Collage for Rain's Art and Dinner Date

 Hi everyone.

It's Thursday, and that means it is time for Rain's Art and Dinner Date challenge challenge. 

This week Rain's theme is collage. The collage I am sharing today  also works for Mia's challenge at Art Journal Journey where the challenge is Add a Photo.

For my page I collaged lots of bits of various papers. I also added the old vintage photo (from a TH photo set) as well as some little assorted colored plastic dots and some old buttons. I decided to title my page Modern Girls,  because even though it is 1927, I'm sure these two  feel very fashionable and modern in their fancy coats and hats. And to make it a little different from the usual I wrote the title around each side of the photo. 

As far as food goes this week, there's been a little bit going on in my kitchen, besides the usual daily food making.  First of all, I made a batch of 14 bean soup.

I soaked my beans overnight and used a box of chicken stock as my base. Here's my other ingredients except for the onion I had already chopped and added to the stock in the pot before I thought of taking this photo.

And of course here's the beans. I used one of those bags of 14 mixed beans. I love the colors and assorted textures in this bean photo.

It was yummy.  And almost like stew. Looking at this I think I really need to make some pea soup next.

There were also 2 bananas left over from our Costco purchase that I mentioned last week. They really needed to be used. I used this recipe from an old bread cookbook I have, The Tassajara Bread Book. It makes a yeasted bread that calls for 2 ripe bananas.

I probably should have cut the dough into 3 pieces instead of 2 because this loaf in the foreground is gigantic.

This bread is really delicious and has a subtle banana, cinnamon and orange taste (as you add some orange zest to it also).  It's a great recipe, but I don't think this section of the cookbook is set up the best. If you're a  newbie at bread making, I think it might drive you crazy. I had to go back and forth between the base recipe and  the banana bread recipe, but I had it figured out. Smile. I also made some cinnamon butter to put on the bread which was a great pairing. 

Thanks for visiting, and happy rest of your week and weekend ahead.

Glass

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

Today for Rain's Art and Dinner date the theme is glass. You would think that would be an easy topic, but I was a bit stuck.  I could take photos of drinking glasses, through my glass windows, or even of my actual glasses I wear for seeing. But I didn't really feel inspired by any of those ideas.

I decided I would share a few pages from my holiday art journal that relate to glass in some broad sense of the word.

A glass or glass-like mug.

Glass windows in this (above)  house image.

Another glass window. And below the silver paper moon below could almost be glass-like.

And here's a photo of some not-so-smooth as glass ice on the lake where my mother-in-law's house is.

Then I remembered that back in 2017 I visited the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. Here's  just a few photos from that visit.

This museum is huge, and the glass they display here is amazing. When you buy a ticket to get in, the ticket is good for 2 days. We spent a good part of a day here, and these few photos in my post don't even begin to show you what we saw. 

And for the dinner part of Rain's art and dinner date, let me show you a couple of snapshots from my New Year's Eve day lunch. My husband and I happened to be in Manchester, New Hampshire, and we stopped at one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Fratello's. 

I mostly filled myself up between the salad and their delicious breadsticks.

And when my baked pasta dish arrived, I could barely eat much of it at all. But that was OK; it travels well in a doggy bag. Both my husband and myself could have the rest of it for our New Year's Day meal.

I think this post is long enough for one day. For those of you who I only "see" at the end of the week, I wish you a happy New Year and hope it's started off well.

T Stands for Pumpkins and Other Babbling

 Hi everyone. Happy T Day to everyone who stops by with their drink related posts. I hope those of you in the US enjoyed the holiday weekend and didn't eat too much either. I didn't exactly succeed when it came to food self control. There was just too much good food. Now it's back to food moderation for me.

Speaking of food, I tried a couple of new recipes last week. First of all I made a pumpkin chocolate chip bundt cake, which tasted delicious. The only issue was I de-panned it too early, and since the cake was a little too warm inside, some of it stuck to the pan, so it didn't look pretty at all. Good thing I didn't need to bring it for Thanksgiving dinner. Smile.

I also tried a new recipe for a pumpkin quiche. I decided instead of making a single large quiche I would make minis and bring them to my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving appetizers.

