Pont d'arc

Another Christmas gift for difficult to shop for relatives. My in-laws love France and visit often. This is a pretty spot along the Ardeche river quite popular for canoeing and kayaking.



The original photo taken by my father-in-law that I started from.
The landscape turned out to be a lot harder than the faces I've done recently. I had a little trouble getting the right amount of detail in the cutting and the right colors. I need more practice. Looking forward to it.

The nephews

My sister-in-law and her husband are impossible to shop for. So this is what I did for them for a Christmas present. They really liked it and were a little surprised as well. I'm glad. They are fun to do. My Father-in-law took the photos I started from.

The boys are really growing up.

New Dolly for Baby Girl

Baby girl loves buckles and buttons and snaps and zippers. So I decided to make a doll that had all of those things. As a kid we had a Dapper Dan doll that had lots of little fasteners and things on it. I also had a doll that was awake on one side and asleep on the other. I combined the ideas for this doll.

For the hair I used curly elastic shoe laces. I think that this might be her favorite part. She pulls them and they spring back. For some reason this is hilarious. The awake side has a little jacket that buttons closed. Underneath she has suspenders. One buckles and the other goes through a little ribbon loop and velcros closed.

The sleepy side is wearing footy pajamas with a zipper and BIG snap at the top. (Thanks for the snap Mom.)

This had been a lot of fun to plan and make, but I don't think I will be doing anything like this again any time soon. No Etsy shop for me. It took much longer than I had planned, but the end result was worth it.

Paper ornaments

We made a few paper ornaments today to hang on our paper tree. I used wrapping paper, but you could use just about anything. The instructions are here at How About Orange.

You do not work alone.

In preparing for today's RS lesson I remembered a General Conference talk by Pres. Eyring from October 2002. The talk is advice to people who are new to their church callings. To me, at that time, I think that it applied more generally as well, to any time that we are doing a good work and the work of the Lord.

He counseled people that God would magnify them in their callings and that they would need it. The part that I particularly remembered was this.

"There will be times when you feel overwhelmed. One of the ways you will be attacked is with the feeling that you are inadequate. Well, you are inadequate to answer the call to represent God with only your own powers. But you have access to more than your natural capacities, and you do not work alone." -President Henry B. Eyring

Knowing that I was not alone in my efforts of the time was incredibly comforting. It still is today.

Christmas candy

Buddy boy wanted to make candy canes today while Baby girl napped. We made a modified version instead. It is red and white and peppermint, but much easier to make.

Cream cheese mints:

4 oz. cream regular or low fat cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (more or less)
Food coloring (optional)

Mix it all together. Done!

It will probably seem like there is to much sugar, but keep mixing/kneading it in. If the cream cheese is room temperature and softened it will be easier. Add food coloring if desired. I suggest using paste food coloring. If you are using liquid food color use only a small amount.

Roll into a log and slice or do the following for striped candies.
Color about 1/3 of the mints and roll into 4-5 snakes. Make alternating white snakes as well as a center snake.

Put them all together like this...
The green sugar was an unplanned addition that happened as I was getting Baby girl up from her nap.

Roll until you get the the desired thickness.

And slice...

You can also make little shaped mints with mold like these. Much more labor intensive.

The mints are also delicious dipped in chocolate. But this is more than I wanted to tackle today.

Dough

Mother...

Daughter...

pencil subscription

I saw an article on subscription gifts that included one that really caught my eye. Twenty five colored pencils a month for 20 months. That's 500 pencils! I love this idea. During grad school on particularly bad days I would head to the book store art department and buy myself a few Prismacolor pencils. I ended up with a great collection, but not 500. I didn't have much time for artwork during those years, but buying the pencils was cheap therapy and made me remember that it would all be over some day.

P.S. Mom, Christmas? :)

Kid art

The kids have been having a good time with artsy craftsy things. After going through a roll or so of regular tape I got a stack of multi-colored masking tape from the teacher store. It's been a huge hit. We have had spider webs, jungle vines, cage bars, traps, finish lines for races, and snow flakes hanging from the ceiling. It's been a lot of fun but has turned our living room into a bit of an obstacle course.

The next thing was the dot dot art. This is a favorite of Baby girl. You can use the Do A Dot bottles or Bingo bottles like these. The paint is very watery so regular paper warps. The preschool teachers make cut outs from coffee filters. This works much better.

On a recent trip to the library Buddy boy saw a poster for the King Tut exhibit at the de Young museum in SF. He decided he wanted to make a mummy and a mummy case. So we did. We checked out the museum web site to see what we needed to do. Then we used very a very unauthentic Kleenex box for the sarcophagus and a toilet paper tube, tennis ball, and TP for the mummy, with plenty of tape of course. He even colored the face yellow after we looked at pictures from the museum exibit. He asked me to draw the "striped snake hat".

After making the mummy we read Bill and Pete. A cute story about a croc and his toothbrush bird and their trip to the museum in Cairo.

