Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
Well, one of my pics has, anyway! A few months ago I was asked by the publisher of Leading Lights if my picture of the Biloxi lighthouse taken just after the hurricane (you can also see it here on Flickr) could be used in their publication, and I told them sure! Just last week, I received two copies of the magazine, and there it was!
I’ve got short hair (short to me!) now. I love long hair, and I’ve had it the vast majority of my life – but last week I went to my stylist to ask her to cut about 10″ or 11″ of my hair so I could donate it to ‘Locks of Love‘.
It’s so different to have short hair – it’s still long enough to put in a ponytail, but it’s nice in that I think it will look cute with pretty barrettes…and I’ll be able to curl or straighten it without the whole process taking a good hour each time! hahaha! Best of all, it makes me feel good to know that this will really help another person. That’s the *very* best part.
The last time I donated to Locks of Love, I got a sweet postcard from them in the mail a few weeks after I sent them the package, which is nice.
More information about donating to them can be found here.
Av had some work to do in Montgomery this past week, so I spent a little time at the state archives in Montgomery. I’ve been there before, but it’s been a few years. All the pics are here in my Flickr photostream.
Hancock had their trims on sale 40% off this weekend – so I went and picked these five up:
Okay, I had to put my new travel bag Av got for me a couple of weeks ago in this pic!
He had it embroidered with my name and everything! Soooooo cute.
Since I’m going to be redecorating our bedroom next month, this was the perfect opportunity to go ahead and buy some of the trim pieces I’ll be using for pillows and other little projects. I can’t wait to get started!
Also – my cupcake plate is back from the paint-your-own pottery shop. This is how it turned out after firing:
It’s really so much cuter in person, though! Leslie – I picked your soup cup up too, and it is *so good* – I’m not putting a pic of it here because I want to surprise you!
I’ve seen the promotions for the new Martha Stewart dvds, so I added them to my Netflix queue. The first one I got was ‘Martha Stewart Homemade Holidays’ which is geared for Christmas and Chanukah (I know, I’m a little late!).
The dvd has seven main categories – Christmas supper, baking recipes, decorating ideas, ornaments, a Chanukah section, and sections for homemade gifts and gift wrapping.
The Chanukah section has three things: a gelt bag, a recipe for her latkes, and Claudia Roden making zalabia. The handmade gifts section has five different projects: a velvet frame, polar fleece hats (which are *so* cute), a button necklace (which I made – pics from that project below), a magnetic chalkboard, and a candy wreath teacher’s gift.
The ‘special features’ on the dvd are just links to direct your internet browser to the page on the MS website where they have instructions for the different projects – and I *think* that these projects are maybe all from the older Martha Stewart Living shows…so it’s not entirely new content (so I’m glad I put these on my Netflix queue rather than buying them).
The button necklace that’s demonstrated on the dvd is so pretty…I went to Hancock Fabrics (for the buttons, but I found these pretty shell-like pieces and used those instead) and Hobby Lobby for the supplies.
The supplies for the necklace are: nylon beading string, pretty buttons or shells with holes (around 60-80), crimp beads, clasp closure, jump rings, and needle-nose pliers.
Note: this is my first time making a necklace like this…the directions for the button necklace can be found at the Martha Stewart site here, so if you like the way this turned out and want to try it yourself, definitely print out and go by their directions as well – mine *so* isn’t perfect – but I don’t think anybody would ever know! hahaha!
First, cut the beading string into five strings that are at least 40″ in length (I liked 44″ better).
Fold each of the strings in half, and at about 2″ from each string’s end, tie a knot:
Slip a button or shell down one of the strings, and tie a knot…you want these knots to be about 1″ apart.
Keep slipping buttons/shells and tying knots until you get until about 2″ from the other end of the strings, and make one final knot. Now, do this same thing to the other four strands (you don’t have to do five strands – just however many you think you’ll like best).
Grasp the ends of the five finished lines and crimp them with your crimp bead using the pliers. Do the same thing to the other side. I added a jumpring to both ends, then added the closure to one of them. All done!
Tonight I was just *so* in the mood to make something with Sculpey. My Tivo had recorded the DIY Network show “Jewelry Making with Jackie Guerra” – and oday’s episode had three people on who made jewelry with Sculpey clay. One lady made these really pretty flowers with Sculpey, and as she was describing some of her techniques, I was thinking about how I could use some of her ideas to make my favorite sushi roll – the bagel roll – out of Sculpey and turn it into a magnet.
Here’s how I made the Sculpey sushi magnets:
(above:) To get the color of the salmon, I just took mostly red, some yellow, and some orange Sculpey, and mixed the colors together in my hands, then ran them through the manual pasta machine several times. Once the color was right, I shaped it into a somewhat square shape.
(above:) I made several incisions all the way through the square with my craft clay razor and inserted pieces of white sculpey that had been conditioned in the pasta machine between each section (I made six or seven cuts total, so finished it would mimic the look of salmon). Once that was done, I cut all sides of the salmon piece so that each side was neat. I then rolled that between my hands to make it a longer piece.
(above:) I’ve taken the salmon piece, and next to it I’ve put just a solid white ‘snake’ of pure white (to mimic the cream cheese) about the same length as the salmon piece. Around all this, I’ve wrapped a sheet of black Sculpey.
(above:) I rolled this all together to get it to be longer.
