Wednesday, May 26, 2010

From the Stacks 2

More books! Yay! Not mine, of course, but books none the less. I sparked my Marie Antoinette love by reading this great book!

The Bad Queen: Rules and Instruction for Marie Antoinette was excellent. The author, Carolyn Meyer, used real people that Marie Antoinette knew, and direct quotes used by the people around her from letters written to her or by those she knew. I had to borrow it from my cousin Maritza's county library system, since mine did not have it. It took me three days to read it. Hahaha! It's on my wish list, that's how much I loved it! Getting it in the future!

I've also been borrowing the Kingdom Hearts manga from the library for a while now, and I've had the song "Simple and Clean" by Utada Hikaru from the video game soundtrack for a while now. My doll Isabel gave it to me a looooooooong time ago, but I couldn't find it so I decided to borrow the Kingdom Hearts Game Soundtrack from the library.

Real soon we are going to get a new TV series!!!! Yay! Starting on June 8th on ABC Family we are going to get Pretty Little Liars, based off the book series by Sara Shepard by the same name. I really want to read at least the first book before the show starts to I got this!!!


I have about a week to read this book, which I think I can do... I hope... If it's good... lol

Alright, that's it for this week! Take care dolls!

Lots of Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

In My Mailbox 4

Yay! Another great "In My Mailbox." Tons of stuff for this week! Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

I won another contest! I won a signed The Tudor Wife by Emily Purdy (Known as Brandy Purdy in the US), a UK edition of The Boleyn Wife. It was offered by the author in her blog. I won this contest by making a comment about her cat Tabby. Very cute! You can see the information about the contest information here.

Guess what? I won another contest!!! This time around I won a ton of Romantic Times Convention 2010 swag. LOTS OF IT! Let me give me an overview of the items that I won.


Lots of bookmarks!


Note pads! (Love the one with the fangs. Tee hee!)


Mouse pads, preview audio books, and romance book sneak peaks.


Buttons and magnets


Miscellaneous stuff!


More Miscellaneous stuff!

I won this stuff by commenting about an argument between Kari Stevens, a big fan of Romance novels and Chain Cow, her stuffed animal... Yeah... Anyways, I won a bunch a stuff. I'm only keeping about half of it. I'm not into romance novels. At least not the contemporary ones. You can read about the contest here.

Now there was a magnet that I loved:


I don't have a use for a magnet, so I decided to make it into a button by destroying one of the other buttons. I needed the pin portion of the button to attach it to the magnet.


Here is the end result before I attacked it with the glue gun.


Remember how I L-O-V-E free stuff? Well I got some free stuff in the mail!


I won this shirt through the above website on Facebook.com/YoplaitPledge. They don't have anymore left, but the giveaway went well. 1,000,000 t-shirts in a few hours. Love the shirt. My mom loved it too! Tee hee! Going to wear it soon.

Lastly, you may remember last weeks "Things I Love Thursday." Well, I finally got the tote, the journal, The Iron King and Thirst No. 1 from Barnes & Noble! Yay! I have been waiting for the UPS guy all day!!!! He came at about 6:00 or so.


That's it for this weeks "In My Mailbox." Stand by for "From the Stacks" sometime by the end of the week.

Lots of Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

In My Shopping Bag 3 and Free Nail Polish!

For this weeks "In My Shopping Bag," I have books (Yes!), and something free!


I'm starting a book club with my doll Isabel, and for the next few months or so we are going to read Sundays at Tiffany's, The Iron King, Thirst No. 1, and Wings. We haven't decided what books we are going to read after those four, but we dig the whole Paranormal/Romance stuff so we'll probably stick with that. I decided to purchase Wings since we are going to read it soon. I've been wanting to read this book for a while. I also know that Wings is going to be made into a film some time next year starring the ever lovely, Miley Cyrus (Ugg! Not!). Hope it's good.

The other book that I purchased was Vampire Kisses. I've been wanting to read this series for as long as I would remember, and this book has the first three books in one. Score! Can't wait to start it. I had a hard time choosing between this book and the first volume of Vampire Diaries. I put that book on my wish list.


My cousin Maritza and me L-O-V-E free stuff!!! I wish I could find more free stuff and this month's Seventeen magazine offers it's readers a free Nicole by OPI nail polish. You too can bask in the chance at getting free nail polish. Go to this link to print out a coupon and then head out to your closest ULTA and get a free nail polish! I got the polish that's above. It's a silver polish named "Positive Energy." I've been wanting a silver polish for years! Totally worked out well!

