Happy Anniversary

A card I made for my Aunt Dottie and Uncle Jerry, who celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary today. Paper from My Mind's Eye, and cardstock, ribbon, and gold cord from Stampin' Up!. Starfish charm - unknown source.

Deep Dish Brownies

I took some baking ingredients with me to Mama's yesterday, and Tara kindly baked everything up for me, as I'm still trying to recover from whatever has been dragging me down for over 3 weeks now (I still haven't seen much improvement after that very expensive injection I had yesterday). Not that you have to twist Tara's arm to get her to bake. She wants her own Food Network show some day, with an emphasis on desserts, and I'm confident that she'll reach that goal.

Pictured here is a Hershey's Deep Dish Brownie, which you can find over on the Hershey's website. This is now my go-to recipe for brownies. If baked in an 8x8 pan, it bakes up nice and thick, and has a rich, dense center. It's not crispy, and not really chewy, and has just the right amount of moisture in the middle to keep it from being too cake-like. We added some chopped semi-sweet chocolate to the batter, and this may be what added that extra bit of moisture. In any case, they're delicious, and Tara baked an extra batch in a 9 x 13 pan to take on a road-trip today. Maybe she'll comment here to let us know how they compare as a thinner brownie.

Remembering Daddy

I've usually tried to avoid getting too personal here, because my original plan for this blog was to share crafting ideas, to show you what I'm making, and to provide the occasional tutorial. But in recent months I've been absent more often than not, for a variety of reasons, and I thought it only fair that I share a few of those reasons with readers who visit here frequently. After all, it's usually the personal side of my life that drives the creative side.

Two weeks ago today, Daddy lost his short battle with leukemia, after many years of health issues and chronic pain. It is astounding how a family illness can paralyze you. And now that his suffering is over and we are celebrating his life, as he requested that we do, I'm still having some serious concentration issues. Add to the mix a poorly thought-out relocation eight months ago (although I'm glad we were here for Daddy's last months), a physically demanding part-time job with bizarre hours, the decision to go to graduate school, trying to choose the right school and program, and studying for the GRE, I simply haven't had any time and energy left.

But, some of those things are behind me now, and although I expect to be relocating again this summer (I'll tell you all about that later!), I'll once again be showing you my projects and will eventually send some more tutorials your way. You'll have to bear with me for a bit, because most of my things are packed and I'll be working with a limited assortment of supplies. And I won't promise to post every day, but I will try to share something with you at least 2 or 3 times a week. After my mojo is back, maybe I'll be able to increase that.

For now, I'll leave you with one of Daddy's favorite photos, above. I didn't even know he had it until after his death. It was taken on a tour of Longhorn Caverns in Burnet, Texas, in the late sixties. The eyeglasses on some of the people give away the age of this shot. If you want to know which little tourist is me, go over to my flickr account and view the notes on the photo.

Holiday Traditions

Our family has been making these chocolate-covered coconut balls every Christmas for longer than I can remember. I'm not sure where Mama got the recipe, but we've enjoyed them so much that they have become a holiday tradition, and now my nieces look forward to this as much as my brothers and I always have. Pie-making, on Christmas Eve Day, is also something you can count on, and over the years, Mama has calculated her pie-filling recipes and cooking times down to an exact science. In addition to pumpkin and cherry, we will be feasting on the best homemade chocolate, lemon, and coconut pies around. I'd be happy to skip the feast and go straight to the coconut pie. Just give me a whole pie and a fork, please!

National Chocolate Cupcake Day

Today is National Chocolate Cupcake Day, and it was impossible for me to let this occasion go by without baking chocolate cupcakes. As always, I used the "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake recipe from Hersheys. I usually make a 9"x13" cake from this recipe, and this is actually the first time I've used it for cupcakes. There aren't any baking directions for the mini-cupcakes (about 1" across) pictured here, so I baked them for 9 minutes and they turned out just fine. For the frosting I used the "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting that follows the cake recipe. This frosting is very soft and creamy, so I usually don't do anything decorative with it. However, I couldn't possibly photograph my cupcakes without something fancy on them, so I pulled out the decorating tips and got busy.

Today also happens to be our 5th wedding anniversary. And our friends, Dottie and Joe, are celebrating their 22nd (wow!) anniversary today. My brother is down from Georgia for a visit as well, so I'd say it's a pretty good day. It's just too bad Dottie can't be here to share these cupcakes with us!

Tagged!

I was tagged by Amanda to reveal 6 random things about myself. I don't think I'm terribly interesting, but I'll play along anyway.