I will  definitely also use this recipe again. The couple that didn't get eaten were scoffed up by my sister-in-law so she could have them for breakfast the next day. I won't paste the recipes here, but if anyone is interested let me know and I'll share them.

I even have a pumpkin drink to share for my drink for T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. On Thanksgiving my husband's 25 year old niece Ally made a pitcher of pumpkin margaritas. Ally always finds the most interesting drinks to make. I don't have the recipe for this one, but I really liked it and managed to have 2 of these before dinner. (Good thing there were plenty of appetizers to go along with the pumpkin quiches. Smile.)

During the weekend my husband and I kept busy. We went and chopped our Christmas tree one morning at the Christmas tree farm in our town.

The hubby also put together a windbreak for my bee hive, and I helped him install it.

It looks on the large size (and it is) because hopefully next year I'll have 2 hives and  this temporary structure should fit them both.

It does look a bit like a garbage dump when you look in on the open side. I have bags  of leaves around the bottom to keep the cold out. And if you look carefully at the photo, all the little black spots you see, especially at the base of the hive and on the left plastic, are bees. It was a warm November day (around 50 degrees F or 10 degrees C) Sunday when we put the wind break in place, and the bees were out in full force. Too bad there isn't anything blooming for them to get pollen from.

And finally on Black Friday afternoon my husband and I went and did a bit of shopping. We don't go to typical Black Friday mall/shopping plaza type  stores, so other than when we went to Harbor Freight Tools, which was full of men filling up their shopping baskets (not exaggerating), we really didn't have lots of crowds. My husband wants a couple of things for his boat for Christmas, so we hit the marine/boat supply store. There was only one other customer there. The hubby picked out what he wanted, and the trailer jack, which was the most expensive piece, was 40% off so he's happy Santa is bringing him his wish list, and I'm happy I also saved a good amount of cash.

We also hit the 2 big box hardware stores in our area (Lowe's and Home Depot), and I found something in Lowe's that I really want for my art space.

It's not as big as most tool storage units are, and I like that it's on wheels and has the butcher block top. We took its dimensions and when we got home my husband and I measured the spot where I would put it in my art space. It actually would fit better than my tall plastic storage holders and would definitely be a lot sturdier.

And so Friday evening we went back to Lowe's.

I splurged and bought myself an early Christmas gift. Smile. And I was going to be so frugal on Black Friday- ha-ha -that didn't happen. 

Of course now I need to wait for Christmas before I can  use it because we need more strength than my husband and myself to carry it from the basement garage to the second floor. The new son-in-law will be here for Christmas, and he can help. (I  am sure he is glad we volunteered him-smile.)  Even though I have to wait, it does give me something to look forward to, besides seeing my daughter and her husband  for the holiday that is. 

OK, I think I've babbled on  enough for  this week. I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead. 

Trick? or Treat?

Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. This week is going by too fast. I've been trying to get some must do chores completed (clean up all the books in my daughter's room before she comes home this weekend and get the bees partially winterized), and I haven't had any art time, sadly. Luckily I always work on several pages at once so I do have some things to share today.

Since we are so close to Halloween, it is time for some spooky art again. My art today is  on the dark side.  I am joining Elle's Fairytales, Folktales and Fables: Tell Me a Story challenge over at Art Journal Journey

Now to explain my page. In many fairy tales someone dies, often a princess's or young woman's mother or father who might even be the king or queen. And often there is an old crone (you don't hear that word very often, do you?)  who brings some magic potion which, if it doesn't kill you, might put you to sleep for years. You may drink that potion or maybe it's in the form of a magic apple so some other treat.

My page is in my Halloween altered book.  You can decide if this woman is the "old crone" who is delivering the potion or if she is the poor person who received it. I did some inking of the background, and then layered 2 pieces of ephemera. The photo is not an actual photo but from an ancient collage sheet.  All the potions are images I either stamped, colored and fussy cut or they are ones I drew and added. I also added some bits of cut out paper I had to make a couple of "corners" on my page, and I also added lots of little foamy bits. 