That's it for this weeks "In My Shopping Bag." Take care sweets!

Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Things I Love Thursday!

Haha! Another Things I Love Thursday! Sweeeeeet! This weeks TILT is going to be random again. Some things might be connected, others might not.
I absolutely love this film! No one can tear this great Queen apart and this film is great at showing her strength. I recommend it to anyone that loves historical films, political films, or romance films. Here's the trailer to get your taste buds flowing (Yes I know you can't eat a film, but you know what I mean...):



This tote is going to be mine real soon! It's double sided and it has two quotes. My favorite side is the one pictured above and its says: "When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes" by Erasmus. The other side is pictured bellow and it says: "My best friend is a person who will get me a book I have not read" by Abraham Lincoln.
It seems like you can only get this tote at Barnes & Noble or online. It's very sturdy and made of great material. My cousin Maritza is one that told me about this tote. Will get it soon!


This journal is everything I could possibly want in a journal! It's all about books, and it's called the Books to Check Out Journal. It's a great way to keep track of books you have read, are reading, want to read, or are lending out to friends. It's a bit like the Moleskin Book Passion Journal I mentioned a few posts back, but this one is cheaper and more colorful. The cover is really darling! You can purchase this book at Barnes & Noble (that's where I first saw it) or on Amazon.

My new favorite person is Michelle Phan! She is an absolute genius! She has online YouTube tutorials on makeup and beauty. The first video I saw was her Sailor Moon transformation video, but I have two favorite videos from her. The first one is the Squeaky Clean Brushes! tutorial:



This tutorial is amazing because I've been hearing about all of the germs that can be on your brush if you don't wash it. She provided an easy and inexpensive way to clean our makeup brushes. You also hear about The Brush Guard in this video, which if you can remember from Sunday, I received in the mail a little while ago.



My next favorite video is her Theme Park Makeup video. Whether I'm at a theme park or not, I have issues keeping my makeup on my face. This tutorial is cute and easy. Loves it!!! Going to try it the next time I go to Disneyland!


My favorite beauty product right now is Clinique's All About Eyes cream. It actually does what it's suppose to do. It diminishes the appearance of puffy eyes, dark circles and fine lines. I use this at night and my eyes look a little less puffy and dark in the morning. Love this product a lot!!!!!


I totally love this House of Night jewelry. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this jewelry before, but if I have, awww well, I still love it! I've yet to get the jewelry for myself, but it's on my list! I plan to get the set you see above, but instead of the "Fire" tag, I want to get the "Water" tag, since that is my element. You can see the entire collection here.
Lastly, here's the last piece in my House of Night obsession. T-Shirts! Everyone loves T-Shirts. This CafePress House of Night Shop has excellent T-Shirts. The one pictured above is just one of the many that are available. Take your pick! I would want the one above and the one that says "Affinity" but the water one.

Well that's it for this weeks Things I Love Thursday. Can't wait to blog all summer because today was my last day of class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wooooooooooooot!!! ***Goes to burn all her text books, but decides that she can get money from them, so she doesn't do it..***

Till next time! Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Waiting on Wednesday

Hey hey!!! I wanted to welcome you to this great Wednesday by working on a new feature! It's called Waiting on Wednesday. I found the feature by wandering around in a ton of other great blogs. Again, it will mostly be about books, but if I'm really anxious to tell you about another item, I'll just post it here. For the first Waiting on Wednesday feature, I want to talk about a new book in the House of Night series that's coming out this year.

Now keep in mind, this is not the next novel in the series. The next novel in the series is Awakened, which is set to come out on January 4, 2011. As you can tell, I'm also waiting for this novel, but the book that I'm showing above is a book which can be read about in the series. In other words, it's a book within a book. The Fledgling Handbook 101 is a manual that all new, incoming fledglings are given when they enter the House of Night. It's really cool for us non-fledglings to be given a chance to read it! I can not wait for this book. I don't really have to wait long, it's going to come out on October 26, 2010!!! Yay!!!!

Here's the trailer for the new book, Burned, which came out a few weeks ago (and I've been waiting to borrow from the library and finally got).



I'm off! Expect at least one more post this week. You know what tomorrow is...

Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

How to Make a Book Wreath and Update

Hello sweets! I've been meaning to update you guys on the progress and finished product of my book wreath. Well, here it is! HAHA! Better late than never! Let me you give you an overview of the steps and pictures of the progress.