1. I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I would rather have dessert than any other part of a meal (except maybe bread), and I use any excuse I can come up with to bake cookies and cakes. It is absolutely astounding that I'm not big.

2. I think maybe I'm a cat whisperer. No, really! Although I'm extremely allergic to cats, they do love me, and when I walk through my yard there's usually a trail of kitties right behind me. They tell me lengthy stories. And they hang on my every word. Great conversation, for sure!

3. I am one of the most stubborn people you will ever meet. I hate to give up. It's not my fault -- I inherited this from multiple family members.

4. I have the ability to tune out almost anything (including D's high-volume trumpet-playing) - my mind will travel far, far away and I'll be completely oblivious to everything that's going on around me. This isn't my fault either - I inherited the gift from Daddy.

5. I have extremely vivid dreams, and I usually remember them because they're so bizarre. I'm afraid to know what this says about me.

6. I take at least one photograph every day, but I'm so picky that I delete a lot of them.

I don't have many blogging friends, so I'll have to think about who I'll pass this tag along to.

And speaking of my sweet tooth, I thought you'd all like to know that tomorrow is National Chocolate Cupcake Day.

Sweet Home Alabama!

Photo courtesy of Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel.

After two ill-fated moves in the past year, in only four days we'll be moving back to the Alabama Gulf Coast. South Alabama is a land of mosquitoes, hurricanes, spectacular thunderstorms, and unspeakable heat, and I love it all! This time we'll be less than 10 miles from Gulf Shores -- close enough to enjoy the beach often, but far enough away to avoid storm surge from a major hurricane. I'm looking forward to seeing pelicans again, and eating fresh seafood, and walking on hot sand, and simply experiencing the lifestyle that comes with living in a coastal area.

Now you know why I've been absent from this blog. My 3-week visit to Mobile was not only for visiting family, but for the purpose of finding a rental property as well. The past couple of weeks have been devoted to packing and organizing the move.

With all my supplies packed, I won't be able to make cards or any other art until at least the middle of next week. At that time, I hope to catch up on a few of the challenge sites, and will also begin planning holiday cards.

Thanks for sticking with me -- see you in a few days!

Artist Trading Cards

I'm one of those people who just doesn't know when to quit, and as a result my week has slipped by with all my time consumed by things completely unrelated to art. However, Erin and I had agreed to swap artist trading cards, and since this is a high priority for me, I did manage to find time to make the ATCs pictured here, so we can trade tomorrow. I have been making art most of my life, but I have never made an ATC until this week, so it took me a while to get my groove on. I started by making a bunch of different backgrounds, but ended up using plain white cardstock and saving the backgrounds for later. For all three of these, I first stamped in black on glossy cardstock, then brayered each piece with dye ink. Before the ink was applied to the "Believe" ATC, I lightly sponged it with gesso and allowed it to dry. I used gesso on the turquoise card as well, but also sponged on some blue ink after applying the first color with the brayer. I still have the backgrounds to experiment with later, and will give some to Erin to see what she comes up with. Now I can't wait to see what she has made for me!

Erin's Challenge

My so-very-creative niece, Erin, has challenged me to make a blue card with a chain. So, here's my submission, which is a 4x4 card, stamped with a retired background stamp from SU!, and tied up with a black ribbon and some tiny embossed tags. There were no rules placed on the type or length of the chain, so I used a short piece that was left over from extending the chains on my ceiling fans, and added a metal bead that I've been saving for someone special. Of course, that would be you, Erin!

Create a Connection - Getting to Know You

Over at Create a Connection, Holly is hosting "Getting to Know You Day" for the month of July, and she has posed the following questions:

1) What are some of your memories about the "great outdoors?" (games played outside, camping, hiking, bike riding, running in the rain)

Wow, this question prompted a flood of memories for me. My most memorable "growing up" years were spent in LaPorte, Texas, where I spent my summers with the boys - my 3 brothers and my 4 cousins (all boys). Back in the day, the neighborhoods all had shallow ditches running along the streets, and every time it rained and the ditches filled up, we would be out catching crawfish, or crawdads, as we called them. My oldest brother, Brandt, had built a cage of sorts, made of scrap wood and window screen, and we would submerse it enough to keep our catch alive, get as many of the poor critters as we could, then release them all til the next rain. There were many long evenings of play -- usually we wouldn't come inside until Mama called us for supper, and by then our bare feet were filthy and I'm sure we didn't smell so good either! There were also hours of lying on the trampoline, looking at the stars with my cousin John, who knew all the constellations and who made sure I knew quite a few of them too. And then there were the afternoons crabbing from one pier or another, and two weeks of camping with the family every summer... Those really were the good old days!

