Playing with something new in the studio
It's a quiet day at home.
Everyone's busy doing their own thing,
and I had enough of photography for the day.
So I snuck away into my studio and altered a book.This is a sweet little children's book with sturdy pages. It is called Sheila Sinclair's Quest by Muriel Stapley. I loved the little cameo image on the front cover and decided this would be my quest to play book.
I glued every three pages together with a glue stick to make a sturdy "canvas" for holding paint, collage, anything. This left me with 18 paintable surfaces. Not too long, not too short, just right for a quick fun play.
The first page evolved into a life-sized petunia blossom from my garden, painted with acrylics and India ink on a backdrop of collages paper.
The second pages features a found phrase and is painted with black gesso, India ink, colour pencils and white chalk.
For the next pages I'm playing with constructing pop-ups.Stay tuned for more.
First treat from the spring garden...rhubarb crumble
In Britain, the word "tart" has many meanings.But in this instance, it completely and utterly describes my crumble, in fact, it has become accepted practice to view the world thru only one eye for about five minutes after ingestion.
You take your first mouthful, including the sugary crust, and you think, "Ooo, that's nice and sweet," and then the tartness of the rhubarb hits you and you involuntarily have to close one eye and then you have to take your second mouthful to balance out the tartness with the sugar and you can't help it...you just keep eating...
Wait for it....(Is this becoming a food blog?) :)
Biscotti for mother's day, my favorite thing.
If I’m going to eat a cookie I want it to be made from real butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate, nuts...you know, all the good stuff and none of the unpronounceable, unidentifiable stuff.Would you agree with me?Today I wanted to make something lovely for us all and also for my mother and mother’s day.My favorite go-to cookies are biscotti. Who’s made them? Aren’t they just the most versatile, crunchy, satisfying cookies in the world? I make them in about seven different flavours but my most favorite are walnut and chocolate or almond and anise seed.
Today I made walnut and chocolate.Would you like the recipe? Of course you would.1 ½ C toasted nuts½ C butter1C sugar3 eggs1tsp vanilla3C flour2tsp baking powder¼ tsp salt1 ¼ C semi sweet chocolate bitsMethod:The dough is a little stiff and so it really works out the arm muscles...or...alternately, stick it into the Kitchen Aid with the flat blade and save your arms.Cream butter and sugar together, add eggs and vanilla, sift dry ingredients (like I bother), add dry ingredients and mix, add nuts and chocolate and mix again.First baking:Line a no edges baking sheet with tin foil and divide the dough into two and shape two rectangular logs on the foil. Try to imagine that after the first baking you will cut the cookies into the angled slices and so try to shape the rectangles to make the job easier on yourself with straighter sides and angled ends.Bake them at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes. Take out and cool 5 minutes.Second baking:Carefully slide the foil off the baking sheet and onto the counter. Cut the two rectangles by slicing with a large knife from the top down but try not to go from side to side. Return the cookies to the baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 10-15 minutes more to dry the cookies.There you go.
Now go make a cup of tea. :)Were you seriously going to wait till they cool down?Silly girl...lol.
Sharing with Claudia at Mocking Bird Hill Cottage because they are definitely my favorite things. :)
We're definitely out of the closet!
C and I are having a bit a spring clean round here and part of that is taking everything out of our closets, storing away winter clothes and freshening up the summer clothes.So while we were finishing up the organising I complained to C that I haven't posted in a few days, the photo challenges are Artificial light, and patterns, and didn't know what to post. She said, "look".So I give you:Our clean and organised closets, with tons of interesting patterns and overhead lights.This is my closet.
And this is C's. The pink dress is for a Saturday wedding she's going to.
I love Sarah Jessica Parker's saying, "I like to see where my money is; hanging in my closet." But our stuff is only about 10% really expensive designer had-to-haves, 25% vintage, 25% pret a porter, and the rest is an assortment of travel finds, imports, hand-me-ups, (C's case hand-me-downs), and one or two pieces of wearable art which we probably will never wear but is fun to have.Now to go take away that huge charity bag in the hallway.
