Journey of Creating a Book Inspired
Key Chain
I am excited to be part of the special Blog Tour for the amazing young adult fictional non-fictional book, The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone by the wonderfully gifted and quite talented Adele Griffin. I thought it was a unique concept, because it wasn't your average Blog Tour, with this one the participants and bloggers would be writing in the voice of either Addison or one of the other characters, drawing, painting, sculpting, or creating anything that was inspired by Addison or this book in general. So, I decided to do two things for my post, which is talk about the book and how much I really enjoyed it like I did below, and to also design a really pretty and unique beaded key chain that was inspired by the book itself, The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, that I will be giving away to one lucky person.
For those of you who don't really know, I love creating and designing jewelry and other things. What started out as a small hobby for me about two and a half years ago, has now become a full fledged dream of mine and every day I am growing, evolving, and getting so much better in my designs. I take my inspirations from everywhere, from a piece of fabric, to an outfit that a character wore on a television show, and even from books. It's not always easy and it's definitely pretty challenging, but I love every step I take in the direction I am yearning for and every moment of the project. Sometimes, even the littlest mistake that I encounter could turn out to be the best mistake that I ever made. I've had that happen a few different times, here and there.
The journey that I took, while trying to come up with a design concept for a key chain based on Addison Stone, was a little bit challenging and a equal parts daunting, because I wanted to get this right. Though, with Addison, I don't really know if there is a right way or a wrong way to do something - she just did it herself. It was one of the things that drew me to her character, was the way that she was just born to create and so inspired to design her own brand of "street art" that was unique in and of itself. For me, she was inside of her head a lot, dealing with the many demons that she faced in her tragically young life that was eventually cut too short. It just seemed dark and moody, full of insecurities and deeper issues that she was grappling with. It sort of helped, in a way, to set the mood and the tone for the piece that I wanted to create.
In all honesty, I don't want to give everything about the piece that I've created away, because like Addison's life and death, I want there to be some bits of mystery surrounding it. So, there are parts of it that I'm going to choose not to mention, because I want whoever wins this piece to be both surprised and happy with it. The color palate of this gorgeous beaded key chain, will say a lot about it, without saying too much. I wanted it to match the glimpse of Addison's head space that we were given in bits and pieces, through prerecorded moments and other things that she had said recounted by the various characters in the book. It's part of the reason why I chose it, I really wanted to delve into it, without spelling everything out in great detail.
I have pictures that I've taken of the process of creating this key chain, but I haven't yet uploaded them to my computer from my camera, so unfortunately you won't get to see them until I update this post with them in a day or so. It takes me a while to clean up the pictures, plus I am still in the final stages of actually creating the key chain as well.
Suffice it to say, that I really and truly hope that you genuinely love this piece that I've created, as much as I loved creating it and getting to know the mystery of who Addison Stone really was. In order to win this, you have to be from the US (I apologize to those of you who are International, but I just can't make that happen at this moment) and please fill out the Rafflecopter below. I will choose the winner and email you once the giveaway has ended, if you haven't responded back to me within a 48 hour time frame, then I will be forced to pick another winner.
Good luck and I hope that you enjoyed The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone by Adele Griffin, as much as I did. You can find my review for the book below. If you haven't read the book and it looks like a book that you might find interesting you can order it from (Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Indiebound) etc.
My Thoughts on The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone
by Adele Griffin
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| The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone Adele Griffin |
The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, is a unique experience all of its own. It isn't your ordinary everyday read, by any stretch of the imagination, and I think that's what I really love best about it. It's refreshing, to come across a book of this nature and to get the chance to read something incredibly different and a little bit out of your comfort zone. I have so much respect for Adele Griffin, for taking the chance and writing such an amazing and compelling novel that I absolutely didn't want to put down once I had picked it up and embarked on the journey with Addison Stone. It was an amazing experience to get to know this character, through the eyes of loved ones, friends, mentors, and others.
I have honestly never read a book of this nature before and the idea of a fictionally written non-fiction book definitely intrigued me, so I jumped at the opportunity when it was offered as a review book from the publishers. Addison's story is full of mystery, intrigue, and emotional issues that she found herself grappling with. It's bold, daring, and full of amazing facets and details that lead up to her untimely young death and the mystery surrounding it. Every page of this story brought new things to light, introduced new people in Addison's life, boyfriends that have come and gone, things that happened, her rise to fame stemming around her brilliant and inspiring artwork, the daredevil that she was, and her own tumultuous issues that had arisen in the short span of her gorgeously creative life. There were many things about her that inspired me in so many fantastic and wonderful ways, that it's incredibly amazing when a book such as this one touches you in ways that it's almost hard to put into words.
I was essentially holding Addison Stone's life and death in my hands and the keys that would eventually unlock most of the mystery surrounding it. Wonderfully eccentric and beautifully flawed, readers will find themselves awed and inspired and maybe even a little motivated by Addison Stone. She was one of New York's "It Girl's" who was well on the rise for being known for her amazing street art that was unique in and of itself. I love how realistic and flawed her character was, the fact that there was so much controversy and mystery surrounding her untimely death, and that she was born to create and design beautiful art that moved and inspired others. She's different, this one, and it's absolutely brilliant.
The wonderfully beautiful images of art and photo's depicting Addison at various points in her life, are one of the key things that kind of made this book a little more special and unique. It's almost as if they're telling their own story as well, apart from the one that we're reading about regarding Addison and her life. She's not an easy character to relate to, she comes with a good amount of flaws and at times, her actions can come off a bit childish and immature where her ex-boyfriend Zach is concerned, but that is understandable because who wouldn't feel like that at some point towards an ex. Addison has her own brand of thinking and style of dealing with things, in some ways it almost seems as if she's some sort of enigma in her own right.
If you are looking for a fascinating read, that's incredibly unique, and unlike any other one that you've read before I would definitely recommend you picking up a copy of The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, as it's different from any other young adult fiction that you would read right now. The way that Adele Griffin writes this book, pours her heart into the characters and their recounts and possibly guilt leading to Addison's death, Addison herself and dealing with all of her demons, insecurities, and other issues, and the art is absolutely captivating and heart breakingly beautifully epic. Really, I don't know what else I could say other than that, because for me this is definitely one of the best and most uniquely written stories that I've read in A LONG TIME and I realize that may be saying quite a bit right there. The best thing about this novel, is how it brings all different types of mediums together and spins this amazingly written story together in such a way that it captures your attention and pulls you further into the chaotic and emotionally intense world of Addison Stone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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| Adele Griffin |
Adele Griffin is a two-time National Book Award Finalist and highly acclaimed author of numerous books for Young Adult and middle grade readers. Her works include Sons of Liberty and Where I Want to Be, as well as the popular Witch Twins and Vampire Island series. Her most recent thriller Loud Awake and Lost will be out this fall from Knopf.
Adele lives with her husband, Erich, their two young children, and their dog, Edith, in Brooklyn, New York.
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