New collages

Water lily

Chloe

 

Rose

Today's Trash Art by Nancy

The pickins' were slim today on our daily walk. Everybody is being too neat!

Nancy wanted me to tell you that she cheated and added the angel face.

The rule is that she has to only use what she finds on her walk.

But who's checking?
(Look a little further down to see more of her Trash Art)

Watercolor Workshop with Robin Erickson Oct. 10

I learned a lot in this valuable workshop even though I mistakenly thought it was going to be just a demonstration. So I didn't bring any of the supplies I was supposed to have brought. Luckily, my friend Diane and the teacher loaned me everything I needed. We were supposed to bring something to draw, which of course I didn't, so Robin gave me this photo that was taken in Greece.

First we traced the basic shapes (narrowing them down to about 12) onto a piece of acetate. then we traced this onto tracing paper and transferred it to watercolor paper. The acetate seemed like a superfluous step until Robin said we could use this to try out different paint colors on our painting if we were dissatisfied with any of them.

She uses a palette of just three colors that are the basics to make most colors: Aureolin yellow, Permanent rose, and Cobalt blue. I did my painting with just these colors but she suggested others that could be added; Winsor(Phathalo) green, Quinacridone sienna, Cobalt violet, Sepia, Cobalt teal blue.

After transferring the shapes to the paper she demonstrated adding the paint. She filled in one of the shapes with a brush full of clear water then tipped her brush in one of the colors and added it to the shape. It pretty much just spread out to the edges of the pencil marks. Then she tipped in another color-she suggested trying the complementary color. It looked great. Diane used this technique beautifully on her flower painting. Penny Fedorchak did it on her stem and leaf.

My semi-finished painting:

Nancy's Daily Walk Trash Art

Nancy had a great idea while taking her daily walk with Tootie. She was picking up trash as she walked (like any good green person) when she noticed that it was beautiful! It didn't look so beautiful on the ground but when she sorted it and put it all together it made some great artistic statements.

Order Banar books right here.

Now you can order Banar Designs books here. Aren't you lucky?
This book is for all you stitchers out there. It's got a lot of cute retro designs that you can iron on to your fabric and start stitching using the easy instructions. When you click on the picture you'll get a larger view.

One of our vintage linens becomes the cutest lampshade, thanks to an etsy seller- sassyshades

We've always wanted to know what people do with the things they buy from us on etsy. Finally one of our buyers sent us this photo. This started out in life as a lovingly embroidered tea towel.  We hated to part with this. It was so well done and impossibly cute.

But we would have never done the work involved in making this darling lampshade. The shop name is sassyshades and you can see more of her lampshades at

etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7101024

Five Peppers by Barbara Finwall, age 10

My favorite childhood book was The Five Little Peppers. I liked it so much that at 10 years old I decided to write my own Pepper book. I guess I thought by changing the title to Five Peppers it would be alright. I just found my slightly plagiarized version. It really made me laugh. If you read it you'll see that I must have been kind of a weird kid!  

Not much grieving in this family. I think Grandma would have liked it that way.

The most gorgeous designs in the world- African face art

These are from a book by photographer, Hans Silvester: Natural Fashion, Tribal Decoration from Africa. Published by Thames & Hudson. They are from the Surma and Musi tribes of the Omo Valley in East Africa. 

I wish I could design like them.

Happy birthday to me (2 days ago)

I didn't want to remember my birthday this year because it's a bad one. One of those decade ones!

But several people did remember and I got some nice cards and these pretty flowers. I told Nancy that I really didn't want to do anything, but Nancy, Bob and I (the whole Finwall family) went out for hot fudge sundaes. It was nice and subdued, It didn't make me dwell on my age for very long. The flowers were from the little Kinsey boys. Robin gave me some pastries from the new bakery in town. Delicious!   Thank you one and all.

A stroll through Nancy's house- Little chairs galore

Here's the recipe for the Olive Oil Cakes that Vickie made for our last book club. She got it from Food Network Magazine

Ingredients

For the Cakes:

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2/3 cup whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon finely minced fresh thyme, plus sprigs for garnish

For the Glaze:

• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice (from 1 to 2 lemons)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Position a rack in the middle of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees. Prepare the cakes: Brush a 6- or 12-cup mini Bundt or muffin pan with the melted butter. Lightly dust with flour and shake out the excess.
Pulse the granulated sugar and lemon zest in a blender until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, then gradually pour in the olive oil and milk, pulsing until emulsified into a thin batter, about 30 seconds. Don't overblend or the cakes will be too puffy.
Whisk 1 cup flour, the baking powder, salt and 1 teaspoon thyme in a small bowl. Add to the blender in 2 batches, pulsing lightly until just combined; stop to scrape down the sides of the blender as needed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the cakes just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and spring back when lightly touched, 28 to 30 minutes for a 6-cup Bundt pan and 22 to 25 minutes for a 12-cup Bundt or muffin pan. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then loosen the sides with a small knife and invert the cakes onto a rack.
Meanwhile, prepare the glaze: Whisk the confectioners' sugar, lemon juice and butter until smooth, adding more lemon juice if the mixture is too thick. Drizzle over the warm cakes and garnish with thyme sprigs.

Another postage stamp collage

Also found at a garage sale.

Modern Medical Mysteries

September Book Club

The book of this month. It was chosen by Kathy and we all 

 thought it was very well written.  Helen and Kathy both liked it a lot.  I really didn't enjoy reading it. 

It was set in the early 1900's in Alaska where the main character was sent to report on and study the weather. Not something I find interesting.  There aren't many people there at the time and particularly not many women. Among the three women he interacts with two of them don't talk and the third one he doesn't allow to talk. I prefer more "talky" books, myself.  This one seemed to have a theme of lack of communication. There was also a little too much killing and skinning of animals for my taste. I also found the sex scenes uncomfortable, maybe because it was written by a women in a man's voice, although she did it very well. I've gotten the reputation as the prude of the group (which I'm not,really).

There were a lot of deep meanings which I had trouble deciphering, and so did some of the others. I must say it made for one of our most lively and best discussions, though.

Now to the most important part of the evening: the food!

 Lovely little salmon burgers by Vickie.

A salad by Laurie.

She wasn't able to come to the meeting but still, very nicely,
had Roxanne bring this salad. What a pal !

 

A beautiful jello salad by Susan. 

The most delicious little olive oil cakes by Vickie. 

She had quite a search for the perfect mini bundt pan to make these in.
She finally found one at Sur La Table. It was made by Nordic Ware. 
I'm going to get you the recipe. Stay tuned.

More health care reform funnies.

Postage Stamp Collages

We found these cute collages at a garage sale.

Clever idea!

Has anyone else ever seen a postage stamp collage?

Would you like to make one?

How about a contest?

If anyone ever reads this blog ,is anyone interested?

If so I'll think up a great prize. If not I'll make one myself.

P.S. Click on the picture to enlarge it and see the stamps.