Jazzy Greeting Cards

Don't just send a card--give someone special a handmade keepsake! Making pretty, personalized greeting cards has never been simpler or more fun. these eye-catching projects will help you celebrates any occasion, from birthdays to holidays, by letting loved ones know that you remember them warmly.

This is the beginner's guide that answers every question and provides beautiful greeting card templates to copy. You'll learn how to sew objects onto a card, construct a multidimensional card or a pop-up, incorporate pressed flowers or eyelets, design collaged cards, and so much more.

Today--thanks to specialized enamel paints that don’t require kiln firing as well as "create your own pottery” shops--it’s amazingly simple to make beautiful, personalized ceramics. With lots of fun and festive designs, full-size traceable patterns, and easy-to-follow instructions, this attractive guide will bring out the budding artist in everyone. Step-by-step worksheets illustrate the techniques for using enamels, along with a stunning variety of projects. A second chapter explains how to work with underglazes, the standard paint in most pottery stores. All the items are perfect for gift-giving, including a Happy Mother’s Day or Christmas Holiday plate; "Fruit of the Vine” Wine Glasses and Carafe; and a celebratory Happily Ever After Etched-Look Frame and Toast Glasses.

From dimensional appliqu� to lively, eye-catching zig-zag designs, these greeting card techniques will delight the creative crafter in search of inspiration. It’s not a collection of projects, but an encyclopedia chock-full of fabulous ideas that card makers can use in whatever way they want, for whatever type of card they need. There’s so much to select from: fast, easy, and elegant die-cut cards; foam cutouts posted on colorful patterned papers; lacy greetings that incorporate doilies; and even sparkling, bejeweled ones. In addition to all the basics on tools, there’s information on choosing cardstock; selecting pretty embellishments; and making personalized envelopes.

Authoritative history of the greeting card from its beginning to the year 1926.

Will Friedwald’s illuminating, opinionated essays—provocative, funny, and personal—on the lives and careers of more than three hundred singers anatomize the work of the most important jazz and popular performers of the twentieth century. From giants like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland to lesser-known artists like Jeri Southern and Joe Mooney, they have created a body of work that continues to please and inspire. Here is the most extensive biographical and critical survey of these singers ever written, as well as an essential guide to the Great American Songbook and those who shaped the way it has been sung. The music crosses from jazz to pop and back again, from the songs of Irving Berlin and W. C. Handy through Stephen Sondheim and beyond, bringing together straightforward jazz and pop singers (Billie Holiday, Perry Como); hybrid artists who moved among genres and combined them (Peggy Lee, Mel Tormé); the leading men and women of Broadway and Hollywood (Ethel Merman, Al Jolson); yesterday’s vaudeville and radio stars (Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor); and today’s cabaret artists and hit-makers (Diana Krall, Michael Bublé). Friedwald has also written extended pieces on the most representative artists of five significant genres that lie outside the songbook: Bessie Smith (blues), Mahalia Jackson (gospel), Hank Williams (country and western), Elvis Presley (rock ’n’ roll), and Bob Dylan (folk-rock). Friedwald reconsiders the personal stories and professional successes and failures of all these artists, their songs, and their performances, appraising both the singers and their music by balancing his opinions with those of fellow musicians, listeners, and critics. This magisterial reference book—ten years in the making—will delight and inform anyone with a passion for the iconic music of America, which continues to resonate throughout our popular culture.

Molly Swift had a choice to make that fateful Christmas Eve: break her boyfriend’s heart or become a famous country music star. She chose stardom and, for awhile, all was a picture book fairy tale for Molly. She cut her debut album, made the rounds on the concert tour, and then…nothing. When Molly’s agent dumps her just before Thanksgiving a few years later, she has nowhere left to go but her hometown of Snowflake, South Carolina. There she struggles to find work. That is, until she happens in on a little year-round Christmas restaurant called Café Kringle and finds her ex-flame, Nate Night, at the piano, tickling the ivories. Can Nate forgive Molly for running out on him? What’s more, can Molly forgive herself? And can the two team up to bring customers into the Café Kringle before its owner decides to close the doors before the holidays?