Where she doesn't actually have that cup of tea!
Today I wanted to tell you a little story and share a very special cup.
My father was British and a doctor and a collector of antiques.
His very old leather doctor’s bag sits on the high shelf in the “James Bond” bathroom and holds the aspirins, bandaids and cough medicines. Another, larger doctor’s bag with drawer, holds my collection of fun and vintage jewellery.
He particularly loved wooden boxes of every kind, especially Victorian British medical boxes.
Yesterday I was doing some work on my Vanitas photography and left out two of his medical boxes to photograph for this post.
Years ago, I can’t really remember, but I think I wasn’t a teen yet, he gave me this cup for my birthday. The mark suggests it is 1940's Kunst Kronach Burgund.
It always looked like a jewel to me. I always had it sitting on a shelf or, later, in my china cabinet and always loved it and looked at it.
I know it was made for tea, to drink tea from, but I worry too much about pouring the hot tea into the delicate, irreplaceable cup and so I don’t use it.
It stands on display as a treasured jewel and looks beautiful, and that’s enough for me.Linking with Teri at Artful Affirmations and thinking a lot of the country is stormy right now, and Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage and saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her uncle Doug, Wow 90 yrs young! And to Bernideen and thinking I've got to get me some chalk paint. :)
It all started with white bluebells
So you all know about my love for bluebells...well...the other day I found some white bluebells growing on the side of mom’s house and mom happily let me dig a few for my garden.Don’t they look lovely in the last of the evening sunlight?
I thought the white bluebells deserved a lovely spot in the perennial border at the front of the house.
Morgan likes to be very close to me all the time and chose to watch me from the round bottomed pot under the noble privet.
It took several hours of edging but the front flower bed looks great and my special white bluebells will shine there.
A Saturday walk at the river (South arm of the Fraser, at Steveston)
What a difference a couple of weeks have made at the river! The last time I was here the water was blue-black and solemn and dreary, and the grasses were just brown lumpy islands with water rivulets sparkling around them.
Now look! The warmer temps have caused a melt and the rich sedimentary water has turned the river a slight violet shade. The grasses have greened and grown to hide periscoping Canada geese.
Today was somewhat windy, but warm and bright, and the wind played on the water with those little gusts which you could watch sparkling along. You know the ones? The ones which look like a shoal of thousands of little silvery minnows?
It feels so good to be at the river, to see the broom blooming, welcoming birds and bees, to see the gulls banking in the wind and moving from place to place just by spreading their wings and catching the breeze.It felt good to look across to the eagles nest on the island and realise that an eagle just lifted from there.
The only thing which spoiled this lovely, lovely day, was the startling discovery of twelve fresh shark fins for sale on one of the fishing boats at the fisherman’s dock and several vocal Chinese women fighting over them. Twelve harmless creatures, caught, mutilated and thrown back to die slowly of their injury, for prestigious soup, for showing off wealth, for pride...for nothing. Banned in Vancouver, but not here in the city of Richmond. But still, there is an election coming very soon and banning shark fin soup is a political platform.
So we will try to put that in the back of our mind and sit here in the shady corner with the river behind us and concentrate on how good it feels to be here.
Early lunch and a hike
It’s been a while since I answered a Wordpress weekly photo challenge. Today I was wondering why I stopped and thought it was just life...you know...life carries you towards a different challenge on a Friday.But today I give you “from above”:Looking down Cleveland dam at Capilano Canyon.
and happily include 5 random thoughts (RT) for Nancy's Random Five Friday
C and I felt like having a bit of a lunchtime hike and so we packed a little light lunch and drove to Capilano Park and then hiked up to the power line to see our favorite tree, the white pine.
