Natures Gift Die by The Stamp Market

This unfinished PTI Home Made template house has been sitting on my desk for several years. so is a bit too shabby to give, but I wanted to see how the leaf spray would fit.

A closer view

I love how this gilded spray turned out with striped vellum leaves  and gilded skeleton leaves (spray paint on watercolor paper).  It's very pretty but I'm not sure about the berry colors.  they are more varied and a little paler in real life.

This house is based on Howard Lamey's  Twin Peaks Beach house.  I did my own thing with the windows and doors though.

Little paper house

I made this from an Etsy paper pattern.

After a two year siesta!

At my age, it really doesn't feel that long ago that I wrote to this blog……. just a short nap, but I probably should have waited until next Thursday to post this - then it would be a two year anniversary!   I did want to post some of the fun things I've been doing with my new hobby, the Silhouette Cameo machine.  Lots of fun making Christmas cards and decorations, in fact the poor machine hasn't had much of a rest since hubby bought it for my birthday last September.  Actually, I purchased it online and told him what he'd gifted me - he was much relieved that he didn't have to go out searching for something.
I made a number of box cards from the very talented folks at SVGCUTS.  Also lots and lots of tiny houses - mostly glitter and putz style, to place on top of Christmas treat boxes for my family and friends.  It's the houses that have really held my interest, but now that Christmas is over, I hope I can still find fun things to make.

Tyvek for Strength

Detail of my altered book.

The black center of these two pages, is a strip of Tyvek that I printed.  It's holding an added page, and also covers the stubs of a few pages I removed from the book.

I always loved using this material when I was working in my altered books.  It's very strong and won't tear easily, but can be cut with scissors,  It prints roughly, and that's perfect for my kind of books.  I used it to add pages and reinforce the edges of weaker ones.

It's a non woven polyethylene material that's used for many items - I save the odd envelope that comes in the mail, and cut it to letter size so it will print on my printer.  I print thin vertical-type designs and then cut the page into strips and feed through my Xyron machine.  I don't think I've tried other adhesives, but the Xyron glue is extremely strong with Tyvek.

Ticket to Venice

This will be the third class I've taken with MaryAnn Moss, and if it's anything like the previous two, I know I'll stay happy and busy in months to come!
If you enjoy working with paper and scraps.  I urge you to take her Remains of the Day (ROTD) Journal Tutorial.   Mary Ann is such a good teacher and will help you bring a wonderful journal to life in simple steps.

Next is her Boogie Tilt Journal - three hardcover books that are a little more ambitious, but still attainable with her wonderful video instructions. I see this is on sale right now: Full Tilt Boogie

I should add that these classes have to be the most fun ones I've taken, and are very addicting.

Afternoon at the Lake

What an enjoyable way to spend a lazy afternoon - reading a good book on our porch by the lake, a few years ago.  Angela's Ashes was such a well written book, I didn't want it to finish.  

I used Anna Aspnes and Katie Pertiet's brown paper for this page. Background paper is mine. The font is Signerica. Inspired by Maine Every day, by whatnext at Oscraps 

A small Japanese village, at the foot of Mount Fuji, May 1970

This tiny village was so small, so intimate, it felt as if we were trespassing.

As I glanced through the open doorways I noticed the ground of dirt and 
pebbles running right through to the living area of some of the homes.

My camera was far too invasive to take many pictures, so l only took this and

another of the beautiful windsock carps that flew strong and proud above the rooftops.

Tango no sekku is the celebration of Boys Day in Japan, and each carp 

symbolizes a son in the family, a very large one for the eldest and the rest ranging down in size.  

I'm watching and learning lots at:

  The Ultimate Lightroom 4 Workflow with Jared Plahttp://s/ultimate-lightroom-4-workflow-jared-platt

Just testing the size for Blogger. Click to enlarge, it looks much better.

Yesterday at Jo-Ann's

So the darling great granddaughters came with us, I treasure them dearly, but not while shopping - they don’t help when I need to figure things out at the jewelry department.  They did have a good time with all the glittery and shiny goodies to enjoy.  Every few minute I’d hear “Nana. look at this lovely (whatever)” shouted at me in their loudest voices - just in caseI didn’t hear.

