was basing the asian oaks suggestion in part on the recommendations of "the southern living garden book" an apparently widely used but probably NOT infallable guide for the general area. OTOH, q. laceyi from limestone regions of texas i believe does just fine here on very acid soils as do a number of mexican oaks from potentially limestone derived soil in their native habitat. my experience is that many oak (and other species) may be suprisingly tolerant of different soil chemistry and they also may be tolerant of differing heat and/or moisture regimes (or they may not) with proper siting/microclimate (let alone providing protection against various types of varmint predation) AND a certain amt. of just plain luck. however, guy sternberg (who posts on the oak forum) in his "native trees for north american landscapes" seem to indicate that his experience was that dry summer oak species had difficulties dealing with wet summer climate---but how this may or may not apply to san antonio conditions i don't know and only you can find out for sure. good luck!!!!

Rosie- at first I thought you meant she created a figure of a person using the altered hymnal as the body. Minnie- to me, altered books are a form of collage or assemblage art. The hymnal istelf becomes a new work of art by the artist adding paint, decoupage, stamps and other items to the pages. She used the topic of each hymn to inspire her when she added images. I think it is lovely! Although I am surprised at how nicely the pages look. Hymnal paper is so thin it can't take much added wet media unless she put something else behind the page as a backing. I just did a collage for an art journal round robin, and used a page from a hymnal as part of the background with watercolor paper as a base. Karen

hi, I just posted about ABs on the Craft & Dec page (post about going away gift). I'm in a round robin right now. Each participant passes their book to the same person after a certain length of time (1 month in our case). Each time we get another book, we work in it and send it on to that same person. Eventually our books come back to us. We formed a yahoo group just for sharing about our progress, and to post pictures. And yes, I think the main thing is to have a theme. I was really scared to take part in one of these, but now I highly recommend a round robin. I've also heard of "Tip Ins" --a kind of swap where others send pages or spreads that you "tip in" to your book. You can attach the pages directly to other pages, or cut off existing pages leaving only a tab, and glue the tip-in to that.

I took a beginning class for beaded jewelery once. They emphasized this bit I found online for you-- ""Czech beads are superior in everyway to similar beads from other nations, such as India, Germany, and France, except for those of Japan. Japanese beads are more consistent in size (both in outer diameter, and inner diameter), and usually have more durable finishes. This consistency in size is extremely important, especially if doing intricate, very detailed bead work. The inside holes are not as sharp or jagged as those beads from other countries. Japanese beads are somewhat more expensive (about 1/3 more) than Czech beads. When people are getting started with seed beads, we suggest trying both the Japanese beads and the Czech beads. The Japanese beads are easier to use because they are more uniform and have a larger and more consistently-sized hole. However, because the Japanese beads tend to be so perfect, you sometimes end up with a piece that looks like a paint-by-number Elvis on velvet. With the Czech beads, you get a more organic, artistic look."" My teacher made a big deal about it, showed microscope pics and everything, to convince not to "waste your time" on beading cheap beads because the project would slice itself apart in a year. Made in China beads are the absolute worst--they don't even bother mentioning them above as contenders!