2) Do you spend a lot of time in the outdoors, or have you lost touch with nature? If you've lost touch with it, how could you incorporate more of the outdoors in your every day life or would you want to?

I don't spend nearly as much time outdoors as I used to, but I haven't lost touch with nature either. I do try to spend as much time as possible in my flower beds, we go to the beach fairly often (it's so close, there's no excuse not to!), and we frequently spend time on the causeway over Mobile Bay. Like Holly, I have some asthma issues, so if the air quality is very poor, I try to stay indoors as much as possible on those days.

3) What small thing can you do (or are you doing) to ensure that the earth and all it's bounty will be here for future generations?

We've been trying hard to minimize our impact on the environment, by carefully planning all our errands and keeping our driving to a minimum, and by recycling. We have also started composting, and I'm amazed at the volume of stuff we were throwing in the trash that we could have been composting. Maybe next summer I'll be growing some vegetables in nutrient-rich compost! I also like to shop for little treasures for my artwork at second-hand shops -- might as well rescue all that good stuff and use it to make something pretty!

4) Can you share one or two links that showcase the great outdoors or some way to help heal the earth?

I love to visit You Grow Girl, where I got the inspiration for my compost bin. I also enjoy reading treehugger.

5) Feel free to share a picture of you in your environment, enjoying the outdoors and just plain having fun.

Well, it's not me, but that's a photo of a special family member, Charley, at the beginning of this post. She's a portly girl....

Happy Birthday Bubba!

Yesterday was my big brother's 50th birthday. When I was little, I called him "Bubba" because I couldn't say "Brandt" or "brother", and I do still call him that occasionally. We'll be celebrating tomorrow with a family party, so I made this card for him. He's not a blogaholic like me, so I think I'm safe posting it here. Since I'm on this "Photoshop background" kick, that's what I used here, along with some bronze metallic paper. The bottom section with the big stripes opens to reveal a personal greeting. Now, I'm off to bake a chocolate cake for the party...

Bath Time

Last night I attended a Natural Bath & Beauty Products class, and learned how to make bath salts and melt-n-pour soaps. Theresa is a very animated, knowledgeable instructor, and I would love to take a more intensive, hands-on course from her. She approaches most of her soap recipes the same way my grandmother did her cooking -- the "pinch of this" and "handful of that" technique. Not much precision measuring going on here, but it always turns out just fine. However, when I start to make bath products for resale, I will certainly have to measure carefully and keep accurate records. Pictured here are an exfoliating facial bar made with an avocado-cucumber base, honey, and black walnut shells; and bath salts that include orange peel and chamomile. We also made a peppermint and honey body bar with an olive oil base, but I haven't brought that home yet because it was still too soft to unmold at the end of class. Next week we will be making a milk bath and a brown sugar scrub.

And tonight I'll be practicing my buttercream roses!

Crackin' Up

I haven't spent much time the past few days doing creative work, because I've been trying to finish some books that were due back at the library today. I am not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and I've been re-reading all the books so that everything will be fresh in my mind when The Deathly Hallows (Book 7) is finally out. I just returned Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire, and there were no copies of Order of the Phoenix at the library tonight, so I guess I'll be visiting another branch. Last night I was trying to finish up The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, but --- sometimes I've just gotta bake! So, during all the breaks while baking sugar cookies, I worked on finishing my book.

Now, this baking experience was very satisfying, not because I used a great recipe (it was just a packaged mix), but because I managed to crack an egg one-handed. I've always been a two-handed egg-cracker, probably because I want the yolks to stay perfectly intact, especially when I expect my breakfast eggs to be cooked easy-over (no hard yolks for me!). But a couple of weeks ago, when Erin and Tara baked my cake for my cake decorating class, Erin was cracking eggs, one-handed, like a pro. She told me how to do it with 5 simple words. "You just squeeze it here." Sounded simple enough, and looked pretty simple, and it really is! Yes, I do get excited about the smallest things. I'm not sure where Erin learned how to do it, but since she and Tara watch even more of the Food Network than I do, it was probably from Giada or Rachel, or maybe Bobby.

Tonight I went to a class on how to make natural bath and beauty products. I'll share a photo tomorrow.

Cases and Cakes

After dropping my old flip phone only about 6 inches onto concrete and breaking the speaker, I replaced it with this slider phone, which isn't very well-protected while in my purse. So, what you see here is a padded cell phone case in the making. It will probably have a wrist strap in case I want to take it along on my walks. The fabrics are from my carefully protected stash of Hoffman batiks. No embellishment here - it needs to be easy to wash.

