Artful Living: Living Green with Lovely Little Deer + Free Books?

I'm not sure which one is cuter! :D

I recently discovered a wonderful blog named lovely little deer by Rebecca Nia. I also won a wonderful Valentine painting through her blog from Chloe McGenn, a lovely artist Rebeeca featured at the end of January.

Valentine Petit Four Painting by Chloe McGenn

Rebecca's "about me" reads:

"I love to craft! All kinds of things, i'm very whimsical! I love to host giveaways, do reviews and feature awesome fellow crafters on my blog. I have three cats and two dogs and I'm crazy about them. I'm married and live in the U.K. I adore taking pictures. I'm a sci-fi nerd! I'm sensitive and shy. I live in my own dreamworld."

Rebecca and *one* of her babies

In her most recent post she also states,

"I'm evolving into something more sophisticated and I am loving the change. I'm still cute, I'm still me only with a lady essence sprinkled on top, ha, whatever that means..."

hehe I love it!

Rebecca just finished The Thrift Book: Live Well and Spend Less by India Knight. Looks like it was quite the inspiration because Rebecca has written a wonderful article chock full of eco-conscious and thrifty tricks and tips for beauty, fashion, home, gift-giving... all without looking or feeling cheap. After all, what's the point of saving your pennies if you're miserable all the time? Check it out here.

In commenting on her post I realized that I had something to contribute to the conversation. So I thought I might post here to both bring attention to Rebecca's post and to gather my thoughts together on my own blog.

Another thing you can do is take your green/thrifty consciousness into your craft room. Take a look at the book Green Guide for Artists by Karen Michel. It's full of awesome. Not only does it have lots of eco-conscious choices for art/craft but it's full of eye candy, too, so you're not gonna feel cheated there, either. :D Pretty visuals are always important to me. (I asked for this one from my mom for Christmas. :D My way of being thrifty.)

If you're a big booklover, I have a couple suggestions for you.

1. If you feel you just *have* to have a certain book, make a public wishlist at Amazon and make sure friends and relatives know that's what you want for gifts. (You can actually add other things to your list besides books but people love to buy books for the people they love. :P)

2. There are also a few websites online where you can trade used books with other people, for example paperbackswap.com. Be sure to check international swap rules.

3. Join librarything.com and catalog your books and write reviews. They have an Early Reviewer list that you can sign up for as well as a list of books that members are giving away. There are different books for different countries.

4. And last, but not least, if you have a blog with a good-size readership, contact the publisher of the book you're interested in (if it's a newish release) and tell them you're interested in receiving a review copy. Tell them your blog stats, your target audience and when you will publish the review. It's always good to ask if they have a reviewer list that you can be added to, as well. Just let them know the categories of books you are interested in. You don't have to "know somebody", either... just use the contact form on the main website. It'll get forwarded to the marketing person.

I hope you enjoy getting to know Rebecca and that her post inspires you as much as it did me.