Category: Press

New Book! Christopher Columbus

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I have a new book coming out juuuussst about now, in time for Columbus Day 2009. It’s Christopher Columbus, written by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by me!
It’s published by Scholastic and will appear in their school book club mailings.

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There’s nothing more fun than seeing a book in print and receiving a box of ’em!

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This is a new line for Scholastic: biographies for the very young/preschoolers. The text takes you from Christopher as a young boy through his many attempts at securing ships for exploration, to when he finally lands in San Salvador.

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Let me know if you see it in on your book order form!

New Press This Month

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Some interesting stuff has shown up recently…international-type stuff!
Here’s my Half Pint item written up in a Korean Magazine called DesignNet:

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Aaaaand here’s Pizza Boss 3000 written up in a French Magazine called FHM:

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Back here in the ol’ US of A, Salt and Playtime is in May’s issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray:

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And here is this month’s Highlights High Five recipe illustrated by me…Pink Lemonade!

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Magazine Mayhem!

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Here are a few new items currently on the shelves:

April’s Highlights High Five has Deviled Eggs!

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And after you’ve made yourself some nice deviled eggs, sit back with April’s Rachael Ray magazine and check out this:

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There’s “Calf and Half” again!
I have to hand it to Rach and her “people”…they do find fun stuff for the magazine. Look at the knitted fruit! And the adorable Mary Jane wellies! On the same page is a product by my friend Christy, too…”Pound,” a set of nails for driving into your finger food (not your fingers). How constructive!

I have a bunch of fun new items starting to pop up here and there-
I’ll show you some of them soon.
I’ve had A LOT of work lately, so sometimes the blog gets the cold shoulder!
And by the way, Happy St. Pat’s Day!

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Authors Heart Kids, Too

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The first ever Kids Heart Authors Day went really well here in Rhode Island! Barrington Books is a fabulously well-stocked store, and they went all out to make for a festive book signing event. It was truly heartwarming to see so many people (both the kind that make books, and the kind that read books) enthusiastically supporting this event.

Here are the five of us that were at Barrington Books:

Linda Crotta Brennan, Me, Anika Denise, Chris Denise, and Mary Jane Begin.

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See what a nice job they did of making the setting as playful as possible? Excellent job!

Linda and I had fun chatting, meeting lots of little people and their parents, and eating M+M’s.

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Chris and Anika have a great rapport with their little book fans.

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Thank you to everyone who came out, and to Barrington Books for supporting such a great event!

HO HO HO…Where did December go?? It’s the Winter Blog Catch Up!

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Have you all been having a lovely time this season?
Been doing a little decorating?


This is my “Five and Dime” area, decked out for the holidays.

Have you been feeding the birds? The muse? The face?
(I have on all counts!)

I have definitely been taking a holiday break from the blog (and a lot of other things) as I focused on other stuff for a while. Most of the other stuff has been good, so no complaints here! I’ve been pursuing a gentle blend of work laced with baking and decorating.
Laundry? Not so much.

We spent a good portion of November and December as stage hands, etc. for the local version of “A Christmas Carol,” which our kids were in.
I don’t know about you, but I am a Christmas Carol addict. I know every version and have read it a load of times, it’s an all-time favorite. So even though the stage production took up A LOT of time, it was very fun.
Here’s Scrooge watching the Cratchits and realizing the error of his ways:

Oh, and look! There he is on Christmas morning, all happy-like!
Our version had Charles Dickens as the narrator.

I made Christmas Carol-themed cookies for our concession stand, and for the cast party.
Here are Marley, Past and Present:

Speaking of cookies, I made lots more of them since we have a cookie exchange every year at the FRED office. It’s a good excuse to whip out the cookie cutters and molds.

Molds?
Yeah, molds!

These are some of my speculaas molds…the must-have accessory if you are a glutton for punishment and enjoy medieval baking processes. I mean, who doesn’t??
After many hours of having the dough “set up”, and then molding them, the cookies end up looking like this:

Closer up, you can see all the delightful detail.
It’s ALL ABOUT the detail when you’re making these.

Here are some of my traditional cutout cookies.

It’s not Christmas without lobsters, I always say. At least I say it this year!

These wintery months have brought a flurry (haha) of good press lately for some of my products.

Calf and Half has been featured on The Today Show (woo hoo!) and in the Chicago Tribune (Yowza!), and even in Oprah’s O at Home Magazine!

Ice Princess made it into the December issue of Good Housekeeping!

Well, isn’t that nice. I love me some good press.

I recently made a few new things for my Etsy shop:

These make me happy because I am starting have a real convergence of my art style overlapping with my craft style, and vice versa.
I think I am finding a stronger “voice”, sort of.
Nice.

Here’s another nice thing, made by a very nice kid who lives here:

Do you know who this is made out of snow? Guess!

In the meantime, I guess I’ll get back to whatever it is that I should be doing.
Oh, yeah…it’s tea time. I should be making tea!