The Renegades 24-hr Launch Party (Book Giveaway)

Hello loyal readers and guests,

You might be a longtime reader who has been reading my blogs since the days of (ahem) Myspace, or you might have stumbled across this post or been lured by free book promises. Whatever your reason for stopping by my book release party, welcome!

The day has come at last...The Renegades Release Day! You can find the ebook for $2.99 on amazon starting TODAY. Or you can participate in one of the challenges posted on the blog all day to win a free copy.

Here is how it works: I will be giving away 24 books today. Winners will be randomly drawn from the participants of each challenge. They can be completed at any time during the day. Just post a comment letting me know which of the challenges you completed. Winners will be announced Wednesday, December 11, so check back to see if you scored some free books.

Up for grabs:
For all participants: ebook copies of
The Renegades
The Superiors
The Vigilantes
Because the Night, by Kristen Strassel
Redemption by Kellie Thacker
Healer by B.N. Toler
The Legacy: Fate by G.G. Atcheson

For US residents only (sorry, I'm a starving artist and postage rates are insane):
(1) Paperback copy of The Superiors (first edition), (1) Paperback ARC of The Vigilantes (proof copy), (1) Paperback ARC of The Renegades (available in January)
Must have at least 10 entries to win these, one of which MUST be Challenge 1.

Without further ado, here is...

Challenge 1: 
Post an announcement of The Renegades release on your book blog and leave it for 24 hours. Please leave link in the comments section.

Challenge 2:
Follow my blog (or leave comment, if you already follow, for one entry).

Challenge 3:
Stop by this blog and leave a comment on their promo post of The Renegades.

Challenge 4:
Google+ this blog post.

Challenge 5:
Share a link to this post on Twitter...you can do this once an hour if you like...

Challenge 6:
Follow me on Twitter (use the icon on my blog for quickest link).

Challenge 7:
Share this blog post on Facebook... Again, can enter this challenge multiple times if you want.

Challenge 8:
Like my author page on facebook here.

Challenge 9:
Like The Superiors Series page on Facebook.

Challenge 10:
Share my cover on Instagram with the tags #renegades #booklaunch

Challenge 11-13:
Share a link to any of my books on amazon...one entry for each. Click the links below to visit their amazon page, and share from there...pin, FB, twitter, etc.
The Superiors
The Vigilantes
The Renegades

Challenge 14:
Become a fan on amazon.

Challenge 15:
Become a fan on Goodreads.

Challenge 16-18:
Add The Renegades to your to-read shelf on Goodreads. This links to my author page, where you can scroll down and see all my books, and all all three to your shelf easily.
Add The Superiors to your to-read shelf of Goodreads. (If you already have it on your to-read shelf, or you've read it and it's on your read shelf, let me know in the comments section. That's an entry.
Add The Vigilantes to your to-read shelf (same as above).

Challenge 19-20:
Share The Superiors on Barnes&Noble (they have a button to G+, FB like, or pin, or you can 'add to list' if you have a B&N account).
Share The Vigilantes on Barnes&Noble.

Challenge 21-23
Pin The Renegades to a book board on Pinterest
Pin The Superiors
Pin The Vigilantes

Challenge 24: Free Choice challenge...creatively share my book in some way not mentioned above, and post to let me know what you did.

Please let me know what challenges you participated in by posting a comment!

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.

 



 

Upcoming Book News

As you all know, I'm getting ready to release my third book, The Renegades. I just got my final cover art back today, and I'm doing my last read-through. I'm never satisfied!

I will post a big giveaway on December 3rd, so make sure you check back then for ebooks and paperback copies of all three of my novels as well as some other vampire novels. I will also have a promo spot over at Bit'N Books, and later, reviews on their site. Please check out their page if you're an author or book reviewer. Here's a bit about them.

Bit'N Book Promoters are a team of passionate, friendly and feisty individuals who are here to help you get your books out there. We're all authors and know how hard it is to get books noticed, so we want to give a helping hand to others like ourselves.
We provide book promotions, reviews, author interviews and kindle freebies. Our blog mainly focuses on reviews and author interviews and detailed book promotions. Both our Twitter and Facebook pages provide book promos, updates and links to what we're doing on our blog. We also regularly post kindle freebies only available on our Facebook page, along with pretty book & film quote boxes, which we design ourselves.
If you'd like our help, you can find us here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitnBookPromote
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BITNBOOKPROM...
Blog: http://bitnbookpromoters.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Scrappy Sunday: Nearly Naked December Daily, Part 1

This is the first year I've decided to participate in the December Daily project that Ali Edwards (and many others) does every year. I don't do mini albums very well, and I love adding lots of pictures, so I went with 8.5x11, which is about as close to mini as I get.





