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Monday, February 28, 2011

The Post Lady Always Rings Twice

Well....
The post lady never rings twice because she knows
I work, and I don't have a doorbell.
And if it's been raining, she doesn't come down my driveway,
she just throws my packages toward the sign.
I have a sign at the soon to be gate, that says, Blue Sky.
(Yeah, we named our property.)
Anyway, this package was small enough to fit into the mail box,
so ringing wasn't necessary.

A package for me, I ask my husband?
I'm not expecting a package, I say!
From Kentuckey he says.
Hand it over, I say.

Has to be Sue!
Oh yeah, a package of goodies.
Sue is very talented when it comes to needlework,
she has much more paitence than I do.











Crochet doilies, hot pads, pot holder, check keeper, pot scrubby, fridge magnet,
and bookmark, at least that's what I'm going to use them for.
Thanks Sue, I wish my photos did them justice!!!!

Well it's 11:00 and I need to go to bed.
I have to get up early and return to the surreal world, AKA work!

Oh yeah, there's a guy at work who told me,
"I'm not preparing for the apocalypse,when the world falls apart,
 I'm going out to your house to get all your food,
and if you don't give it to me,
 I'll kill you, then eat you"!!!!

TRUE!!!

I was dumbfounded, didn't know what to say.
How scary is that?

How would you have reacted?
More on that next time.
Till then,
Bonjour


Thursday, February 24, 2011

My Vintage House And The Post Lady Always Rings Twice

So...
This is the top of the dresser in my bathroom.
Living inside the dresseer are my towels, sheets, bath products etc.
(The bathrooms didn't come equipped with storage units/shelves so I had to improvise)
What lives on top of the dresser  (from left to right) is,


M, my no face money doll,
Notice the money bowl at her feet?
I offer up money to her in hopes that she will see fit to bless me with more.

Jamaica, my cruise doll,
She used to live in a very weird tourist trap in Jamaica.
I rescued her.

 Voodoo Girl,
A doll making experiment gone awry.
I still love her though.

Viney,
Viney is very happy, she has friends that love her and,
she's grateful that she has a face!

Cradling all my Girls is,

SPIKE!!
As you can see... SPIKE is,  

"THE QUEEN"!
With SPIKE on guard, anyone entering my bathroom
would think twice before
they even thought about
pilfering M's money!!!
Heck, she even scares me!
Here we have Peppy and Salty.
Two very cute vintage, salt and pepper shakers.
They live in this very stylish coffee shop perched above my stove.



Their job is to monitor the baking activities of the resident "Chef".
Me.
They don't always approve of the goings on below them,
AKA,
But most of the time they're approving.
Notice how the both of them are rolling their eyes at me?

These are just a few of  the things that live at my house.
What weird/odd things live at your house?

Tomorrow we'll explore the mysterious,
Post Lady....

Till next time,
Bonjour 




Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Food For Thought

Your ideas will keep pouring out,
write them down.
Remember that the joy lies in the process and
not necessarily the end result.

So...
This is my horoscope for today,
what do you think it means?

Till next time,
Bonjour

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Repurposing A Screen Door

GEM
GLUEING & CLAMPING












Well.....
This gem was given to me by my mother-in-law to do with as I pleased.
Obviously the left photo was taken last spring as evidenced by the lush green grass.
It needed a little help in the sturdiness department
so out came the clamps and wood glue.
And there on the work table she sat and sat and sat,
for almost a whole year!!!
My idea was to make her into a screen divider for
behind my sewing machine.

Enough already, finish it for pete's sake.
So.... 

A few months ago I purchased some paint
in hopes of moving this project along.
Had these awesome hinges, maybe I can work them into the project?


AWESOME HINGES


PAINTED AWESOME HINGES




Purchased  four of these shelf brackets at Canton First Monday last fall,
thinking I could use them as the "feet".


THINGIES
Had five of these thingies in my "stuff" stash,
don't even know what they are or where they came from.
Doesn't matter, they're cool!

ROSETTES
The rosettes were purchased at "The Depot" especially for this project.

I was at "Wally World" a few months ago looking at fabric
and purchased this piece
which is really strange because "I don't do blue"
and even had a blue sheet that matched, even stranger.
I guess this project was in the back of my mind percolating
without me even knowing it.
Everything just kinda fell into place in it's own time.