We had a little prosciutto, a little salad, a few bruschetta with fresh mozzarella and roasted pepper and some funky little whole pea crisps.
RT 1: Who thinks to flash dry and crisp whole pea pods? Do you just one day think hmm, I think I’ll make whole pea pod crisps and mass market them! They are good though.
We sat/lay at the edge of the reservoir watching the hummingbirds and swallows zooming around and way up high there were two eagles riding a thermal in great lofty circles.RT 2: They say that each living creature has relatively the same amount of heart beats in an average life span.RT 3: I once had a hummingbird’s nest. It was the tiniest most delicate thing in the world made of moss, lichen and cobwebs.
RT 4: It’s illegal to own eagle feathers unless you have First Nation status, but what if one falls down and you find it? I’m voting for finders keepers. (Because secretly I’d love to own an eagle feather.)Finally we had to tear ourselves away and up the mountain we hiked till we got to the white pine.
Western white pines are rare in Vancouver because of a very bad disease which has killed many off and so a beautiful mature white pine is protected and this one has a designated heritage tag.
The cones are spectacular. I always want to take one home and just keep it to look at, but they don’t belong in my house, they belong in the forest and so we take only photographs and hike back down. And besides, what if everyone who hiked up took one? Tragedy of the commons? I think maybe.
RT 5: I don’t want to get back to work!
Admiring the light
I’ve said before that I bought this house because of the light. Because of the old-glass, single-pane, broken down old drafty windows which let in such incredible light, and it’s so true.I love the way the light dawns into my bedroom in the morning and cuts ribbons across the lace curtains.
And then it picks up the golden pollen on the living room side table; fallen off the euphorbia blossoms over night.
I love that by the evening it comes streaming into the dining room and lights up anything on the dining table.
And I love how the last rays sneak under tables and lamps playing with a bit of wood grain here, a little velvet there.
These are the reasons there are several cameras on hand at all times in this house.Is there such a thing as being too addicted to the light if you’re a photographer? Couldn’t possible be. :)
It was a get out of town kind of day
Ok, this totally wasn’t my fault. It’s been a warm day, the sun was shining, and I got an email from a nursery, 50 km out of town, that they were having a May Day sale. Buy one get one free on roses! Roses! Geraniums, dahlia tubers, cacti...well, actually I stopped reading because they had me at roses.So Chloe, mom and I drove out to buy ridiculous amounts of roses and then on to have a nice lunch, in a country cafe, on the patio, in the sunshine.Our table wasn’t going to be ready for a half hour and so I left them my cell phone number and we walked down to the antique mall and had a good mooch around.
C’s objective was to buy that little pearly clutch she didn’t buy when we were there last time, remember?And we generally had a lovely time hamming it up and trying not to buy everything in sight. Do we look like 1940’s movie stars? (Well, disregard the hoodies and the iPhone)
C saw some lovely bunting made from creamy, lacy, embroidered triangles held together with a ribbon of pom-poms. How cute is that? We decided we would make our own.
We looked into every corner and got some fantastic ideas.
Look at this little cupboard, perfect for our mason jars full of beach glass. How hard could that be to make? One ornate thrift store frame plus some bits of wood and my skill saw.
Over all the excitement about the roses, I somehow managed to lose my reading glasses somewhere in the nursery. That's because I tend to hang them from my T-shirt and they tend to slip off. Usually I notice and pick them up but not this time, but found a really nice vintage pair at my 1.25 strength. Chloe found her clutch, and a pretty lacy blouse, and mom got a copy of The Diary of an Edwardian Lady. She loved my copy. Isn’t that the loveliest book? I’ve got a copy in Vancouver and one in Oxfordshire.
Well, my phone rang much too soon. Our table was ready and so we reluctantly left the antique mall and walked to the restaurant.
We shared a bunch of appies, looked at our loot and thought about how lucky we were to be sitting outside in the sunshine.
When was the last time you got out of town? It's such a good idea. :)