Book Blog Tour and May FREE-BEE Month

Join me on the, Oli Book Blog Tour!

Here is our schedule:
April 20th  Living Better One Day At A Time
April 26th  JenheadJen
April 30th  Home Maid Simple
May 1st     One Desert Rose
May 7th     Mumwrites
May 8th     Jagged Edge Reviews
May 9th     kid-lit-reviews
May 11th   My Author Interview kid-lit-reviews

The month of May will be FREE-BEE month.  Each week I will give away something that you AND your kiddos will enjoy.  
Contest Rules:
Every comment posted on my blog earns you a ticket in the drawing, you comment 10 times, you earn 10 tickets, it's that simple.  At 3:00 every Friday I will draw the winner and post your name on my blog.
Here are the FREE-BEES:
Week 1 $20.00 Gift Certificate to Pizza Hut and a free book, Oli's Uncommon Cents!
Week 2 $20.00 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com and a free book, Oli's Uncommon Cents!
Week 3 $20.00 Gift Certificate to Toys R Us and a free book, Oli's Uncommon Cents!
Week 4 $20.00 Gift Certificate to Dairy Queen and a free book, Oli's Uncommon Cents!

6.01 Summer Reading Program

Anyone interested in joining with me to sponsor a kids summer reading program, if so please comment here.

What I purpose is that children's authors join together to offer a summer reading program for kids, ages K-12.  We could each provide a list of participating authors on our blogs and offer our books to kids, starting June 1st -June 10th and sell them for $6.01 each, including shipping, (within the U.S.).


 If enough of us participated in the program we could offer a wide selection of books to children.  To make it special we could sign the books we sell. No author participation fees would be necessary if we each managed our own sales and promoted the program on our social media sites.

We could keep kids reading, and even better, we could help them become acquainted with us, as authors, by visiting our blogs or websites. Wouldn't it be great if we could inspire a young reader to become a young writer!

Fun Salt Candle

Moms!!!!  With summer on the way I want to give you a few fun, (and super easy), crafts that you can do with your kiddos.  Here is great project that requires nothing more than salt, paraffin wax or old candle, food coloring, a glass jar and a candle wick.

Using food coloring, color as many different shades and colors of salt as desired.  Layer the different colors by spooning a few spoonfuls of colored salt at a time until you reach the desired depth.  Force a candle wick, long enough to reach the top of your jar, into the center of your candle. Using a bamboo or metal shish-kabob stick, poke channels down the outside of the bottle, forcing the last color you layered into the channels.  The candle in the picture is supposed to look like fire.  My yellow layer was a less intense color and the black bled into the yellow.  If you don't want colors to bleed then use similar colors.  Once you have completed all the sand design then melt paraffin in a coffee can over a burner, (I placed my can in boiling water until the wax was melted).  You can also melt an old candle instead of the wax, this will give you color and perhaps fragrance if you use a scented candle. The wax seals the salt in place, once it has dried.

 You can really use your imagination with this project.  I discussed with the kids the properties of salt...will salt burn?