STRANGE BLUE FABRIC PURCHASE
 

"ALIEN" CLOSE UP

THE LOWER HALF IS THE BLUE SHEET
CHECK OUT THE "FEET"














And if you're thinking I have her upside down, you're right!
The lower half will be behind my sewing cabinet,
why hide these way cool spindles?

The main screen is burgundy, the trims are medium green,
the spindles are light green, and oddly enough,
the solid fabric is light blue and
 the floral fabric is burgundy, white, light blue and black.

My grandson Nathan helped me with this project.
He chose how the rosettes were placed and his thoughts are....
~~~~~~~
The two upper roesttes are eyes, the thingies are eyebrows,
the center vertical wood strip is a nose,
the center horizonal rectangle is a mouth and the spindles are teeth.
"Some strange alien thing".
Those were his words!
I see it!

What do you think,
trash or treasure?

Till next time.
Bonjour

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Illumination, Vintage Floor Lamp Completed


I'M STILL WAITING!

REMEMBER ME?











 OK.....
I admit it, I have a thing for lamps, any kind of lamp,
although I am partial to floor lamps.
I don't know if it's from a lack of light in my childhood home, growing up in a northern latitude or for a fondness of illumination. The light created by the lamp illuminates the eye, the art illumates the mind.




ASSEMBLY REQUIRED!

PICK ME, NO PICK ME!















PARTS BIN

Restoring a vintage lamp is not an easy task. 
This lamp had a (non working) porcelain socket with a 1/4" thread,
today's lamp sockets have a 1/8" thread.
The choices are either to replace the all-thread type
central unit or find a reducer.
Reducer it is, Home Depot here we come! Also need a plug.
Been here, done this!

The socket I had on hand is a push back and forth, I needed a turn type.
Wait, I do have another lamp with a turn type socket, let's switch out.
The lamp in the parts bin gave up her socket after
I promised to restore her next.
The glass "globe" was purchased at Canton First Monday Trade Days.
The total cost of the entire project?
Lamp: $5.00
Socket: $2.00
Reducer $2.00
Globe: $5.00
Cord: $Free
Plug $2.00
Paint: $5.00 (with leftovers for another project)
The Shade $10.00 (purchased at Wally World about 10 years ago)
Labor ?
Total $31.00?

The three questions are,
Was it worth it money wise, 
with or without the shade
AND
the most important is,
does it qualify as a piece of art?
You be the judge.

Till next time,
Bonjour

Monday, February 14, 2011

making Soap and Other Endeavors

SOAP, SOAP AND MORE SOAP!!!
WOW....

It's been a very busy weekend.
I have a show coming up at the end of March so product making was in order.
200 lip balms, 36 body butters, 60 bars of soap.....
that's just a start, I still have bath teas, bath oils and more soap to make.

I'm also revamping my show display. Most of my display pieces are
made of wrought metal so changing the look is quite easy.
Krylon is my best friend.
I'll post picks when I get everything finished.

ARE YOU GOING TO FIX ME?

I'm still working on the floor lamp and yes, I did find the missing piece.
ALMOST THERE!!!
Well it's time for me to re-enter that other world (work)
so I'll have to cut this short.
What was your weekend like?

Till next time,
Bonjour

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Rosemary and Parmesan Madeleines


ROSEMARY AND PARMESIAN MADELEINES
 
Don't Panic....

I got the butter scraped up and
the oven is as good as new!

Another vacation day, can't get out, icy and freezing in north Texas.
Some baking is in order.

I saw this picture on Lorrie's blog a few weeks ago and thought

this sounds good, maybe I'll give it a try.
She didn't list a recipe so today
 I googled and found one at Williams - Sonoma along with the picture.
I don't have a madeleine pan but
I do have corn stick pans, just as good I'm thinking.

So....I'm going over the list of ingredients,

have everything except the cake flour.
What's the difference between cake flour and all purpose flour I ask myself?
Another trip to the computer.
Seems cake flour has less protein (8% or less)  and is made from the softer endosperm of the wheat.
 All purpose (10% protein) is a mix of hard and soft wheat. Bla, bla, bla.
Humm...
Is there a substitute?
More googling!
Why yes, there is.
For 1 cup of cake flour you can substitute
7/8 cup all purpose flour with 1/8 cup cornstarch.
Ok then.
Here's the recipe.
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 cup cake flour
3 tsp. finely minced fresh rosemary
