A blog about family, food and fun!
A blog about family, food and fun!
I first heard about Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke on Threads. Someone was talking about how Anne Hathaway had bought the movie rights and everyone was excited for it to be turned into a movie. The idea of a trad-wife going back in time to […]
As a second book in a series, The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sara Beth Durst does not disappoint! It weaves a cozy tale of Terlu Perna the wayward librarian who was turned into a statue for her unsanctioned creation, Caz the sentient plant. And yes, if […]
Plumeria by Renjitha Anoop was a diamond painting I bought to complete along with my mom but she ended up not wanting to work on it so I took it to work as a piece to work on during my long lunches. It finishes at […]
I picked up Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews at the library so that I could reread it for the first time since I read it in middle school. I think it was trending on Threads as a reread or something and that triggered […]
I came across the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser when browsing the shelves of Half Price Books for my writing curriculum portion of my personal curriculum last fall. I grabbed it on a whim based on the reviews I found online. Please note […]
It should not be a surprise that I absolutely loved working on The Witch Kitty Brew by Jeremiah Ketner from Diamond Art Club. It had so much purple and beautiful sections of just the right amount of confetti mixed with color blocking that I thoroughly enjoyed working on.
Stats:
Round drills
60 colors including 1 AB and 7 Fairy Dust
20″ x 28 ” or 50.6 x 70.7 cm
47,288 Drills Total
My favorite section was the cauldron in the bottom left hand section closely followed by the bat. Both were super sparkly and had a good mix of color blocking and confetti which is what I love. This one was easy to work on while I was editing with the border being a good color blocking section to work on while I listened to videos or edited.
I didn’t have any problems with the spacing of drills and there was very little trash compared to other diamond paintings that I have worked on. This is still one of the first pieces I have worked on at finish number four overall for me and the first round painting I tried multi-placing with so some of my drills are not lined up perfectly but I am ok with that. Getting good at placing drills takes time and luckily this piece was super forgiving so you really can’t tell unless you look up close.
The only section I was kind of iffy on was the large purple chunk of color in the middle of the kitty’s face. I felt like this could have used some feathering with another similar color so it was broken up a bit but overall I was very happy with the rendering on this one. The rest of the piece was so well done that it really didn’t matter that this one section was a little bit blocky and it doesn’t show too much when you look at it from a few feet back which is the typical viewing distance.
Overall I loved working on The Witch Kitty Brew and can’t wait to do another Jeremiah Ketner piece!
Links:
The Witch Kitty Brew by Jeremiah Ketner
Get $10 off your first Diamond Art Club purchase
Jeremiah Ketner Collection on Diamond Art Club
Cozy Oscoey YouTube Review of The Witch Kitty Brew
I have huge reading goals for 2026 but haven’t really talked about them much so I thought I would post a list of my tentative summer reading goals. I do have more books in mind but don’t want to overload with too many books at […]
I first heard of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo when I was in my lack of time and mental capacity for reading period and the show caught my eye on Netflix. I love a good fantasy world and I binge watched the first season […]
I first heard about Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke on Threads. Someone was talking about how Anne Hathaway had bought the movie rights and everyone was excited for it to be turned into a movie. The idea of a trad-wife going back in time to live the reality she portrayed online as the ideal was very appealing to me and I immediately bought the book straight from Amazon (linked with this link). You know that feeling when a book pulls at you with an invisible tug and you just know in your heart of hearts that it is meant for you in this moment and may become a favorite? That is how I felt when I was reading about this book on Threads so I did not get it from the library or even begin to look for it in a used book store even though it is a bestseller and was bound to be there at some point. I wanted that fresh off the press I am the first one reading it feel to this read so my copy the book would take on some of my spiritual imprint and eventually it would become like an old friend. Anyone else feel like their copies of books do that?
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
The books starts out with Natalie as a young woman and the early strict upbringing that caused her to adopt even more ultraconservative values as she goes off to college, marries a rich but clueless Caleb and has her first child Clem. Caleb and Natalie eventually move to a small farm with the help of Caleb’s father and Natalie starts her YouTube channel and builds her social media empire while birthing several more children. She adopts this all natural living style while homeschooling her children and staying isolated on her farm.
Things start to go awry when Natalie hires a young college student to help her with marketing who questions some of the realness of what Natalie has bene portraying online versus what she sees in person at the farm. One day Natalie wakes up and has time traveled to the harsh reality of an 1800s farm similar to the ideal she had portrayed online for many years. Her children are not her children, her husband is something different and the endless chores wear Natalie down. This causes a mental crisis for Natalie but I will not spoil it for you as to what happens next, just know that it is really good. So good in fact that I am going to have to read the book again since I was so enthralled I read the entire book in a day and I am sure I missed something.
It says a lot that I have not been able to find any major spoilers unmarked on Threads. Everyone seems to be waiting for the collective women of the world to read the book and come to some conclusions about their own lives and roles which is amazing. Ms. Hathaway is set to star and produce the horror film based on this article in Indie Wire. Nevertheless, Yesteryear is one of the best books I have read all year and the ending was not at all what I predicted. If you know, you know but I will not spoil it for those who have not read it yet.
I highly recommend this book to everyone to read and I can’t wait for the movie to come out!
Links:
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Anne Hathaway Producing and Starring in Yesteryear
Reminder: Sea of Charms is coming out at the end of July and we will be doing a book club in September for it on the Cozy Oscoey channel.
Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst Preorder
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
As a second book in a series, The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sara Beth Durst does not disappoint! It weaves a cozy tale of Terlu Perna the wayward librarian who was turned into a statue for her unsanctioned creation, Caz the sentient plant. And yes, if […]
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed […]
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is a book that I picked up kind of on a whim but ended up loving. I honestly don’t remember if it was a book I saw in my Amazon suggestions or if it was one of the books my daughter bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago, but wherever I found it, it definitely called to me in the strongest manner possible. It is a fabulous book that hit all of my cozy fantasy spots while having a great story. I really wish there was a bunch more books about Caz the plant and Kiela the librarian!
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
The book starts out with an overthrowing of the throne, a great library on fire and the escape of Kiela the librarian, Caz the talking plant and the crates of valuable books both have stashed away in a boat. Kiela and Caz end up far away on a small island in Kiela’s hometown. They settle into her old rundown house while hiding their top secret and forbidden selection of books. Needless to say, they have to interact with the locals and end up finding out a bunch of things about themselves along the way including the secrets of spellcasting.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I liked it so much that I bought her second book in the series The Enchanted Greenhouse which is about Caz’s creator and preordered her newest book, Sea of Charms, which comes out in July of 2026. The story is very well written and the romance that happens is very sweet with a great backstory. I love all of the fantasy elements to the story and the true conflict of an introvert stuck in a position where they have to rely on others to make it through. The internal struggle to socialize was well felt!
Needless to say I highly recommend this book! I have already started reading The Enchanted Greenhouse and so far it is good as well. I am thinking of doing a book club reading for Sea of Charms when it comes out, maybe for August since it comes out towards the end of July. Let me know what you think about joining!
As always, I encourage readers to find books at libraries and used book shops, but if you need more information on what to find or to snag an early copy of Sea of Charms, below are some links to the books mentioned in this post.
Happy Reading!
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Links:
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Plumeria by Renjitha Anoop was a diamond painting I bought to complete along with my mom but she ended up not wanting to work on it so I took it to work as a piece to work on during my long lunches. It finishes at […]
March is upon us and it is time for new monthly goals. This year my focus is on finishing up projects that I have so it should come as no surprise that my main goal for March is to work through my project backlog. I am continuing the goals I didn’t finish in February and starting some new ones as well. I posted a video of my March goal page set up here if you are interested in watching my process.
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
My first goal is again to finish my Midnight Rainbow Comet piece that I made. I made good progress on this pattern in February and I really want to finish it for March so I can start on another piece for the store. Now that I have started the rainbow section the piece is getting more complicated but I am also excited for some different colors.
My second goal for March is to finish my Joyous Ladies piece from Diamond Art Club (referral link at no cost to you). It looks like they have discontinued this diamond painting but I have many more of them if you want to join me in working on those. I am not an affiliate with Diamond Art Club but they do give out referral links which is what I posted. This is my first diamond painting from them but I am completely in love with their quality and how sparkly the diamonds are.
Next up is the Wild Kingdom Shelves puzzle by artist Aimee Stewart that I started as part of my New Year’s Day puzzle start. I have made some progress on this one but it is much harder than I thought it would be to complete. I really want to finish this one in March so that I can move on to a different puzzle from my gigantic stack.
For my next goal I want to finish at least two coloring pages. In February I started this one out of my Art of Coloring Nouveau book and I want to finish it plus another page for March. It looks like this coloring book is out of print so I linked this Easy Patterns one from Amazon instead.
One of the pages I also want to work on for March is this free download from the Johanna Basford website which can be found here. I printed it on cardstock for more durability and will be working on it periodically throughout the month. I am not sure if I will finish it or not this month but I can always mark it off on the bonus wheel if I work on it.
The book I want to read for March is “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr. I was trying to read this for February but did not get to it so I definitely want to finish it this month. I started it in January but did not get very far so I may just start it over.
Lastly we have our bonus wheel where I get to choose something random and work on that. I put a few different choices on there but now that I am looking at it I don’t see diamond painting which is fine. Based on how long it took me to work on Joyous Ladies I am not sure if I will have time to start another piece this month. If I do though I will use white out to change one of the spokes of the wheel.
Alright so those are my March Project Goals. I am hoping they are more realistic this month and I will get through more of them but I know the tracking of hours will work better for me than tracking days. If I hit 30 hours this month I will be getting myself some fancy colored pencils and I am pretty excited about that!
What are your project goals for March? Join me here for my Live Crafting Togethers most Wednesday nights in March to see my progress!
Links:
Diamond Art Club (Referral code at no cost to you)
Wild Kingdom Shelves puzzle by Aimee Stewart
Easy Patterns coloring book
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The end of 2025 and our first quarter trying out a personal curriculum came quicker than I though it would. I did make some progress but as I suspected, the holidays and travel got the best of me and I didn’t get through everything I […]
A couple of months ago YouTuber Lisette Crafts and Tells posted a video detailing how she wants to work through the older diamond paintings in her stash. The premise is that all of the diamond painting companies have updated their canvases quite a bit in […]
It’s that time of year again! The new patterns for the 2026 HAED SAL have been released and sign ups are open through December 14, 2025. Don’t miss your chance to join me in stitching a new pattern this year! There is a Facebook group […]
When I first say the concept of a Personal Curriculum on YouTube it was like something clicked in my head and I finally had a name to what I was trying to accomplish in the next few years. I have been trying to find things […]
Hello my stitching friends! I thought I would post an update on my progress for my 2025 Heaven and Earth Designs Stitch a Long project, Innocent Dreams by L&L Designs. I started this at the beginning of the year and although I made great progress […]
Never miss a post on our blog! When you subscribe, we'll send our latest posts plus helpful tips related to our blog's topics.