(above:) I wrapped a piece of transparent Sculpey around that, rolled it a little more, then cut off just the very tip of each end to make a neat surface.
(above:) The transparent Sculpey is a very good color for the rice, but I wanted the sushi pieces to have the texture of rice, too. I just took a thin sheet of transparent that I had conditioned in the pasta machine, and pinched off tiny little pieces, rolled them between my fingers, and made tiny rice shapes. I rolled the sushi through my little scattering of rice a few times and filled in any empty spots too.
(above:) Once all that was done, I just took my craft clay razor and cut six even slices.
(above:) Here they are, ready to be set in the oven.
(above:) These went in the oven at 275*, and were done in about 18 minutes.
(above:) They only take a little while to cool off. Once they were cool, I glued a magnet onto one side of each of the sushi pieces with my hot glue gun.
(above:) All done! They’re so neat – Av was super-impressed and thought that they really did resemble bagel rolls without me even telling him what I was trying to do! I’ve got them on my refrigerator now, and I’ll probably give a couple of them away to friends as tiny little no-special-occasion surprises.
Av and I decided that this was the perfect time to make our bottle tree. We figured that right after Christmas, when our neighbors were putting their trees on the curb, we would take one and use it (after all, Christmas trees are manageable-size trees, with many limbs – perfect for bottle-hanging!) for our project.
We laughed when we wondered what on earth our friends would think if they saw Av picking up a Christmas tree in early January and bringing it back to our house! Now, that would be hard to explain! 🙂
(above:) Av brought the tree over to the yard….
(above:) we went to K-Mart and bought this tree stand at 50% off (hoping we wouldn’t run into anybody! No, really – this is for a bottle tree! Sure… hahahaha!!)
(above:) We took pruners and chopped the branches down to a few inches each. This took no time at all…
(above:) here’s the tree about 75% done…
(above:) We just placed the tree in the holder (later we’ll make the base more secure with a concrete, but for now, this was perfect)…
(above:) Av topped the tree with a bottle of Abita Restoration Ale…
(above:) Here’s the bottle tree, almost finished! The blue and red bottles look the prettiest.
We’re really wild about the bottle tree – it’s in the side yard, where we plant the garden each year, and we can see it from the dining room window, which is a plus too. I know they’re not for everyone, but they’re a big part of traditional Southern folklore, and I love it when we’re driving around and see them in other people’s yards. BTW, Eudora Welty took pictures of them when she was doing WPA work, and mentioned them in her short story, Livvie.
My friend Leslie and I had the best time doing these paint-it-yourself pottery pieces yesterday! I chose this cupcake plate, and Leslie did the huge soup cup with these neat dots all over. It was so much fun! We get to pick them up late next week – I can’t wait to see how they’ll turn out!
I’ve always thought about how much fun it would be to own a paint-your-own pottery shop…Leslie and I were talking about it, and she said what would make it really neat would be to make it a place where you could do all kinds of crafts – not just pottery or mosaics, but other things like soap-making, candle-making, beading, scrapbooking, knitting, crocheting, etc. That is a *great* idea…I can just see it – a huge open space with lots of worktables, then some smaller spaces, where people could come in and lounge around on a couch and work on their knitting projects.
…maybe a daycare area so people could bring their kids…
*So* neat! I think she came up with an awesome idea! Now all we have to do is actually do it! hehehehehe! Seriously, though…hmmm…..
For our family Chanukah supper, I made this ultra-kitsch snowman as part of the dessert (I also served cupcakes and beignets), inspired by the marshmallow man in the book “Merry Kitschmas” (at Amazon here), which is full of similar projects.
(I just enjoy kitschy little projects for informal parties, which I think are really funny and lighten everything up!)
My mother-in-law loves snowmen, and I made this for her — it was **so** kitschy and tacky — a huge joke that everybody got a big kick out of!
Av *loves* peanut brittle (I like peanuts but not peanut brittle), so when I was flipping through the December issue of the Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine, I noticed they had what looked like a super-simple recipe for it.
I asked Av to stay out of the kitchen for thirty minutes so I could make him a little surprise – enough for him munch on and to share at the office (as it turns out, his dad likes it so he got half!).
Here’s the recipe for peanut brittle:
1-1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. light Karo syrup
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. butter
1-1/2 c. peanuts (or the recipe says you could use mixed nuts if you like)
splash of vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. baking soda
I took a sheet of parchment paper, put it on a baking sheet, then rubbed butter all over the parchment paper so that the peanut brittle would be sure not to stick. The recipe in the magazine says to use non-stick cooking spray on a plain baking sheet, but I think I like my method a little better (I don’t like those sprays).
In a bowl, stir together the sugar, salt, and Karo until it’s mixed really well, then microwave on high for four minutes. At that point, add in the butter and nuts and stir really well again – then microwave another 4-5 minutes (mine was perfect at 4-1/2 minutes) – it will look a little brown on the top, then as you stir the mixture it will turn a really pretty shade. Take it out of the microwave (carefully – it’s super-hot) and add the vanilla and baking soda, mixing really well. Pour it as soon as it’s all mixed together into your baking sheet. I didn’t need to use a spoon or spatula or anything to spread it out, it was so hot that it sort-of did that all on its own. The brittle takes about 20-30 minutes to harden, then it’s ready to be broken up into pieces and to be eaten. Av *loved* it!
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