The Creative Salad

Pride and Prejudice with Pictures!

Did you know that Marvel has published a graphic novel version of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice? (Thank you to Jenny for the info!)

As someone who devours all things Jane Austen, I was thrilled to hear about this. I’m all about bringing nineteenth century literature to the masses.

My copy arrived this morning. I can’t wait to dive right in. Doesn’t Caroline Bingley (above) look deliciously awful?! I abhor Mr. Collins already too:

I’ll provide one last shot, because I know you’re dying to see their interpretation of Pemberley…

I can’t wait to get reading… After this, I’m tackling the Marvel Illustrated Sense & Sensibility.

Spring in Northern California

I love seeing apple trees blooming, bee boxes set out to pollinate the blossoms, and grapes vines growing here in Sonoma County, California. We live in a truly beautiful part of the country.

Want to see what this same spot looked like last fall? Here are photos taken just before the grape leaves fell off the vines for the winter.

Pretend Sticker Postage Stamps

Our daughter desperately wants to place real postage stamps on her letters.

I understand that she wants her stamps to look exactly like mine, but at 44 cents a stamp, letting her play with them just isn’t financially feasible. Besides, Mama has important letters to mail too!

Instead we photo copied stamp booklets onto plain white paper.

My daughter then cut them out and we fed them through her sticker making machine.

Now she has postage stamps of her very own that look like mine!

The postmaster wouldn’t be fooled, but my three year old is tickled pick by her realistic play stamps.

The Problem Solver

Want to play outside but your neighbor is using his noisy weed wacker?

There’s no need to fret.

Just break out your kid-sized noise reduction headphones.

They’re perfect for playing with the band at concerts and scooping dirt in the yard.

Fractiles Magnetic Tiles

$Making a menorah with fractiles$

Two posts about magnets in one week! Clearly this is one of our toddler’s current obsessions! (If you missed our post earlier in the week about making your own literary magnets, including the Kevin Henkes Lily magnet shown above, here’s the link.)

We bought these Fractiles for a trip back East earlier this year.

Not only were they fun on the plane and

enjoyed during our trip,

but they have continued to be played with regularly here at home.

She loves matching the pictures from the package (featuring dozens of designs) and making up her own designs.

The possibilities are endless!

The manufacturer packages several different sets of Fractiles magnets: the plain Fractiles Fridge Fractiles and the one that we have, Fractiles: Travel Version, which contains a steel board on which to place the magnets.

We highly recommend Factiles for hours of educational fun!