Our Bedtime Story Reading

We finished reading The Son of Neptune, by Rick Roirdan, yesterday afternoon. This was the second book in the Heroes of Olympus series. Blaze really enjoyed the action-packed ending, but it did end with the heroes talking about the beginning of their next quest. Rick Riordan's website says we must wait until Autumn for the next installment in the series, The Mark of Athena.




Last night, DH began reading the graphic novel, Amulet, aloud to Blaze.





The only other graphic novel that Blaze owns, is the adaptation of The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, and that has been so successful as a tool to encourage Blaze to read on his own, that we wanted to buy more. Reading is very hard for Blaze and he has very little self confidence in that area, but with the short sentences and visual clues of a comic book, he's more willing to try, especially if there is an exciting plot. We will be reading it out loud to him first, though.

Making A Steampunk Scrapbook: Part 3, The Cover

This chipboard, precut to the size I needed for my scrapbook, was one of the things I found at Hobby Lobby last weekend.



I decorated the covers with scrapbook paper and metal embellishments. I couldn't find any eyelets in a coordinating color, so I spray-painted some the color I wanted before using them to re-inforce the holes.



Inside the front cover (the only steampunk photograph of DH, so far):

Making a Steampunk Scrapbook: Part 2

While we were in Jacksonville, Friday, I went scrapbook supply shopping at Hobby Lobby. I have found many items at the Michael's store here in Gainesville, but we don't have a Hobby Lobby and they really do have a larger selection.

My collection of supplies now includes stickers, chipboard, and metal embellishments.





Designer, Tim Holtz makes a line of scrapbooking supplies that lend themselves very well to steampunk. Both of the craft stores and many on-line stores carry his products.

Sunday, I was back to work on the scrapbook ( it was the perfect sedentary occupation, since my feet still hurt from a full day of wearing pointy-toed Victorian boots all day Saturday).

A sheet of 12' X 12' paper, when cut down to notebook paper size, left a strip of left over paper exactly the right size to make this pocket to hold a bundle of pictures.





Even though I chose to make an eight and a half by eleven-inch scrapbook, I still want to fit in quite a few pictures, so I've been finding ways to layer them. The bundle in the pocket is one way, this is another:





Yet another:





This is the introductory page I did for Blaze's 10th birthday party pictures. There is only one photo on this page, but I hope to fit more onto the next.



Daylina Miller of Tampa Steampunk sent me this amazing link to steampunk scrapbook pages, many of which list the sources of the materials used in creating them:

http://www.scrapbook.com/gallery/?type=searchwords&s=steampunk

Scenes from the Jacksonville Zoo

We've been to the Jacksonville Zoo before, but not for along time, so when DH was invited to speak to the park service about the Kingsley cemetery on Friday, Blaze and I rode along. The zoo is not far from the Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island. It takes about 3-3 1/2 hours to walk through the whole zoo, so it worked out perfectly with dropping DH off at The Ribault Club, where he was speaking, and picking him up when the program was over.









We really enjoyed visited with this guy. His name is Duke and he's not at all shy about coming up to people to be fed by hand.





The animals are not the only attraction at the zoo. It's right on the Saint Johns River, so there's a dock. There are also some very pretty garden areas.





If you go there with children, make sure you plan for a long stop at the playground.











In the summer, the playground also includes a splash pad.

Back to the animals:

St. Augustine Steampunk Shopping Trip

Yesterday, we met up with people from the Central Florida Steampunk Association for a full day of shopping in St. Augustine, the nation's oldest city.





We started at the Visitors' Center at noon and made our way through the City Gates.



St. Augustine is one of those places that is so full of costumed re-enactors all year long, that people in historic-based costumes don't seem that out of place as they wander from shop to shop.





There were lots of fun shops to look in, a hat shop, a pirate store, handmade soaps, tea and spices, and vintage clothing were just a few we visited.









One of the things I really love about St. Augustine is the street venders and musicians, who make the shopping district so much more vibrant and colorful.



This man made some very clever, wrapped wire jewelry using computer circuit boards.




This very friendly one-man-band tried to get his dog, Maggie May, to sing for us.



Maggie May is the most patient, and lazy, dog you can imagine.



This group said that yesterday was the first time they had preformed together, but they were very entertaining.





After we listened to one song, we were about to walk away, but we had to stay when they told us their next song was called "Trains and Dinosaurs".



We finished off our evening with a walking tour with Ancient City Ghost Tours.

Our tour guide, Shannon, was entertaining. Blaze is not actually the bravest person when it comes to scary stories, but Shannon's mixture of history, ghost stories, puns, and silly punch lines, had the audience groaning over the bad jokes, more than the gruesomeness (although there was some of that, too). It kept Blaze interested without scaring him too badly, until our last stop, where he insists something brushed against his leg.









Our final stop of the ghost tour was the old military hospital.







As we were leaving the ghost tour and walking across the park, we were stopped by a group of photographers and asked if we would all pose for pictures. There were many group photos taken, as we were used to help photographers learn how to take better photographs using artificial lighting. I have the card of one of the photographers and hope to see some of those pictures soon.