Now, a cake decorating update. On the day of my class I went to Mobile to use Mama's oven, since mine was permanently out of service. My nieces, Erin and Tara, who live next door, kindly baked the cake for me. Erin, almost 13, might be a pastry chef if she doesn't become a big cat trainer or a book reviewer. Tara, 11, had planned on being a teacher, but now she might be a culinary artist. So I left them at my parents, happily baking brownies in muffin tins, and went home to make my icing. About 30 seconds into the buttercream icing, my heavy-duty Kitchenaid mixer stopped working. So I went to plan B - the hand mixer. While reaching into the drawer to get the beaters, I cut my left thumb - yes, I'm lefthanded - on an extremely sharp knife made out of a saw blade. I bought it from a Texas gentleman at the Peter Anderson Festival, and I love it because it's made for lefties and it cuts bread beautifully. Now I've learned my lesson about knife storage.

I made it to class in spite of everything, and will admit that cake decorating can be challenging, but I think that with practice I can master it. I still have 3 more weeks of class to decide. Funny, but my mixer started working again, so maybe I can make my icing without another mishap.

My new range arrived today and I will try out the oven tomorrow.

Fruit of the Earth

We have coneflowers blooming! And we have figs!

This fig tree, which I got from Mama as a tiny 6-inch stick she had rooted in a pot, has moved around the Gulf Coast with me a couple of times. She gave it to me about 3 years ago, shortly before we moved from Mobile to Ocean Springs. Then at the end of 2005, when we relocated back to Alabama, I moved it again, this time in a bigger pot. It's still in the pot, but is very happy here on the patio in my fairly shady backyard. At some point I'll probably need to plant it in the ground, but for now it stays where it is.

I'm excited about the figs because they remind me so much of Granny and Grandpa. They usually had fig trees, and Granny would make jar after jar of preserves. Sometimes she would can whole figs in a very sweet syrup, and other times she would make a more jam-like concoction. But I will probably just eat my figs raw, if the birds don't get to them first!

To Bake or Not to Bake?

It's always something. This time, the oven is dead, so instead of repairing a 25-year-old range that has definitely seen better days, we decided to buy a new one. However, things aren't that easy. The project has turned into a minor kitchen remodel, and we still don't have anything to cook on. The timing is perfect, of course. I need a cake for my first decorating class tomorrow night, and I have no oven in which to bake it. I'll be over at Mama & Daddy's in the morning to use their oven, and if all goes well, I'll have my new stove on Thursday and will be baking cookies by Thursday night. Life is always an adventure!

To keep my mind off the lost baking opportunities, I've been trying the drawing lessons over at Drawspace. So much fun!

Ladder of Success

This is the small fused quilt I've been working on, although it's not yet quilted. It is constructed entirely with fusible web (no stitching here), and measures approximately 7-3/4" x 15". In the next few days, I'll be fusing it to cotton batting and quilting it by machine. I used some of my hard-to-part-with hand-dyed fabrics for this piece. I don't know why it's so hard for me to cut into those fabrics, because I can always make more. I think I'll call this one Ladder of Success.

My niece Tara is already climbing the ladder of success. She graduated from 5th grade today and received at least 7 awards (I stopped counting). Certificates nowadays are a lot prettier than when I was a kid! She was also the only graduate who made the A Honor Roll the entire year, which was a pretty big deal and earned her a big blue ribbon.

Class of 2007

Here’s my niece, Amanda, a proud graduate of the College of Art and Design at Louisiana State University. She’s pictured here with her roommates, Anne and Kim. I drove over to Baton Rouge with family members last Thursday night, and we returned on Friday evening after graduation and a late lunch. This is the year for family graduations. Amanda’s sister, Sylvia, graduated from high school yesterday in Huntsville, and her youngest sister, Tara, will graduate from 5th grade tomorrow in Mobile (yes, they’ll have a ceremony!).

And speaking of ceremonies – my friend Joey earned his black belt in Tae Kwon Do on May 12th, in West Chester, PA. And he’s not even 11 yet! The photos were provided by his very proud mom and my dear friend, Dottie. In the second photo, Joey is 4th from the left in front. Congratulations, Joey!

Although my schedule has been pretty tight, I did find some time last night to work on a tiny fused quilt. I’ll post a photo of that later. For now, I’ll just share a stack of hand-dyed fabric that’s been waiting patiently since last spring to be used in projects. Most of these were dyed with the recipes from Ann Johnston’s book, Color By Accident. Others were my own recipes, based on experimentation and pure luck.