Here are the supplies you are going to need:
-Brown acrylic paint
-White 10 inch foam wreath
-A book (Take that George Bush!!!)
-Glue gun
-Extra glue gun sticks
-A pencil
-Some ribbon
-Paper towelsStart by placing paper towers on your work space. Then grab an extra paper towel and squeeze some paint on the paper towel. Rub the paper towel with paint on the edges of the book (except the spine of course). Make sure to coat it evenly. Let it sit for about 15 minutes or so until it dries. Look for the first page that has a lot of words. You want to fill your wreath with pages that have words on it, not blank pages. Follow this tutorial on how to roll your pages to place on the foam wreath.




You are pretty much going to go once around the edge.


This is how it looks like when you flip it around to add the full body of the wreath. You then start adding more pages by going up and around the wreath. Make sure to go around once in the inside edge of the wreath. Add any fillers if you find holes in the wreath. Lastly, make sure to glue on a small strip of ribbon to the back to hold up the wreath and you are done! Make sure to hang it on your house in a nice place! Here's where my mom placed it. She loved it!


Keep in mind that I just gave you the shortened version of the instructions. To see the full instructions head off to this link.

Hope you enjoyed my update. Keep reading!

Lots of Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

Monday, May 17, 2010

From the Stacks!

Hey there dolls! Here's the first edition of "From the Stacks!" I finally figured out a name for posts involving books or other items that I borrow from the library. For this week's From the Stacks, I have three things to share with you.

As you may recall a few posts back, I won a book called My Soul to Save by Rachel Vincent from an online contest. Well you might also recall that the book was the second in a series called the Soul Screamers. So, to read the second book I need to read the first book called My Soul to Take. I borrowed the book from the library a little while ago, and as you might notice my bookmark in the picture, I'm already reading it. So far so good. The concept is kind of cool. Love it! The third book in the series, My Soul to Keep comes out on June 1, 2010. It's odd that Amazon already has it for sale though...

You can also read the prequel novella called My Soul to Lose, which you can read for free from this link. (Note: Your going to need to install the Kindle app to your phone or computer to be able to read it)
As a treat, here's the book trailer to My Soul to Take. Enjoy!

A loooooooooong time ago, I ventured into the great beyond known as the Cal State Long Beach Library. I put on hold a film called I Have Found It. This was more than a month ago. They finally got the film in and I picked it up this past week. I was also informed that a second copy was in it's way to me. What the????

Anyways, I've been wanting to watch this film for a while now because this film is the Bollywood version of Sense & Sensibility. Too darling! I borrowed, from the same library, Bride & Prejudice which, as you can guess, is the Bollywood version of Pride & Prejudice. Loved that one a lot!!!!! Can't wait to watch this film!

Now, I hate being tricked! It's not cool! So when I go to the library, I expect to be able to pick up the book that I put on hold, especially since I was told it was ready to picked up. This was me several weeks ago. I was emailed again last week and told to pick up Burned by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast. My reaction: FINALLY! YESSS! I got the book! I've been wanting to read this book really BAD!!!!!! Can't wait to crack it open.

Well that's it for today's post. I'll keep you updated of my reading and stuff as school winds down. Expect more posts this week!

Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

Sunday, May 16, 2010

In My Mailbox 3 and In My Shopping Bag 2

Yay! Another edition of In My Mailbox and In My Shopping Bag! I'll start out this week with the items that came in my mail box.


I'm a big fan of Disney movies and if you register with DisneyMovieRewards.com, you can trade in codes in each movie for points that you can redeem for stuff! Everyone loves stuff. I've redeemed a few points before, but for virtual items for an old online game called Virtual Magic Kingdom (it was shut down in May of 2008). This time around I redeemed my points for an actually item I can hold in my hands. Haha! I was able to get the Alice in Wonderland poster you see above. I already hung it up in my room, on my closet door actually. Totally loves it. So if you like free stuff, get it, or other Disney stuff.

I won another contest! Yay! Hahaha! Like my cousin Maritza said, I'm on a roll! The contest was made by the sweet doll over at Delightful Reviews. Here's the contest info. I won The Naughty List (Stop giggling! Stop that! It's not what you think! It's a Young Adult book, what would you expect in a Young Adult book...? Certainly not strong Adult themes...) by Suzanne Young. It was signed and had a cute message in it. I also won a signed book mark, which you can see a little closer bellow.

Lastly, I got these great Brush Guards in the mail this week. What is a Brush Guard you ask?


