Attack of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

I think I told you this, but I've had some weird synchronicity with my audiobooks this year.

I listened to Killing Lincoln (despite the author-narrator's inability to distinguish between Calvary and cavalry) during the exact time period of the assassination (completely by accident) and freakily - 2017 Easter, etc. lined up with the dates of Easter of that year. Immediately after that, I listened to Killing Kennedy, and happened to be listening to it when I went to Boston to work at the Collins show, and got to see the Kennedy Presidential Library with my friend Libby while I was there. Were I in charge of the world, all children would learn history with an audiobook and a trip to the locale.

But then this month, extra weirdness with my books.

I was in a bit of a drought with my books, having spent the 3 billion dollars I allow myself every year in Audible credits, and so I have been forced to wait the weeks and months it takes to get audiobooks through Overdrive from my library. Talk about painful. (If you want to spend 3 billion dollars - they are having a special on Audible right now - I'm not eligible - so go on without me - but you can Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks so you can try the two I'm about to talk about.)

I filled my cart with random books I didn't even read reviews on, but fit my requirements of non-fiction or true crime in audio format. The first one was FASCINATING, and it was the story of a quite famous woman I knew nothing about. The events took place before I was born, but you'd think I'd have heard of this scandalous and intriguing story they told in The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. It had everything you could want in non-fiction - Kennedy assassination intrigue, Marilyn Monroe's death, Frank Sinatra, Sam Sheppard, the mob, celebrities, and the suspicious death of the main subject - Dorothy Kilgallen - an outspoken glass ceiling breaker who made more than a few enemies during her career. I really loved this book. I love all unsolved crimes - someday I'm convinced I'll solve one.

But then, I went on to the next one that became available from my library - again, a desperate and uninformed choice by an audiobook addict. This book is called Incendiary. It tells the story of "the mad bomber" who terrorized New York for nearly 20 years. It's an absolutely fascinating story - and tragic in more ways than you'd think.

Imagine my surprise when both Dorothy Kilgallen and one of the papers she worked for had a prominent role in the story. Crazy coincidence since I'd never heard of her until that prior week. If you're wondering what that phenomenon is called - it does have a name - and it's called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Seriously - I'm not kidding. Look it up. Or just read this blog post I wrote about it. 

So I thought I'd inflict some Baader-Meinhof on you since Thanksgiving is coming. You're going to be sitting down to eat your turkey or tofurkey and you'll think - MAN - that's weird - I totally just saw this on Lydia's blog! You can thank me later. 

I made this card for one of the Falliday Fest challenges that is all about that holiday food. Since I don't like sweets, I went for a savory treat theme.

I had one of my Derwent Inktense block scraps on my desk that I knew would make a terrific table runner for my Hero Arts turkey. So I used my fringe scissors on either end, and then Copic colored and cut out all my images, and used the Stitched Shapes framelit for the sentiment. The background is the Wood Textures DSP - isn't it perfect? Also - for those of you who like to color the edge of your images black and are frustrated by having Copics bleed into the image from the edge - try my new favorite - the Copic Gasenfude Nylon brush pen. It doesn't bleed into the image, and it has a very pointy, fine nylon brush similar to an aquapainter but firmer - so you can get in the tiniest nooks and crannies with it. I'll try to do a video on that soon. I'd tried Microns, Pitt, everything, and this one is definitely my favorite edge blacking pen.

So here's my little Thanksgiving table. Please keep in mind this took me like two hours to lay out. I kept moving all the elements around until I had completely annoyed myself and then it all clicked.

Now speaking of alcohol markers - Stampin' Up! is back with Stampin' Blends - their new alcohol markers. These are available on November 1st, and there are 24 markers - a light and dark marker in 12 colors, listed here, as well as a color lifter, an ivory and a bronze marker for skin tone work. You can buy the markers individually, or in two marker combo packs, or in a 26 marker set which includes the color lifter as well as ivory and bronze. Also - these can go into a starter bundle, so you can get them at a huge discount that way, and then you could have fun in my team group! No strings attached, no selling required. There's a sweet kit that goes along with this introduction, and it's while supplies last. Check out all the details here.

And don't just throw those babies in a drawer, either! Stamp-n-Storage was ahead of the game, and has the perfect storage system for them, which is now painted blue and sitting on my desk. I bought two sets of the Blends - one for use in classes, and one for my personal set. And now through Monday - you can get 15% off at Stamp-n-Storage with coupon CREATE17.

Look how adorable that is. And perfectly small footprint that holds a lot of markers!! You can see them here - there are actually two different size options, as they always try to work with standard IKEA units as well. I have room to grow, which is my favorite thing about any storage solution. I clearly will have to get two more color lifters so my eye will stop twitching at that empty spot.

Speaking of eye twitching - I finally found a really old SU set I was looking for for a reasonable price on Ebay - and there are two more out there if you are interested at reasonable prices, and also a few for crazy prices. 

I have many tutorials to shoot and write this weekend, so there's some fun stuff coming up - hope you have some coffee time to watch as the clock ticks down to turkey day.

Have a great weekend!

Loveyameanitbye.