another wip and 52 books challenge wrap-up

I enjoyed making this tote bag so much, that I searched through my scraps to make another one!

This one is for Celeste and she agreed to share it with me. We both love Snoopy.

It is the same size as the last tote I made.

The next one I make, I will try the full size.

This one still needs the binding at the top of the bag and the straps.

I need to get some fabric for that, probably a tiny red polka dot if I can find some.

 

About my 52 books project, I seemed to have slowed down lately in sharing my reading, but I did complete the challenge. I have read a few books since the last one I posted. I tried to keep an accurate log on my librarything widget on the right side of this blog. According to it, I have 53 books already in my list. I probably forgot to share some in posts.

You can see the list of the 53 books I read this year here at librarything.

The last couple of books I read were:

• Simplify with Camille Roskelley - this is a quilting book that I would love to own. She uses pre-cut jelly rolls, charm packs, fat quarters and more to create beautiful quilts. She has eight quilt projects of different sizes and four pillow patterns. I love how she uses her quilts to decorate her house and all the simplifying quotes shared throughout the book, as well as some of her creative tips. I will be trying a project or two from this book before sending it back to the library. She has a blog that is a pleasure to visit.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond. I really enjoyed reading this one as well, it is just like visiting her website.  The library has a long list of people waiting for this book, so it is only staying with me for 14 days. Her web page is worth spending some time at, full of photography tips, great recipes, and she also homeschools! I have been visiting it for a few years. There's always something interesting. The recipes I would like to try can be all be found on the cooking section of her site. This week I made the chocolate sheet cake and my family devoured it! I did too, it was delicious!

• The last book I will talk about today is one I read as a read aloud for our science. We are studying physics this year. I found at our library a series of biographies called Giants of Science by Kathleen Krull. We had been coming across Isaac Newton's name a few times over the past couple of weeks while working on experiments and decided to test out this series by reading the one on Isaac Newton. We all enjoyed this biography and will be reading more from the series. My son is very interested in reading the Sigmund Freud one. Kathleen Krull makes science very interesting and we were even laughing out loud, many times! No boring science textbooks in our homeschool!!

I really enjoyed participating in this 52 books 52 weeks challenge this year. I have always loved to read, but life can get in the way sometimes. I always read a lot to my children, and  I also read homeschooling books and books related to what we were studying. I never seemed to have a problem finding the time for those. What was missing was me reading just for myself, just for fun or on topics just for me. This year, I really took the time to carve out little blocks of time in my week to fit in reading just for me. It has been very enjoyable.

If you are interested in this challenge, it continues in 2011! You can visit the blog 52 Books in 52 Weeks for more details, and let me know if you sign up..I am!