First page and ATC by Paper Studio, holly sticker by ?

Unfortunately, I'm very slow and unorganized about scrapping, so it took me 6 hours yesterday just to get all my Christmas stuff together, decide what order it went in, make sure I had pages for each day, cut them to size and bind them all.

It was also the first time I used my bind-it-all machine, and as you can see, I am still learning it! I punched a bunch of extra holes, messed up on some of them, etc. I think I had it down by the end, but I already had made my album look all sloppy. But I forged ahead anyway, since I didn't have more chipboard for the covers and I wanted to stick with the paper I'd chosen. So it's going to be a messy project! I wasn't very picky about my paper selection, as you can see. I cut some envelopes in half so they'd fit, but most of the pages are full sized layouts and mats that I bound in for extra photos. I probably should have made sure all the tones matched, but I threw a few extras in there that didn't match very well. I have a lot of family birthdays in December, and I didn't want my paper to be too 'Christmas-y' on those days. So there's some pink pastel pages in there as well as more traditional Christmas paper and distressed looking pages.


Added half a silver envelope by DCWV.

I've noticed that most of the December Daily albums I've looked at only go through Christmas, but that's not really daily for all of December, so I continued until New Year's Eve. I will probably leave that page how it is, because I love that paper, and put my pics on the inside of the back cover. If I need more photo space, I can always paste in more envelopes or a waterfall somewhere.

 I haven't done the embellishing yet, so this is probably going to be a 2 or 3 part post. I will post later once I've embellished.

 

Happy scrapping!

The Renegades Release Party Invite

My latest novel, The Renegades, is coming to the major internet retailers on December 3rd. The paper copy will be available in early 2014, but you can win an advance copy at the release party. You can also win ebooks and swag, as well as paper copies of the first two books in The Superiors series.

I'm excited about this! Doing a bit of last-minute editing and then it's good to go.

Please stop by in a few weeks for the release day!

Scrappy Sunday: Challenge overload! (Don't Fall)

This one is going to have a lot of links…

 

 

This was a challenge for Scrap Our Stash this month. The challenge was to use only 6x6 paper pads for the patterned paper (except for the background, of course), and to use at least 6 of one type of embellishment. I used two 6x6 pads and 7 leaves, which I have had in my stash for about 5 years, and I’ve only used maybe 1 or 2 in all that time. I was tempted to throw the whole lot on there, but I stuck to just 7.

 

I also looked around for a good sketch and found the perfect one at Chic Tags (above)!

  

I also combined with several other challenges…

Boy Meets Girl fall layout using only boy photos

Chic tags sketch challenge

Scrapbook.com challenges:

Hoarders Challenge

All boy challenge
Share & Win Challenge

Scrappy Sunday: Exploding Box Project

I have wanted to make one of these since I first saw it months ago. So, I made the cardstock box, but I never did anything with it. I wanted to save it to make for my husband for our anniversary. I saw it on Pinterest, but you really need to check out the tutorial on this website. It is AMAZING, so easy and simple. I followed the directions exactly and it turned out great on the first try.


I finally had to stop procrastinating and make it a couple days before our anniversary. I used a line of 7 gypsies paper, I think it was called Lille? Anyway, I've had it for a while and I love it so much I don't want to used it, if that makes sense! But once I made the box, it was so gorgeous I didn't want to put pictures on it! I also used 7 gypsies ink for the edges of the patterned paper squares. I just used scissors to round all the corners. I will say, if you make this, be prepared to spend a lot of time on it. It takes just about forever to cut out all the paper to decorate it. I loved it so much I took about a million pictures!

I used a nut I found on the ground one day for the lid pull. It gave it a masculine feel. Even though all the boxes I've seen used a ribbon around the lid, I skipped that, as I wanted it to be masculine. I did use heavy duty glue on the lid to hold it together. Enjoy. And go make one!