I came home with just a few things in my bag that inluded two Somerset books (I thought I was buying their magazines), and a couple of lovely reusable $1.99 totes. 

Between my daughter and I, we each had a basket, and often took different directions for our shopping, we were distracted a lot by the children and  kept changing and getting mixed up with our baskets.  Somehow, we must have gained a basket and lost another that held all my jewelry findings somewhere in the store.  I was so tired I didn’t even miss them until I got home.  I checked my receipt that was around $50 but they hadn't been added.

Howard helped me cook the supper and while he was clearing away the dishes, I fell asleep exhausted on the couch.  I had been pushing through the day with only about three hours of sleep from the evening before, so my brain power was at an all time low.

Today, Howard is taking me back to Jo-Ann.  Do you think we’ll find my basket?  I hate having to go through all that figuring what I need again.

My comfy Bohemian Frump couch

I just had to get rid of my "Blob" picture sitting front and center of this blog. I do have some freebies coming up but am still looking for another place to upload them. I was playing with circles and had a lot of fun blending with some older flower photos. I think some of the designs are a bit too much for a full scrapbook page, but as borders or strips, they're pretty.

The papers I designed way back when, are still being worked on.  After a real close-up look at the design, I couldn't let them go with all the messed up pixels underneath the top surface.  Careless blending in Photoshop will do this, and I'm very guilty of getting carried away with all the lovely colors and textures I see on the  upper surface.

I've been out of sorts for many months with my eyes.  Even now I can only see by closing my left eye and squinting, so anything I design these days is a bit iffy, unless everyone else squints like me to view what I've done!  I had a detached retina, and after the surgery to fix it, I now have cataracts - very bad in the left eye, but I can see enough to get around a bit - no driving though.

We bought a 27 inch iMac to replace our 24 inch that crashed, but everything is twice as small instead of larger. The magnifying feature brings things closer and larger, but it gets pretty bad for moving around the page. I think I prefer my older mac - except for the lack of memory that's needed for working in Photoshop. Let's hope this typing doesn't end up gobbledygook! I'll edit it later with better eyes.

Oh, I was getting bored and decided to play around with our 24 inch crashed iMac.  After several weeks of Googling and trying out a variety of things, I got it up and working!  It wasn't the hard drive after all, so I ordered more memory so it won't crash again for a while (I put the memory and special screwdriver somewhere and with limited eyesight, can't find it).  

I think I'll dedicate one of these machines to my favorite Brit TV programs that I watch from YouTube.  I'll be able to relax downstairs in my living room on my comfy Bohemian Frump couch, with a nice cup of tea.  The couch has tassel — type fringe all around the bottom now — they omitted it from my order by mistake, but sent me heaps after I told them.  With fabric glue, it wasn't  difficult to glue on. I put the green trees on our deck - they make a great privacy screen!

The Blob

I had to defrost a packaged sauce in the microwave, but didn't check the directions since a previous sauce had said no need to pierce for steam. I saw it ballooning up, but instead of opening the door before it burst, I rushed upstairs to get my camera!

I was fast at taking a number of shots of this, and it wasn't until after that I realized my camera was on manual. As I checked each image in the viewer I adjusted the controls without thinking, so breaking in my photography book (see previous post) seems to be working, because having the book stay open is so comfortable, that I'm reading and learning from it daily!

I'd like to package more designs to give away, but don't want to use 4Shared, because I keep reading on DST about viruses coming from there. If anyone has a better place to upload to, I'd appreciate a link or something - thanks.

The darn book won't stay open!

I'm determined to learn all the buttons on my Canon camera.  The manual is okay to understand, but print is way too tiny for my aged eyes, and it won't stay open.  I  downloaded a copy from Canon that's easier to read on screen, but it's a bit of a pain when I want to lounge on the couch and read from the coffee table (in my case tea-cup table!) with the camera on my lap.  Printing pages was fine but with too many to print, I decided to purchase a Canon 7d Guide from Amazon.  The book is great, but the pages still wouldn't open flat.  I was just going to get it "spiral wire bound" from Staples, but found this guide for opening new books correctly and it really works to keep them open!

I love how this guide has been illustrated:    guide

and another guide:      How to open a new book

Frilly dilly bag

Frilly dilly bag, originally uploaded by kirsten67.

