book picks can be found at ellapublishing.com/bookpicks.

 

Book Decorating
This week, we've decorated, altered, and dressed up a few of our favorite books, and you'll love the results. Check out our fun projects, useful tips, and ideas for decorating books to keep and books to give away as gifts. The featured books from this episode can be found at ellapublishing.com/bookpicks.

Watch Me on Internet TV

MyCraftChannel.com launched yesterday, and my new show with Wendy Smedley, Books & Crafts, debuts today. Exciting!

Check us out as we talk about journaling in lists and share the List It! products from Ella Publishing Co. Oh, and we'll also tell you exactly how to solve all your communication problems with your teen (wink).

To celebrate, visit the Ella blog today, too, for a 10 percent coupon code off of any of our seven List It! products.

Also, in every week's episode, we share our book pick of the week. Here are this week's picks, conveniently linked up just for you.

  

Just One Week Away!

I can't wait! Wendy Smedley and I have been working hard to pull everything together for Boot Camp 2011, as have our amazing fellow "Drill Instructors," Nichol Magouirk, Maggie Holmes, and Lisa Dickinson.

After watching and editing everyone's videos and downloads, I honestly feel SO inspired and I want to start creating things RIGHT NOW. Truly awesome stuff, and I really can't wait to share it all with you!

I hope you'll join us for the TOP military-themed video-centric scrapbook event of ALL TIME. (Sure, it's also the ONLY military-themed video-centric scrapbook event, but that doesn't make my previous sentence any less true.)

Inspiration awaits.

Acoustic Goodness

I discovered Terra Naomi while searching YouTube for "Sally Field Oscar acceptance speech," which I never found and was totally okay with. I have listened to this song about 30 times in the last week, on repeat, over and over again. I am smitten. I want to BE her.

This is a great song by one of Jeremy's "five all-time favorite bands," Cage the Elephant. I think the fact that he's not quite on key all the team is utterly charming.

Want to know who else made Jeremy's list? Radiohead, Gorillaz, Ben Folds, and the Eels. This is proof that if you start trying to influence your offspring's music tastes at a very young age, there's a chance they'll pick up your torch and carry it further. Being young and getting more and more plugged in every day, Jeremy finds new music for us all the time that we really enjoy.

Going to Great Lengths: The Haircut Segment

Here's the Studio 5 segment that shows Megan Hoeppner, Wendy Smedley, and me at the hair salon, followed by Megan chatting about crafting to cope. (Thanks McCarty Salon for donating the cuts! Thanks especially to Lucy "Nikki" Walker, who did such a great job on my hair.)

I'll post the link to the roundtable discussion as soon as that's up on the KSL website!

Who did it better?

This is a tough one... our little friend Elijah vs. Jovie. Both follow verbal instructions pretty well. Both are small and adorable. Both hesitate at the EXACT same moments. What a coincidence!

It's almost as difficult as deciding who did the better Footloose warehouse dance-scene parody. (Perhaps I should "angry dance" more often; it looks like a great workout.)

Brett from Flight of the Conchords:

Or Andy Samberg in Hot Rod:

Who gets your vote?

So Talented for One So Young

Cute, eh? Miss Jovie picked up these tricks pretty darn quick. Lickety split! (Sorry. The rhyme-a-thon was unintentional at first, but I couldn't resist taking it way too far.)

If you detect a bit of redness in Jovie's eyes, despite the poor video quality, rest assured that it's not due to stress or lack of sleep. She has a condition called "cherry eye," which causes two of her tear-producing glands to protrude, when they should be properly stowed beneath her "third eyelid."

Ick, right? This is sounding like something out of Star Wars. Or maybe yoga. (Yoga practitioners talk about "the third eye," so why couldn't there be a "third eyelid" to keep it from becoming dry and scratchy?) If this phrase is unappealing to you, I could instead say "nictitating membrane," but that's not much better. Personally, I try to avoid pretty much any phrase that includes the word "membrane."

We Lucases don't like to have regular dogs. Oh, no. We manage to attract furry friends with all kinds of freaky medical conditions, both genetic and environmental. (Witness Ruby's "tunnel foot" incident from 2007.*) But at least they have enough personality to make up for it.

What's that saying, again? Only perfect people attract perfect pets? Sounds about right.