The Brush Guard can help protect your brushes from getting dirt on them and can help you clean them if you slip a washed and clean brush through a brush guard, turn the brush upside down so the water slips downwards and you can do this without ruining your brush!


Here are my bushes being protected by The Brush Guard! There are different sized guards and you can buy them in different packs. I got the variety pack and it was just $5.50. All packs are $5.50 and shipping is already included in the price. Check out TheBrushGuard.com to get your set today!

(Just for your info, I was not payed to say all of that. I just like them that much!)


Now, for the item in my shopping bag! This past week I got the chance to purchase The Young Victoria! Yay! I've seen the film twice since I've purchased it. Too lovely!

The film is a bio-pic based on the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria, the sovereign that ruled England the longest! The film is also about her relationship with Prince Albert, her husband. Totally recommend it!

Well that's it for this week's In My Mailbox and In My Shopping Bag. Keep reading. I'll be posting more as my semester wraps up. Expect more posts this week!

Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

P.S. Happy Birthday little bro, even though you don't read my blog. You're legal now!!!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Happy (Late) Blogoversary to Me!!!

I was suppose to announce this in April, but I let the day pass...

HAPPY (LATE) BLOGOVERSARY TO ME!!!!!

I started blogging as of April 11, 2009 and it is now May 15, 2010
! I have officially stuck with something that's lasted more than one year!!! Hahahaha! (A year and a month to be a bit more exact)

I have 12 happy followers, which I appreciate a lot! When I publish this post, I will have about 31 posts!

You have stuck with me through all of my randomness and I promise a lot more! After all, I am the Queen of Random.

With that note in mind, I want to end this post with a great fan made video featuring clips from the film Marie Antoinette and my new favorite song The Queen by Velvet (Now, if only I could purchase it or find a way to get it online...). Enjoy and remember to bow to the Queen of Random
!



Love and Sugar from me, Sweet Lady Jess

Friday, May 14, 2010

Kelley Armstrong Signing!

As you may recall, I mentioned that I was going to Kelley Armstrong's signing at Borders in Torrence. Well, I went!!! Yay!!! I was practically counting down the days until her book signing! Here's a report!
I got to Borders at about 6 or so. The seats had been set up and my doll Sergio had saved seats for my mom and me.

Kelley came a little past 7 and started off by reading the prologue to her next book in the Darkest Powers series, which is called The Gathering (to be expected some time next March, April or May, I can remember right now...). You can read for yourself the passage that she read to us by going to this website, scrolling down a little, and clicking on where it says "exclusive sneak peek at The Gathering."

She then took questions from people and to get it rolling, she offered two mouse pads with this image (or something like it, since I put together this image):

The mouse pad had the Chibi (Cutey) version of the main characters from the book series. I didn't get a mouse pad, but a ton of people asked questions. The ones that I felt where the most important where if she was going to write any more novellas besides Dangerous, which can be found here. Keep in mind that novella means short story based off a book. Stephenie Meyer is going to do that soon with The Short Life of Bree Tanner. Can't wait for that book.

But back to the signing: She mentioned that she's going to write two other novellas. One based on the time that Tori and Simon were together, alone, in The Awakening, and the other one is about Simon and Derek and where they were after they escaped Lyle House in between The Summoning and The Awakening. Can't wait to read those!
She also explained about the meaning about the different stones in the covers. In a nut shell, the persons that designed the covers made her add the idea of the necklace/stones into her story. She didn't like it for the first two books and they didn't make her explain the purple stone in the third book. However, don't tell her publishing company I told you this... ^_- Hahaha!


We then got the chance to get our books signed, take a picture with her and get a piece of swag! She was giving away buttons with the pictures of the characters from the book, like the ones in the image I provided above. I had a hard time picking just one! Kelley said that people usually take all the Derek ones first, the Chloe ones second and the rest up until there is only Simon ones left. She was sort of sad about that. However, I took the Chloe one and my doll Sergio took a Simon one. Kelley was very happy about that. Haha!

Here's Sergio's button (Picture provided by Sergio. Thanks doll!)

Here's the button I got along with a picture of the button on my backpack and all of my other buttons on it.


Lastly here's a picture of my books signed by Kelley. To get a close up of the messages that she wrote on each one, head off to my facebook album and you can see those pictures and many more from the signing to your hearts content.


Well that's it for my report on the signing. I hope you like it and keep reading!

Lots of Love and Sugar from me, Jess