Landscape Oil Painting Review

I love to paint. And I love to find new techniques. I'm a novice...in no way an expert painter. But I like to express myself.

It's been years since I had painted with oil. I've wanted to learn to landscape paint for the longest time. I wanted to head out into the open with my pallet, paints, and the wild, blue yonder in front of me, whispering what it wants to tell me.

This book was well written. It showed great tutorials and explained the steps to paint the picture. To me, it felt "dummied down"- meaning, that even a beginner would be able to understand what was being said. That's big when you are learning a new project. I think a lot of people are intimidated by painting/drawing in general, and I think anyone would feel comfortable getting this book in their hands and taking on the challenge to work with oil paints. It's one of my favorite mediums that I've wanted to express with and now I get to more. I'm grateful that I was able to review this book.

Willie Out West Review

When I read a book that is written for a child, I try to read it in the mind set as a child.

Willie Out West was...how can I put this nicely? In my opinion, it wasn't written very well. I've read a lot of kids books before and I would reread them because they are fun and entertaining. I wasn't too impress with the pictures either. Maybe I'm just spoiled- I don't know. But if I wasn't interested, how would a child feel reading this? To me it felt like a very low quality story. I feel like I could have written something better.

I don't give out a lot of bad reviews, but this one I will have to. I wasn't impress. I'm sorry.

NIV Understand the Faith Study Bible

I don't think one can ever have too many Bibles. Especially if you like to view the differences in the variations of stylings from ESV to KJV. Also, if you are a note taker and highlighter like me, then you need to have 5,000,000 bibles :)

Some of the feature of this Bible that I really like are the chapters are marked in red to make it a little easier to find them when you are searching. Also the Faith devotions offer stories to help us see God's nature, the Culture Connections articles highlight customs, holidays, stories from around the world, the Living Parables commentaries demonstrate how contributions of past Christians remain important today, and the Doctrine 101 articles explore doctrines that have become the bedrock for the Christian belief. I think these are great feature to help explore and dig deeper into yourself and see God in different light. It's a great educational tool, from the person exploring Christianity to the Christ-centered person finding deeper connections with God.

Freehand Figure Drawing

I love to draw. I'm not a trained artist by any means, but I love to do charcoal portraits in my spare time.

This book had a lot of great features and step by step instructions. I'm also a very big visual learner and this book had a lot of drawings to explain what the process was. I will be able to look at drawing in a different light and pick up a few new techniques to better expand my drawing expertise- even if it is only for myself :)

instant happy journal

Do you like to journal? Do you run out of ideas to be "grateful" for?

This little book is great for those kind of days. You don't need to go in order, page-by-page. Feel free to jump around and randomly pick a prompt and start writing.

Some examples of daily prompts are:
*What's your favorite activity to do? Why?
*Be intentional. Don't scatter your energy on fear and regret. How can you aim your energy at what you want?
*Don't let other people write your life story for you. Write how you want your life story to go. Try a chapter or two now.
*NC-17. Write something naughty here.

The pages are fun and colorful. One thing I don't particularly like is the limited amount of space you have to write. I have a tendency to write on and on and 10 short little lines won't cut it for me.

Overall, I think the prompts are great and for someone that has writer block or just starting journaling this would be a great opener.

A Reluctant Bride

I have read other Amish books by other authors and A Reluctant Bride was quite a surprise. What an amazing book. I was captured right from the start. This story is one that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat pondering what in the world could possibly happen next! It is a story of faith, trust, love, heartache, forgiveness and of the past.The issues in this story will surely tug on your heart. 

The Power of Surrender

I'm all for learning about how to manage my life and live it fully.

I read "The Ecstasy of Surrender" before by Judity Orloff, M.D., and really enjoyed it.

I should have read the cover of the book a little more closely.

I started reading this book, realizing that it seemed very similar to the previous book about surrender I read by Judith. I did a Good Reads search, and low and behold the ISBN was the same as the previous book. Here I look at the book title and on the very bottom in small print:

"Previously published as The Ecstasy of Surrender".

Oops.