Monthly Archives: November 2008

“Disappearing St. Louis”…My Daughter’s Book about Old North St. Louis

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My daughter Amy, always the writer, has just self-published her first book!  Actually, this is a book of photographs she has taken of  old neighborhoods in St. Louis, of buildings in disrepair from age and neglect.

This is what she has written about her book:

"My first book, Disappearing St. Louis,is finally complete!

Disappearing St. Louis presents 55 colored images, captured over a three-year period.  They depict the poor conditions of homes, churches, and commercial buildings across the city in historic neighborhoods such as Old North St. Louis, Vandeventer, Fountain Park, Academy, JeffVanderLou, and Hyde Park."

Amy has graciously donated the profits from the sale of Disappearing St. Louis to the non-profit organization Old North St. Louis Restoration Group which is successfully rebuilding a historic north side neighborhood one building at a time.

Amy and her book were mentioned in the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group blog on Friday.  Scroll down partway on this post to read about her book:

http://newoldnorth.blogspot.com/2008/11/christmas-shopping-season-begins-in-old.html

At the juried craft show that is mentioned, the 5th annual Rock 'n' Roll Craft Show,  Amy sold all 11 copies that she had cautiously published and sent to St. Louis to be displayed, not knowing what the response would be. 

We're all SO proud of you, Amy!!!

Amy spent almost the first eighteen years of her life going to St. Louis at least twice a year to visit grandparents as her father and I both grew up in St. Louis.  Little did we know then that she would ultimately take such an interest in old buildings in St. Louis and combine that with her interest and talent in writing and photography.  Even while going to college in St. Louis, this interest took awhile to develop and since then she has enjoyed making trips back to St. Louis to visit friends and take photographs.  Who knew this would all evolve into publishing a book?!

If you want to read more about Amy, you can visit her website at www.amyfontinelle.com or visit her blog at www.twopenniesearned.blogspot.com.

 

Fun Diorama Card for a Boy

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So maybe he's not a "boy" anymore at age 23, but he will always be MY little boy!  Here's a card I made for Eric for his birthday.  Sometimes it is difficult to think of a card to make for any male.  Some stampers even do swaps for male cards just to get a selection of ideas.  I forget how it came to mind, but somehow I came up with the idea of making a card with a Yellowstone National Park theme after our memorable trip there this summer.  I had even tracked down the retired set "DD Pines" to use for those Yellowstone scrapbook pages I still plan to make! (we'll see!)  Long ago I had learned to make a diorama card, which actually folds down flat for mailing, and while they look impressive and are decorative, they are actually easy to make.  So here is the Diorama card I made with the retired DD Pines, plus the ever-useful "Lovely As a Tree" stamp set….talk about a great "male" set!

DDPinesBDDioramaEric 

It's difficult to tell from this angle, but that is a moose in the foreground and a bear in the background!  You can see some of the "Lovely As a Tree" trees stamps on the inside layers of the card and the "Pines" tree stamped, embossed, and cut out adhered to the front with dimensionals.

Here is a view of the inside:

DDPinesBDDioramaEricinside 

You can see how I cut out both the moose and the bear and attached them to the middle part and the back part with dimensionals.

And here is just another view of the front, maybe with better lighting.

DDPinesBDDioramaEricfront 

If you want directions on making this easy diorama card, which you can adapt to any theme, just email me!

 

A Happy Birthday Pyramid Card

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Halloween has always been extra special at our house because our youngest son was born the night before Halloween, just missing being a pumpkin or goblin by about 45 minutes.  I remember when I was pregnant with him seeing the cutest little Halloween t-shirt in one of the store windows at the Galleria and thinking if he had actually been born on Halloween I should really have that shirt for my Halloween baby.  Didn't happen, which probably was a good thing for him, because he doesn't have to exactly share his birthday with a holiday.  But of course his birthday parties were always Halloween-themed, which made them extra fun.  I just wish I was into Stampin' Up! back when my kids were little because of SO many opportunities for gifts, party favors, invitations, note cards, etc.  If you have little ones, you really should get into stamping because you will have many opportunities to be creative!

I love this Pun Fun stamp set, but especially loved this rocket for my son.  When I started looking for ideas for this card, I came across this Pyramid card made by Trina on Splitcoast.  You can find different pyramid template lots of places on the internet, but I loved the colors Trina used on her card.  I added a Jumbo Eyelet for the window on the rocket and some stars, punched with the large and small star punches…..all found in the Stampin' Up! catalog, of course…. and also added a velcro dot just under that front flap to hold it closed.  The pattern I used showed a slit but I couldn't figure that out.  The card had to be mailed so it had to be flat.  I hope he can figure out how to assemble when he receives it!

PunFunRocketPyramidCard 

PunFunRocketside 

PunFunRocketback