(I am not going outside to clip rosemary, dry, smooshed is good enough.)
1 tsp. fleur de sel (very expensive salt, normal sea salt will have to do!)
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper (I used lemon pepper instead.)
4 eggs
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 Tbs. sugar
1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°
Brush two madeleine corn stick pans with 2 Tbs. of the butter, set aside.
Sift the cake flour into a bowl and gently stir in the rosemary, salt and pepper, set aside.
In your mixing bowl wisk the eggs until fluffy. Add the cream of tartar and sugar. Wisk some more.
Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour and cheese, then fold in the remaining butter.
Spoon the batter into the buttered molds so the batter is even with the rims.
(Keep in mind, I'm using corn stick pans so there was no spooning, I had to scrape it off the spatula then spread it with a  table knife. Very thick batter!)
Bake for about 12 minutes. Immediately remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

Sounds easy enough, right?

WRONG!!!!
BUBBLING, BUTTERY MESS!!!
I'm sitting on the kitchen stool waiting, I hear sizzling, I see a flash in the oven.
What the hell heck?
Open door of oven, butter is dripping everywhere, trying to ignite the element, crap darn.
Smoke alarm goes off!!!
Quickly get the cookie sheets out and put the stick pans on top of those.
Back into the oven they go. (gotta keep that smoke contained)
Smoke alarm stops.
After about 15 minutes total I guessed they were done,
it was hard to tell with all that butter floating on top!
There was no quickly transferring to a wire rack happening,
more like wait a few till all that butter stopped bubbling.
Meanwhile I'm waiting for the oven to cool so I could scrape up the butter.

They taste ok, a little heavy, and suprisingly, buttery.
Probably would have been better if I'd used cake flour.
After more googling I found that cake flour is better able to absorb fats,
maybe I should have paid attention to the bla,bla,bla?

Steve faired better with his Confetti Corn Bread.
CORNBREAD WITH GRATED CARROTS, CHOPPED ONION AND JALAPENOS
I will try this recipe again, only next time, WITH cake flour.
Hope your day is going better than mine.

Till next time,
Bonjour

Monday, February 7, 2011

DESIGNING A QUILT....THE EASY WAY!

SO...
In case you didn't know,
most computers have a software program
called Microsoft Word or Works.
You can do all sorts of things with this program.
Write a letter, make a spread sheet, do a table.....
Really you say?
YEP!
Why am I telling you this?
Because if you go to.... blank word document, click table,
click basic table, add rows and columns, you have...
TADA!!!!
A quilt
 Lots of little squares just waiting for you to add colors to each one.
There's also those horizontal, vertical, grid lines to work with.
This light bulb moment came to me
while I was doing some informational paperwork for The Soap Co.
Needless to say I felt like a genius!
I know there are quilting software programs out there,
but for an occasional quilter like me this will do just fine.



QUILT TEMPLATE
 

THINKING ABOUT MAKING THIS ONE
 


BLOCK

BLOCK CLOSE UP


The template on the left is the quilt from Saturday still waiting to be finished.

I'm thinking about making these 2 blocks into a purse or bag. (12 3/4 x 11 1/2)
Haven't decided yet. Any ideas? Maybe a throw pillow?

I've also been making pot holders and drink coasters using the crazy quilt method.
Steve's old cut up jeans make a thick back for these.
If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to share.

I'm missing a piece to that lamp I was painting on Sunday.
Drat, I need to go look for it.

Till next time,
Bonjour

Sunday, February 6, 2011

No Dallas Super Bowl Sunday For Me!!!


WELL....
I had another quilt post scheduled for today
but since the weather was so super, I was able to venture
outside for some much needed sunshine!!!

Laundry was hung out, carrots and fruit trees were planted,
spray painting projects were finished, herbs were meddlied, bees were checked on,
and many pictures were taken.

FRUIT TREE


LADY POSING IN FRONT OF THE ROSEMARY
 












RED DOG

STEVE PLANTING CARROTS













BEE HIVE

NATHAN MIXING HERBS














REDOING AN OLD FLOOR LAMP

POND AND MORE ROSEMARY









Also made some herb bread for Nate to take to his mom,
un-molded soap, and generally just enjoyed the warmer weather.
BAD weather on it's way!!!

Till next time,
Bonjour