YA Wednesday: Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

The Fourth of July is almost upon us, and what's more American than SUPER HEROES! So, without further ado, I bring you the first book I've ever heard of featuring a Superhero squirrel. Happy Independence Day, Americans! Happy Wednesday, everyone else!

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Even though Middle Grade is a little, well, young for me, I'd still like to read all the Newbery Award Winners. I have maybe 20 left to go, and in the past few years, I've slacked a bit. So I grabbed this one from the library, figuring I could listen to it with my son in the car. I wasn't expecting much, even though I've read and enjoyed many of DiCamillo's novels.

Like a lot of books I read, I didn't read the back before starting the book. So I was a bit startled when I realized the book was about a superhero squirrel. That's right. A squirrel who is also a (suspected) superhero. At least our other title character, Flora, would like to believe when the magically blessed Ulysses enters her life. Ulysses isn't your average superhero. His feats of strength include lifting a vacuum cleaner over his head for no apparent reason. His arch nemesis is a romance writer. He vanquishes nothing more than a large cat. And he is more concerned with giant (and gianter) doughnuts than saving the world. But he may just be able to save Flora.

With wit and humor, DiCamillo proves that superheroes come in all shapes and sizes, and that even when broken, we can still shine (much like a headless shepherdess lamp).

December Daily Advent Calendar

I've been so busy getting my book out that I haven't been posting on Sunday, so I'm posting my usual Scrappy Sunday post a day late. I've been seeing advent calendars around town and on Pinterest lately, and I've wanted to make one for a while. So when I saw a plain craft one at Hobby Lobby, I couldn't resist.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the blank box. So just imagine it here.


Here was the next step. I got really lucky and found out my square punch fit the drawers almost exactly! It made it a breeze. Even without, you could use a paper cutter to easily cut out 25 squares. I used an old collection of Basic Grey paper I had, Blitzen collection, and one page of the Dasher collection. Then I used my circle punch to cut out a little spot on each square. I wasn't too picky about placement, as you can see! But I did the whole thing on December 1st, so I didn't stress about making it perfect. I inked the edges of each piece of paper with red ink from an Around the Block inkpad.



After I had that step done, which took several hours, I started to do the numbers and embellishments. I mod-podged everything on. I am not very creative, so at this point I went to Pinterest to find something inspiring. I found the toolbox calendar on this post helpful. I used her method of getting numbers from any source possible. I have tons of letter stickers, so I used number stickers off some of those sheets. I also used chipboard, some little tags I had from getting my car serviced (I never throw anything away, and once in a blue moon, that is a benefit!), cutout from Making Memories paper and 7 gypsies bingo card paper, an ATC from Paper Studios, Smashpads calendar tape, and 7 gypsies ephemera for the numbers.





Then I added embellishments. Again, I used a lot of stuff I've had for a long time. I didn't buy anything for this project except the box, which was great. I have a big bag of Christmas stuff, and it was nice to use some of it up, and a nice challenge, too. I'm not even sure where some of them came from. But some embellishments I used are:
word strips from Making Memories (Day 2, 24), We R Memory Keepers washi tape (6, 11), Spare Parts acrylic sticker (Day 20), Love Elsie (22).
Other: stickers, 3-D stickers, ribbon, bakers twine, tags, punchout snowflakes, copper word accent

The last thing I did was fill the drawers. It was so fun putting it all together. I put little candies in some of the drawers (See's Candy, our favorite), a few pairs of Christmas socks, some little presents like Lego mini figures, and a bunch of paper strips with tasks on them, like donate old toys to charity, sing carols with the family, take Christmas photos, visit Santa, etc.