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Archive for the ‘Arts and Entertainment’ Category

Most people wait until at least October to beginthinking about Christmas, but not yours truly. That’s because I love Christmas. Though I do admit I’m quite happy to take a break right after it’s over; by Mother’s Day I’m ready to hang my stockings by the chimney with care once again. It’s about then that Ibegin looking around the Internet for new vintage holiday gift tags to add to my alreadyBig collection. That puts me ahead of the game when Istart designing my handmade Christmas cards in the fall. Because of that I don’t have to do any searching for images; I can justbegin creating the cards. Since that’s a complicated process, I’m glad to have the images already on my hard drive.

One thing I do leave for December, though, is creating free personalized letters from Santa for the children in my family. These can’t be mailed until the beginning of December because they actually have to be sent to a post office located at the North Pole for a postmark. After that, they’re mailed to each child in stamped envelopes I provide. The process takes less than 2 weeks, so I don’t want to mail them too early. Kids get hyped up enough about Christmas; they do not need to get letters from St. Nick before they’ve even had Thanksgiving turkey! But it does bring me joy to watch them tear open those letters from Santa. Because I make them myself, I can insert personal details to promote the illusion that the letters really come from him. If they’ve toys they have been wanting, “Santa” lets them think that they’ll only get them if they behave well. If they have been fighting with their siblings around the time the letters are sent, I also state they must get along with everyone in the house if they want their Christmas presents. Nothing like aTiny pressure from St. Nick to get kids to behave!

And I still cannot rest even after I get my holiday cards and letters from Santa mailed. I like to make handmade New Year cards for achoose few friends and family, as well as an electronic greeting for everyone else. When I make those, I pick from my collection of vintage new years clip art. I get quite elaborate with the handmade versions, since I do not do that many. They’re fun to make and I always enjoy the process of creating them.

If you’d like to experiment with making your own handmade Christmas and New Year cards, try these tips:

• Use pre-cut, pre-folded cards from the stationary store, or on the heaviest regular card stock your printer will allow.
• If your printer will take photo paper, you can print the images on different stock from the cards, and trim them down and then paste them to the front of the cards.
• Lovely specialty and metallic papers are available that you can use to frame the images by cutting pieces slightlyBigger than the artwork. These can be found at discount stores like Walmart, or at craft stores.
• Glitter glue pens are great for adding sparkle to images. But don’t get carried away with it! If you do, the cards won’t only look cheesy, they will also warp.

The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson and Martin Dugard is an amazing actual crime story of intrigue, emotion and treason that throws new light on the oldest myth of all.

The majority public comprehend the fundamentals about King Tut and the discovery of the items from his mausoleum. The true events about his death are more murky. What is clear is that he died at a very young age. The authors  of The Murder of King Tut present a nearly certainly answer to the young pharaoh’s early death.

The book The Murder of King Tut is written in three parts: Howard Carter’s extensive investigation and ultimate discovery of the tomb in 1922; James Patterson’s writing of this book; and the consequences of Tut’s time.

Further than 3,000 years after the dying of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, controversy is still about how he died. Was it an ordinary dying or was he murdered? The possibility that TutankhamenDidn’t die of normal reasons was first elevated 28 years ago when an X-ray diagnosis of his mummy was made by the anatomy department of the University of Liverpool. It presented that the king may have died from a blow to the back of his head.

The suggestiongave rise to a discussion among Egyptologists and scientists. If he were murdered, who did it? Was it Aye, Tutankhamen’s vizier who climbed to the throne after his death and married his wife? Otherwise, was it Horernhab, the army officer who grew into king after Aye’s short four-year rule? Some archaeologistsrecommended that Aye and Horemhab might have shared the guilt, working in cahoots to kill the boy.

You can read more about The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson and Martin Dugard on Best Books Review.

I love the song Little Bribes by Death Cab for Cutie and I was blown away by this fan video. This is not your run of mill amateur fan video it is an amazingly professional looking production combining time lapse and stop motion video. The creator is Ross Ching.

Death Cab for Cutie – Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

You can download a high definition copy of the video on Ross’s site. Ross does professional video and photography for hire, so if you’re in need of someone who does fantastic work hire him! By the way, Death Cab for Cutie was so impressed with this video that they’ve posted it on their official site.

It seems there has bee a resurgence of the popularity of the violin. More and more violins are popping up in popular music bands. Even the widely popular Jonas Bothers have two violins in their backup band. It used to be that only orchestras and string bands featured the violin, bit it seems that has changed.

Whether you call it a violin or a fiddle as the blue grass aficionados do, it does have a uniquesound that adds to the variety om music for many popular bands. Some bands prefer the traditional acoustic sound of the non-electrified violin while others employ the electric violin in their music.