{crafts} Halloween Balloons

Pumpkin Balloons from MarthaStewart.com

From felt fiends to sinister silhouettes, these handmade touches are sure to give your home an extra-spooky feel this Halloween. A gaggle of helium-filled jack-o'-lantern balloons hovers near the refreshment table. The simple features are drawn onto the inflated balloons with permanent marker; choose an assortment of geometric shapes that are easy to create freehand.

{a thought for Thursday} Age and knowledge

I'm not young enough to know everything. — J.M. Barrie

{wordless wednesday} Tobacco Barn

{read: Danish thriller} The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

I was eagerly anticipating The Absent One after enjoying the first one in the Department Q series, The Keeper of Lost Causes, and it made my fall TBR list. While it was enjoyable, it wasn't the pageturner that I was anticipating. I felt like I was plodding through it, waiting for the action to pick up.

Carl, the new head of Department Q, returns from vacation to find that a case with a conviction has landed on his desk. This is odd because Department Q, located in the basement, was created to investigate cold cases, not ones that were already solved. But the more he and his trusty sidekick Assad investigate, the more they realize that all is not as it seems. On the personal side, Carl has his own problems to contend with — a shooting that left one of his colleagues dead and the other paralyzed from the neck down, and for which he feels guilty. To add more drama, Carl and Assad get a new colleague, Rose, who has feminist views, and Carl begins to realize that Assad has a complex past.

One complaint I had about this book, in addition to its pacing, is that a female character, Kimmie, is motivated by a vicious gang rape in her past.  This is a predictable plot device, and I expected more from Adler-Olsen.

All of that being said, I'll still read the next one in this series when it gets translated.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton Adult, 2012)
My rating: 3 stars

{crafts} Marbling

Marbling

Here is a tutorial with directions on marbling. You just need a special marbling paint to get started, but the results are fabulous. The original tutorial can be found at http://www.minieco.co.uk/i-marbling/.

I saw these chocolate wrappers on Oh Joy ages ago and they completely changed my mind about marbling (I always used to think marbled paper looked a bit dull and assumed you needed loads of equipment).

It turns out it’s not so hard…and the results can be really colourful (Yay!).

HOW-TO
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You will need:

// Marbling paint. I used Marabu Easy Marble (not a sponsored plug!)
// A tray (I used a recycled foil food container)
// Paper (make sure it fits inside your tray)
// Water
// Cocktail sticks (a twig will do!)
// White spirit for cleaning up (or cooking oil…see comments section below for details)
// Newspaper
// An old top or Apron

STEP-BY-STEP
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1. Fill your foil container with some water….a few inches is fine. Then pop some drops of marbling paint onto the water. Limit your palette to three or four colours.
2. Give the water a swirl with a cocktail stick.
3. Shake a few more drops into the water if you fancy!
4. Once you are happy with the pattern gently lower your paper on top of the water and leave it for a few moments.
5. Then carefully lift the paper off the surface of the water.
6. Pop your design, face up, on some newspaper to dry.

HINTS & TIPS
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• Use a scrap of cardboard to ‘scrape’ the top of the water in-between each go. That will get rid of any paint residue from your previous attempt.
• I used coloured paper. Because of this, one of the marbling colours I chose was a transparent colour (crystal clear), that way you get to see the colour of the paper too.
• If you are doing this with kids I would definitely recommend using some gloves and an apron…it gets a bit messy.
• Have fun!! I found marbling incredibly relaxing so grab a bit pile of paper before you start…you will get through it.
• When your paper has dried, press it under some heavy books to make it flatter & smoother! Make sure you sandwich it between greaseproof paper just in case it leaves a mark.
• If you want some more inspiration then check out my Pinterest marbling board ^_^
• This particular marbling paint is oil-based so you will need white spirit to clean up any spills.

{a thought for Thursday} Keeping calm

Thanks to BookRiot.com for this advice to live by, which they shared on Facebook.

{read: mystery} And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

Many people love the bestselling mystery author Laura Lippman and this August release is supposed to be a great read, but I was disappointed. I was expecting a mystery, a thriller, and a twisty plot in this standalone book. What I got was details about how a suburban Baltimore madam runs her business that bogged down the plot to the point where I would characterize this book more as fiction than mystery.

There was an interesting back story that I found more compelling than the present-day story, and I wondered if Lippman had to weigh the present story down with inner workings of the business side of prostitution to give her enough time to tell us the back story, since she switches back and forth between the two storylines. If so, I wish she had found another way to fill those pages. The back story was compelling, and I wanted the current story to keep up. Despite the high-profile cases in the news about other suburban madams, these sections ended up being boring reading. Finally, the ending was predictable. All in all, this was not one that I'd recommend if you're looking for a compelling page-turner or even a mystery.

Full disclosure: I haven't read any of Lippman's Tess Monaghan books, so I don't know how this compares. I did read her standalone novel Life Sentences a few years ago and enjoyed it.

For those of you keeping track, this is the first one I've finished on my fall TBR list. So far, I'm 0-1 in good reads.

And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman (William Morrow, 2012)
My rating: 2.5 stars