The One Room Challenge Begins!
Exciting news! The Fall 2020 One Room Challenge has begun! Check out all of the details!
You can get all the details on the One Room Challenge and my projects here:
I hope you will stop by!
XOXO
A
The Thoughtful Giving Guide is Here!
The list of the most thoughtful and useful Christmsa gifts for everyone on your list is now available!
I have been searching all year for unique, useful, and thoughtful gifts, and they are now collected together into one place. The 2019 Thoughtful Giving Guide is here! Enjoy!
Budget-friendly gift suggestions for everyone on your list! Lists include:
My Favorite Gifts | Gifts Under $15 | Gifts for Mid Modern Lovers | Gifts for Children | Books to Give Gifts to Make | Wines to Give | Bubbles for the New Year
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel: a Walk and Talk
If you live in Colorado, come see the beauty of the Sistine Chapel up close and in person! I’ll be telling the astonishing story of the Sistine Chapel’s renovation and Michelangelo’s beautiful frescoes. Join us!
So, guess what! The Sistine Chapel is in Denver! Well, not the actual chapel, but an exhibit of huge photographs of the chapel -- reproduced to feel as if you are in the Sistine Chapel and UP CLOSE -- far closer than you can be in real life! The exhibit is called Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, and I have been asked to give a series of talks about Michelangelo's masterpiece!
In case you are new here, one of my books is about Michelangelo -- part-biography and part-travel-to-Rome book. And here's the thing: the story behind the Sistine Chapel is fascinating! Michelangelo didn't think of himself as a painter. The Pope didn't care. Drama ensued. Oh, and no one really thought it could be done... and then all of Rome was astonished.
Anyway, I'm giving four talks about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel in the exhibit. Two talks will be geared toward children and their families (July 20 & Aug 10) and two will be walk and talks for those with longer attention spans (July 23 & Aug 13). Both will be opportunities to see the exhibit without the normal crowds, too!
So all you Colorado peeps: I would love to see you face-to-face! Come check out Michelangelo's amazing frescoes up-close! For tickets and more information, click the link below!
Ciao!
Angela
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
To buy tickets, visit the box office:
Prime Day Deals I Love!
A few of my favorites are on sale for Amazon Prime Day. Check them out!
It’s Amazon Prime Day, and I spotted a few bargains that I wanted to share with you. These are all products I love personally and can recommend highly or that are on my wish list right now. If you aren’t a member, there’s a link above for a free 30-day trial which will allow you to take advantage of all of the Prime Day bargains.
Happy Shopping!
Working
Having a good printer is a must, and I really love my Epson EcoTank printer. I have an older version of this one. Here’s what I love: the ink lasts forever. It is more expensive to buy it, but Epson has changed the printer/ink model. They charge more for the printer, and you don’t have to buy ink nearly as often. The ink also doesn’t come in cartridges. It comes in bottles which you use to fill the tanks — less plastic waste! If you are in the market for a new printer, this is a good one!
When I was traveling more than I do now, I always carried my LaCie Rugged Mini External Hard Drive. It is a great device for offloading photographs while on a long trip — or even for hauling around lots of photos or documents when going to client meetings. Now that it comes in a 4TB size, too, it is even more valuable.
Tired of your office or home never being the right temperature? We recommend a Nest. We have one, and we love it! We easily manage the temperature settings for our house, and save money and energy when we aren’t home without even thinking about it.
Making
I have the Cricut Maker, but this is a great price on the Explore Air 2! And it includes lots of goodies to get you started!
I snagged a set of these. I find I need multiple mats to be more efficient when I am doing complicated projects.
Watercolors just work best on watercolor paper. It’s hard to find it on sale, too!
Reading
As an author, I always try to buy the book instead of checking it out of the library. We have to stick together, you know! But I don’t have room in my house for all of those books! My Kindle makes me so very happy for that very reason. It helps keep our home tidy! Though I do still read A LOT on paper, too!
I can’t stop raving about Madeline Miller’s two novels, The Song of Achilles and Circe. I loved them both, and they are amongst a very few books available for Prime Day. I highly recommend them!
Mothering
There aren’t many books on the Prime Day sale list, but these caught my eye. We love all of them! I Want My Hat Back is especially funny when read almost as a play at bedtime. And the Elephant and Piggie books are fabulous for early readers. The Tale of Despereaux is a sweet chapter book that is wonderful read aloud!
