Want to bring face painting to your next event? You can learn how with this step-by-step guide from makeup artist Charlotte Verrecas.
A Big Book of Face Painting includes instructions for more than a dozen fun designs from animals to fairies to monsters and more. Stunning photography will help you see each step of the way through your design. The book opens with a list of products and tips for certain techniques. From silly to zany to spooky, you’ll be able to create tons of looks for your child. I’m thinking I can modify the “Zombie Kid” one for my daughter on Halloween. I believe the age range on this book is for the designs themselves, because this is a book parents will want to read.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Age Range: 5 – 7 years
Grade Level: Kindergarten – 2
Hardcover: 80 pages
Publisher: Clavis Publishing (September 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1605371734
ISBN-13: 978-1605371733
I received a copy of this book from the publicist. This review contains my honest opinion, which I have not been compensated for in any way.
Pippa Middleton, younger sister to the Duchess of Cambridge, has reportedly signed a £400,000 ($620,360.00) book deal with Penguin UK imprint, Michael Joseph.
According to The Telegraph, Middleton will be writing a nonfiction tome on how to host the perfect party. The not-yet-titled book will contain party ideas, stories and recipes. Middleton’s resume includes a past job in events management at Table Talk, a London-based party planning company. She currently works as an editor for an online party magazine called Party Times.
Here’s more from the article: “Ms Middleton will wait for the launch of her first book until after the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations next summer so that she is not seen to be cashing in on her royal connections. She is keen for the book to be released next year but is determined that she is not seen to be making money from her closeness to the royal family. Therefore the book is likely to be launched late next autumn, after the summer celebrations around the Queen’s Jubilee but in time for the Christmas market.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
I love the 4th of July! It is hot In Miami at that time, too hot! But I don’t let that stop me from having a lot of fun. Every year we host a party for family and friends at our house. I always keep the TV on because the SciFi Channel has a Twilight Zone Marathon on for 2 days then and on New Year’s Day. My family is addicted to that show, and we’ve pretty much memorized all the episodes. (I actually made a rolling index of all the episodes, which we use every time we watch it!) Anyway - back to the holiday. Now is the time to plan and invite yor guests. Here are some ideas to make your day special.
Start the Day with a Parade – Buy crepe paper and streamers in red, white and blue from your party store. Let the kids decorate their bicycles, make a sign from poster board and have a parade down your street. The kids can decorate the babies’ strollers or wagons as well. Older children can march with a flag. Be sure to take many photos of the event.
Play a Trivia Game – Search online for some US history facts such as info about the Declaration of Independence, our early US presidents and events of past July 4th celebrations in the US. Write don 20 questions. Ask your guests to answer the questions. The one who gets the most answers correct wins a patriotic gift. We gave away a tall Uncle Sam hat at our last party. Everyone ill have fun paying this!
Make the Food Festive – I always serve BBQ food buffet style to make it easy. Keep the food in the house, even if you are eating outside. It will stay fresher longer, and you won’t have critters flying all over it. I decorate the island in my kitchen with a red checked table cloth and put flowers in vases with flags in them. I put cardboard boxes of varying heights beneath the table cloth to offer taller places to put food platters. This give you more space and is pleasing to the eye. It is better to serve just 4 or 5 items in large quantity than it is to make 15 different dishes. Chicken and ribs or burgers and chicken breasts seem to please everyone. I always make a great pasta salad so if someone is a vegetarian, he will be happy. Everyone loves corn on the cob! I always make cupcakes covered with red, white and blue sprinkles for the kids and an ice cream cake.
Host Your Own Fireworks – We buy a big box of legal fireworks from the store, plus some extra sparklers. Only the dads handle the lighting of the fireworks. No kids! We all sit in the back yard with sparklers. Be careful with those, because they can really burn! They are not for little children. You’ll find that your guests will NOT want to leave.
Whatever you plan, have a safe and fun 4th of July!
Check back here at the end of June. When I get home from my vacation, I’ll post a few recipes.
Fifty years ago, this sweet, simple picture book got us in trouble.
Three states boycotted Albert Whitman & Company for publishing a book portraying a black child playing with white children. We published Fun for Chris by Blossom E. Randall in 1956, at a time when racial segregation was being challenged in the southern U.S. The introduction, written by influential librarian Charlemae Rollins, reads in part:
Parents and teachers…. often ask for books which they can use in order to help children understand and accept all kinds of people. Chris’ mother answers his first questions with honest simplicity.
By the time Fun for Chris went out of print 30 years later, children’s books reflected far more diversity, to the extent that it’s easy to forget that a scene like the one above could be so controversial. But we were reminded of this book’s significance this morning when we discovered Mark McCormick’s recent article about Blossom Randall in the Witchita Eagle. We were thrilled to learn that Blossom Randall is alive and well in Kansas (she’s 90!), and she remembers how she was motivated to write the book:
She said she couldn’t help it. Seeing the nation’s smoldering racial conflict upset her so.
“Everything I read, it was just such an upheaval,” she said. “The hate and the prejudice was so bad. I couldn’t understand a youngster growing up in that kind of situation.”
So the woman who had been voted “loudest” in her high school class sat down and wrote the true story that had been in her head since she and her husband and children lived in Lawrence.
We’re grateful to both Mrs. Randall and Mark McCormick for reacquainting us with this piece of history. It’s also worth mentioning that we found this wonderful story via the news alert feature on JacketFlap’s profile page for Albert Whitman, so thank you, JacketFlap! And while Fun for Chris has passed on into the land of Alibris and vintage book collectors, we have three recent picture books about the Civil Rights Movement—Grandmama’s Pride, White Socks Only, and A Bus of Our Own—as well as a great many award-winning multicultural books, as we continue with a commitment to diversity that goes back more than fifty years.