So much fun. You never know what they will come up with next.

My favorite pie

On Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is the undisputed king of desserts. For as much as I love it I also love my grandmother's mincemeat pie. Each year she would serve pumpkin and mincemeat pies, and sometimes a plum pudding, and maybe even a cookie or two. In more recent years my mom continued making the pies including the mincemeat for me and my Aunt Karen. The mincemeat pie is served topped with "Dip" and whipped cream. (The Dip is also the sauce for the Yam'n apples.)

So just in case you needed a little more cooking to do for Thanksgiving this week. Here are a couple of my favorites straight from Grandma A's table.

Recipes:

Mincemeat pie filling

2 Tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1 cup diced pears
1 1/2 large apples, diced
2 cups raisins
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch cloves

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes, until apples and pears are cooked, but not overly soft.
Place filling in a raw crust with a raw crust on top and bake at 350 until lightly browned.

Notes: This is actually 1/8 of the recipe my Mom and Grandma used and is about the right amount for a small pie. Large batches of filling can be bottled and saved for later. I like using it on oatmeal in the morning.
The filling can also be used to make filled sugar cookies. Cut sugar cookie dough into circles. Place a spoonful of filling in the center. Fold over and seal edges.

Dip

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

Bring to boil until thickened.

Yam'n apples

I isn't yams and apples. It's Yam'n apples with Yam'n as an adjective to apples. Not a pie, but just in case you were wondering.

Peel and cut apples and yams into approximately 1 inch pieces. Boil separately until tender. Drain, combine, and top with Dip. Bake.

Notes: I'm not sure why you need to bake it since it is all cooked and already hot. It probably helps blend the flavors. The traditional family recipe is to boil the yams but I might try it with roasted yams instead.

Enjoy!

recipes

With the whole foodie craze, recipes can get rather long and complicated. Here is a list of recipes where each one is only a few lines long. While some of the ingredients are things I just don't use (broccoli rabe anyone?). Many sound delicous for fall dinners, not just Thanksgiving day.

image from NY Times

Simple Beauty

I've been reading a biography of Johannes Kepler (Kepler's Witch by James A Conner). I am about 1/3 of the way through since it it a little slow going and I have read a couple of other things in between. But today I read something that I think was worth stopping to think about.

Kepler was trying to discover the unifying order of things in the universe, the theory of everything. A contemporary of Galileo, he stuggled with the same issues. He could see that the earth-centered universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy was overly complicated. To many exceptions had to be developed in order to explain what he observed in the sky. He believed that the way the universe worked and ordered itself was a window in to the mind of God. Because of this he believed that what we find beautiful we will also find to be true.

The Good, the True, and the Beautiful - these are the deep properties of Platos's Ideas, and the yardstick by which Kepler measured the universe. - James A. Conner

When James Watson and Frances Crick were searching for the structure of DNA they knew they were on the right track because it was beautifully simple. It had to be the right one. It was.

The simple, the true, and the beautiful. In truth we find beauty, and in true beauty, simplicity.

More leaves...

From the New York Times and Christoph Niemann. A very fun series. Check here for more punny leaves.

Love the leaves

I love fall and especially fall leaves. Around here the color changes are a lot more subtle. So much stays green or actually turns green, instead of the other way around, that I really look for the signs and colors of the season. I took these photos one morning on a walk. These trees are pretty common around here, but they are interesting in the fall because the colors can range from orange, to red, to nearly purple depending on the tree. My favorite thing is to see the light through the leaves. They light up like stained glass.

See the sea at Seymour

We took a morning trip with Grammie to the Seymour Center at the UCSC Long Marine Lab. They have a great little aquarium with educational displays and a touching tank where you can touch sea stars, brittle stars, and a sea cucumber. The sea cucumber is pretty wierd. It doesn't really feel like anything, you can barely feel a soft bag of water. The kids liked looking, but were a little hesitant to touch for some reason.

If you go on the docent led tour you can to to the research area and see the dolphins playing and if you look carefully you can see the elephant seal, the real one, not the life size bronze sculptures out front. They also tell you all about balleen and show you real pieces of balleen as you look at the real whale skeleton outside the building. It is a great kid friendly place and just the right size for my kid's attention span. If you go, check to see when school groups are coming so that you can plan around them.

Happy Halloween

This one I drew instead of starting with a photo. Still fun. I like the laughing Jack-0-lantern.

Taffy

Buddy boy wanted to make candy, so we did. As a teenager I used to make vinegar taffy. (and not share it with my brothers) It was delicious, so I get the recipe from my mom and tried it again. It is a pulled taffy so you can use my ingredients and follow any of the pulled taffy recipe directions online. There are many.

Grandma A's Vinegar Taffy

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup white vinegar

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

General directions:

Cook ingredients, sugar through water, to hard ball or soft crack stage depending on your desired product. Add extracts. Pour only buttered work surface. Allow to cool. When it is cool enough to touch pull until light in color and glossy.

a what?

