Harry Potter - Page To Screen by Bob McCabe

First thing, first. This book is amazing and (even though heaps of people will probably complain) totally worth the price tag.

Also, this is a look and feel review. I plan to read it at my own speed (slow) and will try and do another review when I'm finished.

Harry Potter - Page To Screen, The Complete Filmmaking Journey by Bob McCabe

Purchased (special order that took over 2 months to arrive) from Dymocks.
Price: $110.00 but considering in Sydney at the Harry Potter exhibition they wanted $169.00, $110 is an excellent price.
This book is huge! It weighs 3.5kg (yes I did weigh it) and I was afraid that it wasn't going to fit on my bookshelf (but it does... geek dance). There are 540 beautiful glossy pages, some of them featuring clear embossed images, like shoeprints, wands and feathers, and there are a few fold out pages. Including one of the front featuring some of the main characters.

So, the contents...the book is divided into three parts:

Part I: The Making of Harry Potter 
Introduction 
Setting the Scene 
HP and the Sorcerer's Stone 
HP and the Chamber of Secrets 
HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban 
HP and the Goblet of Fire 
HP and the Order of the Phoenix 
HP and the Half-Blood Prince 
HP and the Deathly Hallows 

This section is full of candid photos (including Voldemort reading a magazine), set design illustrations and behind the scene photos. It also includes strange things, like the characters heights, and tidbits from the various directors.

Part II: The Art of Harry Potter 
Introduction 
Characters: Costuming
Locations: Set Design 
Creatures: Special Makeup and Digital Effects 
Artefacts: Prop Making 

This is my favourite section. It shows the characters costumes, including fabric swatches, information on tattoos, wands and makeup. It also showed art designs of main locations, including a snow covered model of Hogwarts (which is actually covered in salt, not snow) and designs from JK Rowling of Diagon Alley etc.
This section brought back a lot of memories from the Harry Potter Exhibition I went too in Sydney. Props of creatures and random artefacts that I saw, but had forgotten I'd seen.

Part III: Epilogue 
The Golden Boards 
Acknowledgements and Colophon

The last section isn't that exciting, but a little sad. Featuring photos from throughout the filming of Harry Potter, including the last group photos.

I've posted some photos of some of the pages I liked. Sorry about the quality of the photos. I used Hipstermatic, because for some reason my Camera app on my iPhone doesn't work :|

Sirius Blacks' tattoo designs

Barty Crouch Jr aka David Tennant

Severus Snape

My 2 favourite Harry Potter baddies :)

Blueprints of Hogwarts

Blueprints of the covered bridge that leads to Hagrids house.

I hope you enjoyed this quick look at Harry Potter - Page To Screen. When I picked this book up I ordered another Harry Potter book. Harry Potter Film Wizardry. So stay tuned for the review of that one :)

The Cookie Complex

Good evening!

I had no idea what to do my first review on, then I decided to bake cookies...

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookie - Recipe Review

I bake quite often.
I make cupcakes and sweets.
Cookies not so much.

This recipe made about 40 cookies all up.
I did tweak the recipe slightly in that I used self raising flour and omitted the baking soda and I probably added around an extra cup of flour as the dough was way too sticky, such a level of sticky had never been encountered before in my lifetime! The cookies ended up taking 10 - 15 minutes to bake to a light golden brown, I think that was because I cut them quite thick. I also didn't ice them because I was short on time.

I took all 40 to my mum's wake today and within about an hour there were none left. Everybody loved them and I shared the recipe around to a few people. I, personally, thought they were a little dry and lacking in flavour. I imagine they would of been better with the icing, but you can't argue with the consensus right?

All in all I would recommend this recipe, it is easy enough to follow, the end result is apparently delicious and a crowd pleaser. I can imagine them being perfect for making as part of a take home party bag at a kids party or even to just make awesome geeky shapes with them for a party. Cookies ARE party food OK?!

This is the part where I would usually share a photo but two things happened when I wanted to take photos. I was first going to take a photo whilst I was making them, but things got a little sticky. I was then going to take a photo at the wake, but by the time I got around to having time to take one - they were gone. They were cat shaped and displayed in a Tupperware container. I will instead share with you a highly unrelated and hilarious image I came across on the internet today.

(I like space (I am partial to the beauty of nebulae) and cats. WHAT OF IT?)

Website Review - Polyvore

Hello Geeklings
I've been racking my brain on what to write my first review on (as well as being pressured by certain members of The Curiosity Complex) I've decided to do something easy and review a website.

It's not an overly geeky website from the first view, but once you start creating you find it's a awesome form of inspiration and pretties.

The website is Polyvore.

I've been a member of Polyvore for YEARS! The idea of the game is to create sets. Mini collages from the millions of photos, clothing items, words... anything you can imagine. I use it mostly to create outfits, or fictional characters, but you can use it to create art, or interior design mood boards, there really are no limits.

All your sets are posted to your Polyvore page, and other users can like and comment on sets and also add them to collections. You can create collections of your sets, others sets, items you like or a mixture. There is a style advice area where you can ask and answer style advice questions, but I don't use it so no review of that section.

I can spend hours creating sets, I find it helps alot when I'm feeling really uninspired. You can search Polyvore for other users sets for inspiration, and you can also create and use Templates to create your sets.

Find me on Polyvore

So if you haven't already, check it out.