Earth Laughs In Flowers

Isn't this such a sweet image? It's from a newly released set called His Eye Is On The Sparrow, over at Sweet n' Sassy Stamps. Technically, in this card, his eye is on the bluebird, but whatever! hehehe. I just really felt like those birds needed to be blue today. What can I say?! The background paper is by Basic Grey.

How do you like what I did with my ribbon? I crossed the ends and secured them under the button, then I left the ends of the thread that I used on the button out too before attaching it. It's a look that Anna Wight uses on her cards quite a bit, and I just love it. I'm still perfecting the art of course, but I love it when she does it (go to her blog and scroll down... you'll see what I mean!).

This reminds me - I got a handful of comments yesterday from people saying they liked how I made that bottom DP diagonal. It totally wasn't my idea. I meant to share this link in yesterday's post but totally spaced it. I got the idea from this card that was recently posted on Jen Muraoka's blog (LOVE her blog, btw! She always does such cool layouts.).

I also want to share another book that I finished recently:

This is a true account of the world's fair that was held in Chicago in 1893, and it is absolutely fascinating. There are so many things we use and say today that came from this time period - from this particular event - it's just amazing. Here is a brief synopsis of the book:

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

If you're looking for a new book, I would highly recommend this. It's one of the best I've read in a long time!

Enjoy the day!