 Today is  Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date , and this week her challenge is Trick? or Treat? I think my spooky page also (in a broad sense) works for that because often in fairy tales the treat ends up being a trick. 

And here's a couple of fun Trick or Treat pages  I made in 2019.

And for the dinner date part of this post, I have this super yummy leftover meal.

 Every once in a blue moon I get a hankering for pot roast. I made one last week, and it was a yummy meal. However,  we still had a bit of left overs, but not enough for 2 people for a second meal. My solution,  I made hash.

I fried up some chopped onion and  peppers, then I added the leftover roasted potatoes and carrots along with the leftover beef. I served this with a couple of fried eggs on top. 

I find this is just as yummy as the original roast was. And this made extra servings so now I have lunch for a couple of days also, all from a tiny piece of leftover pot roast. I love it when things work out that way.

That's all for me today. Thanks for visiting. 

A Poem

Hi everyone. I hope your week is going well, and you're coping with the heat everyone, everyplace, seems to have. 

I'll stat my post today with another page for Wendy's Door and/or Arches challenge at Art Journal Journey.

The red partial door was printed on an ad for a clothing store. It came as I cut it out, so you see the same partial door as I received on the mailing. 

I began by layering the door along with some textured and also printed paper. 

The base background is made on some lined paper, and I stamped (in light grey) the smaller line images you see on the right. I also inked the far right of the page with red and light brown ink. Then I used a Sharpie and a white pen to outline the far left edge for a bit more of a finished look.

Another find while doing the big clean were all the number stickers. These are really old and are back from my scrapbooking days.   I used a few as well as adding the leaf/flower/berry image. I added a few other details like the green paint pen edges and the sequins.  My page still looked a bit unfinished at this point, so I added the 2 TH women and also the short quote.

My quote is poem-like today because it is Thursday and time for Rain's Art and Dinner Date. This week her theme is poems. 

And here's a couple of journal pages from back in 2017 when the theme at Art Journal Journey was Poetry in Motion. These 2 pages had  poems on them.

And I  have a food photo for the dinner part of Rain's Art and Dinner Date. This summer the hubby and I have been eating lighter, and one thing we frequently eat is salads. The other night we made one and then added some left over chicken tenders as well as a  hard boiled egg and some shredded cheese.

I was having a hard time getting the colors of my salad photo to come out and make it look appealing. Sorry it doesn't have normal salad colors.

The most exciting part of this salad was that I picked my first cucumber from my garden. Last year none ever grew my garden. 

That's it for me. Stay as cool as my cucumber in this hot July weather.  

 

Hope This Post Doesn't Make You Yawn-Or Drool- A Little Creative Peak

It was great weekend for me. It was pretty low key and quiet, with lots of play time. I finished knitting my pink Christmas stocking and started another one. I Gelli printed, helped my daughter pick out fabrics and work out some details for a quilt she is making, baked cookies and pop-overs, and made a big pot of stew. Having such an arty and creative weekend makes me feel good, even if it is Monday and another work week begins, which isn't all that exciting of a thought on this morning.

So first, let me feed you.

I used up some red, white and green chocolate candies left over from Christmas to make these cookies. Since I've been teaching cell division at school I thought they looked like mitosis cookies, but it was easy to cleave them into 2. And they tasted yummy. They've been devoured and are all gone--thank goodness!

Saturday morning the hubby took my daughter and myself out for brunch at this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant near us. They have the most delicious and HUGE breakfasts. An added plus is they aren't very expensive!  I had hash and eggs, since it was lunch time by the time we managed to get there. 

I didn't need to eat the rest of the day after this.

And Sunday as it poured rain all day, I made some stew and popovers.

Now let me show you the other creative endeavors.

 My daughter cutting fabric bears for her quilt.

I made some Gelli prints.

I printed on some old patterned and colored paper in my stash. I was happy to use up some less than thrilling sheets of paper.  Here's a few close ups.

They look much more exiting in my photos than in real life.  Ha-ha.
That was my weekend in a nutshell. How was yours?
I appreciate you stopping by and putting up with my babbling.
Hope to see you again soon!