BB: Mom, I want to make a jelly ball spitting spider.
Me: Um, OK. What do you need?
BB: paper, tape, glue, pipe, rubber bands, scissors...

OK I thought. We'll see what happens. I expected something with legs like the spider he made in preschool but he had his own ideas. He had a definite plan and did it all himself. With a few minor modifications of the rubber band placement it actually spits "jelly balls". His jelly balls even go splat.

Buddy Boy

learn from the legacy

“We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.”
- Lucy Mack Smith


What do we learn about ourselves and our potential from the history of RS?
What is the Legacy of RS that we need to continue into the future?


The women organized themselves, developed and plan and then followed the direction and the course corrections of the Lord to organize the Relief Society. We need to be proactive in life and move forward while seeking inspiration and following the directions of the Lord.

The Relief Society:
Started hospital services and supported women going East to get medical training to staff it
Began Primary and YM organizations
Created a grain storage system that would eventually respond to a request for help from the federal government
Offered services that have grown into the world wide Church humanitarian services and LDS family services
We can do great things when we work together.

Seasons changed and the RS no longer administers hospitals, Primary, humanitarian and family services. The seasons of our lives change as well. We need to recognize the changing seasons and move on when the time is right.

We can look back and marvel at what they did or we can look for lessons to apply to our future.


Teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith Ch. 39 Relief Society: Divine organization of women
General RS meeting Sept '09 Henry B Eyring The Enduring Legacy of Relief Society,
Julie Beck Relief Society, a sacred work

Scherenschnitte: paper cutting

After seeing the work of Cindy, Heather, and my cousin Ruth, I decided to try paper cutting myself. Paper cutting is a traditional art form in many countries. In Germany it is called scherenschnitte, scissor cutting, and the themes are traditionally scenes from folk tales. Apparently it was quite popular in the 1500's. In the US it cought on later, in the 1700's.

I started with a little leaf design, just to try it out and then went for a more complicated piece that I had brewing in my head. I got the original idea from a couple of portraits a friends of mine has of her boys. They are pure black and white, no gray, in a very graphic style. I loved them.

I started with a photo of Baby Girl. Then did a little photo editing to take out the color, increase brightness and contrast, and applied the "cartoon" filter. I then printed out a copy in the size I wanted the end product to be (6"x6"). I used one of the copies to pencil in the lines for the shadowed areas so that I had crisp lines. I then photocopied the picture with shadow contours drawn in and used this to draw in the black areas so that I could see where the shadows would be when I stacked the papers. I used these two pictures as templates for the paper cutting. I used card stock weight scrapbook paper. I liked the thickness of the paper even though it made it a little difficult to do the details like the eyelashes. If you want to try paper cutting yourself, Cindy has a tutorial video on her website.

I have plans for more. Buddy Boy is next... or maybe something with Jack-o-lanterns and spider webs. I think I need to buy more paper.

Wordful Wednesday: Six little words

The topic for this week's Wordful Wednesday is to describe your life in six little words. Six words. How do you sum it all up in just six words? Hmm...

"Seeking adventure. Contented domesticity, less ordinary."

I can't resist the urge to elaborate a little bit on my six words.

If you looked at what I do on a daily basis it isn't particularly extraordinary, cook, clean, care for kids, repeat. Often what makes a situation ordinary or extraordinary is your frame of mind. I enjoy having my mental energy to myself. (This isn't true of my time or physical energy.) I can take time to think and dream up all sorts of things. It doen't always go beyond that, but that's OK. I rarely took time to do this when I was working full time. It was all work during the day and taking care of the house and family in the evening, along with more work. It is so much better now.

My husband talks about living the life less ordinary and thinking outside of the box. He does this easily. I don't think that he was ever in the box. I have always found that refreshing although it isn't without it's challenges. I have also felt like I am often living outside of the main stream even if it is mostly in my head. It is kind of nice out here once you get used to it. Does everyone feel this way or is it just me? For now we are having fun with the kids and setting the stage for future adventures. I am happy with where we are, but also looking forward to the future.

What six words describe YOUR life?



More Wordful Wednesday here

The crow that got Gimp'd

I have been playing with Gimp, the open source version of photoshop. I love that it is free and can do a lot. It does take a lot to learn. So I am laboriously going through the learning curve. If you've used photoshop before it would be pretty easy.

I made a new header for Halloween with text from the Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe. The photo is of a crow, not actually a raven, that I took in the backyard. The crows are everywhere in the fall and winter. It can be a little creepy.

Happy Halloween!

Fun and stuff

Beach...
Friends were in town and we joined in the fun.
New chair cover...
It's just an old Ikea chair, but I like it so I made a new cover when the old one wore out. This time, no white. White chairs and kids don't mix.

Wet...

It's been hot so we get wet to cool off.

Zoobs...

Fun new toys. We built motorcycles and bugs and of course, glasses.

Kitty...

She loves kitties and chalk. Fortunately it comes off the walls easily.