Building
My sister won Aunt-of-the-Year when she gave Bambino the Star Wars Darth Vader’s Castle for his birthday. I am not sure who enjoyed putting it together more — Bambino or my husband.
Bambino also loves this tree house set, and has had hours of imaginative play with all kinds of animals and characters hanging out in the tree house.
This is a great, basic Lego set with some simple instructions for making a frog, a helicopter, and anything else you can imagine. A really good starter or add-on set!
Organizing
I know Marie Kondo says not to buy anything for drawer organizing, but I did buy a set like this which keeps ties, underwear, and tights well-organized in our drawers. You could absolutely do it with a shoe box as she recommends, but I think the dividers in these boxes are just a bit tidier.
I always have a stack of plain paper bags on hand for quick gift wrapping or dropping something off at someone’s house.
My office would be a mess without boxes like these. I keep the clothes that I am selling, unfinished projects, supplies, and those awkward things that don’t seem to fit anywhere else — all in boxes like these. Mine came from Ikea, but I know these are essentially the same. Neat and tidy!
Drinking
Ditch the plastic straws! I like paper straws and try to keep a bunch in my purse, so I can refuse plastic straws when needed. I also like these other reusable options, and just might be ordering some to try them out, too.
Homemaking
Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my Roomba? Nope? Well, it was one of the best Christmas gifts EVER! I absolutely love it, and this is a newer, fancier version which I am eyeing when mine needs to be replaced — but I’ve had it for more than 4 years, and it is still going strong. Dogs? Cats? Kids? Get a Roomba!
My last vacuum cleaner lasted for more than 20 years. I know. It was a workhorse, but when it came time to replace it, I chose one like this Dyson which I truly love. We have had it for more than 3 years, and I am happy with it every time I pull it out to vacuum.
We don’t have one yet, but we just got back from Hawaii where our hotel had Toto Washlets in the bathrooms. It was Bambino’s first bidet experience, and he is on a mission to convert the world now. So this will be on the wish list for our new bathrooms when we renovate them for sure!
Journaling
I am also stocking up on both of these. We go through a lot of glue in our house. I use Super77 when I am art journaling, and both Bambino and I use glue sticks almost daily!
Ok. I don’t have this one yet, but it is on my journaling wish list!
Traveling
Bambino has the best suitcase in the family: a hardside suitcase with spinner wheels. As we replace our luggage, we will all get hardside suitcases like this one.
I’ve written about how Marie Kondo has changed my life, but I’ve never told you about how the KonMari Method has changed my packing practices. Well, it has. And I’ll tell you more about that soon, but these packing cubes are an important part of that practice. They make packing and unpacking a suitcase so much better!
I have a box almost identical to this with which I travel, and it is one of the best little things I’ve ever purchased. I just love it!
If you found any Prime Day deals that I need to know about, leave them in the comments! Ciao!
Great Classic Stories for the Car
This summer I discovered MPR’s new feature — Classical Kids Storytime — and our whole family loves it! At this writing there are four classic children’s stories available — Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Three Little Pigs, and The Night Before Christmas.
Classical Kids Storytime from MPR
I listen to National Public Radio all the time. It is my favorite source of news and music. But I don’t just listen to my local NPR station (Colorado Public Radio, which is awesome). When I am working at home, I often listen to Minnesota Public Radio’s Classical and Choral Music streams (they also have a wonderful holiday music stream at Christmas time). Even though I haven’t lived there in nearly 20 years, listening to the local news for Minnesota takes me back to my years of living in Northfield and Faribault… sigh.
This summer I discovered MPR’s new feature — Classical Kids Storytime — and our whole family loves it! At this writing there are four classic children’s stories available — Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Three Little Pigs, and The Night Before Christmas. Each story is presented radio-theater style with wonderful classical music enhancing and advancing the stories.
Cinderella presents the story as told in Rossini’s opera which is fun and funny. The Little Mermaid is updated and multi-dimensional. And rhyming version of The Three Little Pigs has a great lesson — “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
Lynne Warfel records most of them together with other familiar radio voices. The storytelling is charming, and parents, these recordings won’t get old fast!
Here’s the best part: they are all available to download for free! So you can play them on your phone or in the car — that’s what we do! This morning we listened to The Three Little Pigs twice on the way to school.
I love public radio, and this is yet another example of radio done well. Enjoy!