I love the mixture of pattern and color.

I decided to try to get the pattern from Kirsten67 and make several of these in different sizes with some of my fabric stash for my studio and workrooms.  I might sew a design on the front showing what I have inside the bag - ribbons, jewelry parts, etc.  They'd be a colorful addition.  Though knowing me, I'll make one or two then get tired of making them!

I just discovered the Frilly dilly bag came from....

Janelle Wind patterns:
www.thejanellewindcollection.typepad.com/

I've checked her website and Etsy Shop and can't find a contact or a way to purchase the pattern from the US

Note:
Thank you Janelle for stopping by and letting me know where to buy your patterns.
The url  - here:  http://pursepatterns.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=91

Original Chicago Metallic Popover Pan recipe

We always have a typical English dinner for Christmas, and it’s always my job to make the Yorkshire pudding.  My daughters bought me a couple of the Chicago Metallic popover pans that made my job so easy.  Although I’ve tried other recipes, I prefer the original one that came with the pans.  I keep losing it, but figured if I placed it here I'd never have to search again.

Original Chicago Metallic popovers from the packaging on the pans:

REGULAR POPOVERS

1            Chicago Metallic 6 cup Popover Pan            

1 1/4      cup flour            

1/4         teaspoon salt            

3            large eggs            

1 1/4      cup milk            

2            tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 6 even pieces            

1            tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Oil or spray (with nonstick vegetable oil spray) popover pan.

Preheat oven to 400' and set rack in middle of oven.

Preheat popover pan in oven about 2 minutes.

Blend flour, salt, eggs, milk and melted butter until mixture is the consistency of heavy cream, about 1 to 2 minutes. This can be mixed in a food processor, blender, electric mixer, or with a hand mixer.

The batter can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.

Batter should be used at room temperature.

(Note from Chris:  The way I learned to make Yorkshire pudding in England, was never to over mix the batter.  It's okay to be a little lumpy - otherwise it will be too heavy and not light and crispy. Also to let the batter sit in the fridge several hours before cooking.)

Place 1 small piece of butter in each cup and place back in preheated oven until butter is bubbly, about 1 minute.

Fill each cup half full with Batter and bake 20 minutes.

Reduce temperature to 300' and continue baking 20 minutes.

Makes 6 popovers

Popovers are best right from the oven.

Serve with butter, jams, or other sweet or savory spreads.

I like to cook these like our British Yorkshire pudding, and serve with gravy made from the roast.

For a nice flavor, I place a little fat from the roast in the popover cups instead of butter, and I watch it carefully while pre-heating, it has to be hot before adding the batter, but too much heat could burn and give a scorched taste.

**** Update ****

The recipe has finally been placed on Chicagometallicbakeware.com   

I never double this recipe because it never comes out right, so always make it twice.  I notice a 12 popover recipe (Vers. 2) is on their site - with less milk.  Next time I'll test it out. (link below)

Original Chicago Metallic Popover recipes

Frustrated by Blogger!

I tried the new designs and features in Blogger - didn't like them, and now I can't get back to my old design.  The header is centered over the posting block and not center of the page, the graphics aren't the way I set them originally.
It's just like Blogger was in the beginning, too hard to control. 
I have some experience and training hanging paintings in galleries, and I like to use the same concept on my blog - simple with a white background.  That way the colors have little competition.
I'm taking a workshop on Word Press next week, and might open another blog with Google Streets captures - of places we've lived or been.  I love Google Streets.

Banksy art - on the streets of Brick Lane, London. So cool.

Bansky is a British graffiti artist who does wonderful work on walls of Brick Lane, London.

Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, England

  We began our walk to the castle at sea level, then after a fairly hilly walk, we saw the steps all the way up to the actual castle,  I didn't think I would make it - but did.   The entrance, where the photographer is standing,  is the most interesting area, with all its nooks and crannies.

I finished this layout long ago but couldn't find my photo to go with it.  I finally remembered I used our camcorder at the time because it brought out more of the depth than my film camera  - this was before Digital.

I want to thank the following photographer for the use of his photograph, which is published under Creative Common License:  Phillip Fayers for Tintagel Castle