Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Two New Books and Christmas With My Niece

YAAAAY for Christmas, the bestest time of the year!!

We had Christmas today with my niece so I'm later than I would have been posting about the two new books I'm reviewing.  My niece got a lot of lovely lovelies from Auntie Alicia, and Grammy DeeDee and Grampy Frank, and Jason and me.  The idea of getting her to start liking animals a little more and not be so freaked out by them hopefully will work, she seemed to take to the zoomer hedgehog that she's named Pinky, and when she wouldn't flip on her own, she helped her flip.  I didn't want to do a cat or dog because she's a little leery of them already, so a completely different animal will help I hope.  Of course Grammy DeeDee found LOTS of lovely dollies and toys which I'm sure will get lots of play time in their turn.  Auntie Alicia and I spent the whole day putting together a Legos American girl toy house for her.  The box says an 8 year old can put them together, so I thought we should go find one since our niece is only 4 for a little while longer.  My sister finally got it made and decorated and of course took photos.  I can't blame her for her triumphant post, that was definitely an accomplishment, I think she should add it to her resume.

There's a shopkins one for them to complete at Auntie Alicia's house......GOOD LUCK SIS!!!  My niece took Pinky with her, which I'm glad to see, this is the 2nd animal friend she's taken with her that I've picked out, so I think maybe one day, she'll love animals too.  Fingers, toes, eyes etc crossed.  Mom's always had an eye for super cute things for girls, and boys too since we had brothers, so it wasn't surprising to see all the lovelies she found, including home made clothing she'd found at her annual church bazaar.  All in all, I think we all had fun, though I think our niece may have felt a little left out on the building front, but when she did find things to put together I tried to let her know she'd done a great job finding things.  Anyway, it's built now so time to superglue the heck out of it and play play play!

Alright, on to the new books....I bet you can guess the genre!  You got it, Christmas!!! Yay your team, you're just so smart!  The first book is another Sherri Baldy book, this time her Hot Cocoa Winter book filled with giant eyed lovelies.  I always have to remember other colors during this time of year because I tend to lean towards coloring with red, green, silver and gold.  But so many colors are lovely at this time.  My mother has a mostly pink tree that is gorgeous, and of course my FAVORITE color Christmas lights are the blues.  I never did know why, I just find them so pretty and soothing.  I did try my hand at layering colors and shading, so there were about 5 different reds or greens or browns etc in different areas to blend and shade.  As is her inclination, each page is one sided, and two copies, to either share or color yourself.  Her work is just simply too cute, and I hope everyone loves them as much as I do.

The second book I'm reviewing, Magic Christmas, I finished the first picture last night.  If I had to sum up Cherina Kohey's work in one word, I'd have to choose pretty.  All the art work has fine lines that are just so exact, so precise, so detailed, it's just beyond lovely to look at.  The first piece in the book is a lovely lovely tree, which I colored each needle separately, and went through about half a prismacolor green pencil in the process to keep the tip sharp for the fine details, but it was TOTALLY worth it.  These are one sided pictures, so any medium would work, though I'd encourage still using bleed through pages just in case if you plan on using markers.  As I looked through the book before beginning to color, as I normally do with a new book, I just kept saying, "Oh, that's pretty."  If you plan on getting books this Christmas, I would say this would be one worth a look.  The art work is crisp, clean and seems to capture Christmas.




I have a few more books to review for Christmas, but with only days left I'm not sure I can make it before, but I'll do my very best (one of the artists was a stinker, and idk if they knew of my anal tendencies, but let's just say there's lots to color BEFORE the first picture)(that's a joke of course, I'm sure it wasn't a joke on me that they did so much colorable things before the first picture)!!

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