You learn something new every day here on the Yeah, Write blog.

* "Tunnel foot" is the nickname Jeremy gave Ruby (may she rest in peace) a couple of summers ago when a little foxtail weed burrowed between her toes and traveled through her leg, causing a pronounced limp for several weeks. The weed eventually popped out just above her ankle. I'm not kidding.

Possibility: What are YOU Capable of?

Please join me in a live chat on Monday, March 8 on reneepearson.com, to kick off her exciting "Meet the Pros" series!

The topic I've chosen for us to discuss is: "Possibility: What are YOU Capable of?"

We'll talk about possibility and potential both in general and as they pertain to your creative pursuits. I'll share a bit of my history in publishing, web publishing, and the digital world. I'll talk, blab, ramble, share, and answer your questions. I'll refrain from picking my nose, bursting into song, or shouting profanities. It's going to be fun for sure, and hopefully enlightening too.

The Details
Date: Monday, March 8, 2010

Time: 10pm EST (that's 7pm on the Pacific Coast, 8pm in the Rocky Mountains, and 9pm in and around the Great Plains) International viewers, you're on your own. I've hit the limit of my time-zone calculating abilities.

Place: reneepearson.com
From the homepage, click on ReneeTV.  Register with a username (if you don't already have one). Watch and chat for free!

How it works: You watch me on web tv. You type questions or comments in a chat field. I respond to them live. You don't have to do your hair. I promise to do mine.

Here's a quote to get your mental wheels turning:
"I will step into the field of all possibilities and anticipate the excitement that can occur when I remain open to an infinity of choices. When I step into the field of all possibilities, I will experience all the fun, adventure, magic and mystery of life."
~Deepak Chopra

e-everything

e-video
Would you like to see how much bigger Jovie got while I was in California for the week? She outgrew her cute orange collar! But she's as adorable as ever. Spend 1 minute and 15 seconds with Jovie and me in this quick video. (And I just dare you to try to talk to/about a puppy as cute as this and NOT regress into baby talk. It's impossible.)

e-radio
I promised I'd post the link to our CHA Paperclipping Roundtable episode, and here it is! If I remember right, it gets off to a slow start, but it gets pretty darn funny towards the end, so hang in there! (I'm too scared to go back and listen for fear that I said something embarrassing. So be kind and don't point it out if I did, deal?)

The Paperclipping Roundtable (a weekly crafting podcast) is great to have on in the background while you scrapbook, vaccuum, carpool, jog, wash the dog, etc. So subscribe through iTunes!

(Pictured from left: Noell Hyman, Ana Cabrera, Nancy Nally, Stacy Julian, moi.)

e-book
Have you seen the newest Ella eBook, now for sale at Ella Publishing Co.? It's truly amazing. Click on the picture to get your copy! And if you participate in Six Weeks of Sketches contest happening now at The Daily Trumpet blog, you could win a Cricut Expression cutting system (a value of $349!).

I'm e-xhausted!

A Quick Contest
The first person to listen to the Paperclipping Roundtable episode who can answer the following three questions correctly will win a free pair of Fiskars Micro-tip scissors that I picked up at CHA. (Get it? Paperclipping? Scissors?)

Here are the questions:
1. Who was the second guest on the show?
2. What was Izzy's pick for his favorite thing he saw at CHA?
3. Which panelist chose the Martha Stewart trimmer, adhesive, and fringe scissors as her product picks?

Two Words

If I had to choose two words to describe little miss Jovie Lucas at this stage in her young life, I would go with "indignant" and "impetuous." She frequently emits the canine equivalent of a "hmpfh!," and she makes sure to let us know when she is most seriously displeased. It's adorable.

Our dearly departed Ruby, on the other hand, would be better described as "gentle" and "soulful," even when she was a puppy. (I'll never forget my Ruby, that's for sure.)

What two words describe your favorite pet?

Travis did manage to capture a shot of Jovie when she was in a quiet, reflective mood. It kind of looks like a 1970s Olan Mills portrait-studio photo:

Do I hear an "Awwwwww!"?

This is what she's usually like, though:

To see a little bit more Jovie in video (plus lots of funny stuff from Wendy and me), make sure to watch our first episode of "Ella TV" over on the Ella Blog by clicking here: