Mental Tunes: “Meant to Be”

Heard this earlier, now it’s an endless loop in my head 🙂  Love the song, but can’t say I like the video.

I Dreamed a Dream

A little much needed inspiration to start the day.  This performance never fails to bring a tear to my eye and a smile to my face.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom

As befitting a book written by Music, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto has a soundtrack.

On an evening in the small Spanish town of Villareal, a young woman, heavily pregnant, enters a church to light a candle. Then the raiders come, followers of Franco, and her labor begins. In a hidden room attended by a single nun, her son, Francisco Presto, enters the world, grabbing a giant handfull of Music as he comes. In a desperate attempt to keep him quiet, his mother hums to him Francisco Tárrega’s Lágrima.  As the church begins to burn, the new mother, the nun, and the infant huddle together.  Only one of the women make it out alive.

Thus begins the life of musical legend, Frankie Presto who would die so spectacularly.  His life and music touched and was touched by so many.  Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington, Elvis Presley, Lyle Lovett, Tony Bennett, and many, many more.

I loved this book, told to us by Music with music.  Be sure to read it with YouTube open so you can listen to the music as you read.  It really does enhance the experience.

Rating:  5 out of 5 stars

 

Merry Christmas, y’all

Here’s wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas filled with friends and family, music and laughter.

Speaking of music, my favorite Christmas carol is “The Little Drummer Boy”.  Here’s the Celtic Woman version:

Orla, along with Meav, have always been my favorites.  I really miss the original Celtic Woman.  Here are Meav and Orla performing “Do You Hear What I Hear?”:

 

“Angels Cry”

Love this song.  It’s sadly underrated.

Song Obsessions: “Thinking Out Loud”

Heard this on the radio this morning and can’t get it out of my head.  Luckily, I love this song.  Especially the second verse:  “‘Cause, honey, your soul could never grow old, it’s evergreen…”

Remembering September 11th

Even now, this song can still make me cry.

The answer is:  I was in one of the bedrooms, stripping the sheets, preparing to put them in the wash.  My sister called, nearly hysterical, telling me to turn the T. V. on.  Those sheets didn’t get washed that day.  Not much of anything got done.  I’m not even sure I ate.  If I did, I don’t remember what it was.  I only remember shock and rage and sadness.

A couple of weeks later, my other sister and I were driving back from town when a plane dived low.  It was a crop duster.  Before, we wouldn’t have paid it any mind.  This is a rural area.  We see crop dusters all the time, but, that day, on that road, it gave us a bit of a turn, let me tell you.

Song Obsessions: “Wrong Song”

Heard this one yesterday, can’t remember if it was regular radio or Pandora, but I can’t get it out of my head.

What tune’s stuck in your mind this week?

Just for the Love

Hi, y’all.

With Memorial Day coming up, I intended this kit to be patriotic with lots red and blue, stars and stripes.  It evolved into something else.  You can still use it to scrap your Memorial Day, and Independence Day, celebrations, but, with the addition, of browns and greens, you can use it for other things as well.

The title for this kit comes from a Charley Pride song, “Just for the Love of It”.  I remember listening to his music as a child on my parents’ old stereo.  Old as in it had an A-Track player!  My mom had several Charley Pride records.  A couple of my favorites were “Snakes Crawl at Night” and “Crystal Chandeliers”.  Now, I have a few of his CDs.  It’s one of the songs that just happened to come up in the shuffle on my mp3 player while I was making this kit.

Just for the Love contains:

• 22 papers
• 15 flowers
• 10 buttons
• 20 frames
• 10 hearts
• 4 ric-rac
• 4 string flowers
• 2 alphas (upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols)
• 7 labels
• 5 glitter tiles
• 5 sequins
• 5 stars
• 2 banners
• 3 stitched lines
• 2 stitched borders

The notepaper alpha was made using the font Pussycat Snickers by Fontalicous, the other with Vanessa.  You can download both fonts from dafont.com.  Vanessa was also used in the wordart.  The other font in the wordart is Where the stars shine the brightest by Brittney Murphy.  I used Vijaya on the labels.  This is a font that usually comes with Windows.  If you don’t have it, you can get it from the Fontzone.

To get the dirty, slightly grungy, look on everything, I used several brushes from both Obsidian Dawn and Touchstone Art.

Download:  In Parts or In Full

Memory Lane

Yesterday, I found myself watching The 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s on VH1.  To my embarrassment, I discovered that I still remembered the words to “Ice, Ice Baby” and “Jump Around”!  I also immediately dug out my Jagged Little Pill CD.  In fact, at this very moment I’m listening to “You Learn”.

I graduated high school in the 90s, went to the prom, had my first date, and mightily humiliated myself on occasions too numerous to count, and about which I have no desire to reminisce.  🙂

Anyway, it sent me on a trip down memory lane, hence this new kit.

Memory Lane contains:

• 6 papers
• 1 notepaper
• 3 buttons
• 3 flowers
• 2 frames
• 1 ribbon-wrapped frame
• 2 ribbons
• 3 bows
• 2 wordarts

Download link:  Memory Lane

Enjoy!

Also, has anybody been watching The History Channel’s Jurassic Fight Club?  I know, I know.  I’m a geek!  But I love that show.

—————————-

Update 2/24/2015: I’ve gone through all of my links and deleted all of those for 4shared. My account there has been discontinued. Unfortunately, this means that many of my early kits are no longer available. If I can find the time, I may attempt to recreate and/or redo some of them.