• Art - Blog

    SOC 5: week 4

    I was very slow to get a clue with these colors for this Week 4 of The Summer of Color hosted by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle. Between that and a busy holiday week I just didn’t get anything accomplished.

    20150705_8140

    1 red+ 1 red + 1 metallic

    SOC5week4

    I decided at the last moment to throw in the black scribbles and splatters of India ink. They made the page feel a little more grounded.

    Looking for to seeing what tomorrow holds for colors…

  • Blog - Kitchen - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: Juneberry jam edition

    Welcome to yet another edition of T stands for Tuesday hosted by Dr. E aka Elizabeth, caretaker of Bleubeard and Squiggles.

    20150629_8030So what’s a Juneberry you ask? I love putting words in your mouth…makes me feel all powerful and full of myself.

    20090623_2733 But seriously…ever heard of a Juneberry? How about a Saskatoon berry? Or perhaps a Serviceberry? Until recently I didn’t know that they all happen to be the same thing. And even more so…we have a tree in our yard. Wish I’d realized that 12 years ago when it was much smaller!!

    20150629_8044Of course they are much tastier when left until they are a deep purple…but you have to fight the birds for them.

    I found several recipes online for Juneberry jam but decided to go with this low sugar version.

    20150629_8029Isn’t it pretty!?! I ended up with a partial jar that went into the fridge for immediate consumption.

    I’m not a big sweets girl…(unless it’s chocolate…which I’m allergic to but I’m willing to deal with the consequences occasionally but that’s a whole other issue)…so a slightly tart jam suits me just fine. Honestly I haven’t tried it on bread yet…just the spoon. Slightly tart and quite full of seeds. It will depend on if anyone else likes the jam if I bother with all the tedious picking again. It would be interesting to know if you could make wine or mead or some sort of adult beverage from these berries. More research I guess.

    Speaking of research…can anyone help me with the name of this flower?

    20150629_8035I believe it starts with a “C” but I threw out the handy dandy marker that came with the plant. I want to write it down so I can remember to purchase more next year.

    I’m not sure what’s on the docket for today other than talking to my in-laws. The Twin Cities area got hit with some pretty big thunderstorms yesterday…large hail, winds and heavy rain. We got very little hail here and not much of it so the garden is fine. We heard reports of two inch hail in their area  though. UGH..that would be awful!

    I have to show you my rouge bean plants too…I did not buy climbing beans but 4 of my plants have decided to climb.

    20150629_8038I’ll be putting in some bamboo stakes today.

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog

    SOC 5 week 3

    The colors for this Week 3 of The Summer of Color hosted by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle gave me some trouble. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to proceed so I didn’t until today.

    1 purple + 1 purple + 1 yellow

    I happened upon an image of a little girl all in yellow in a magazine ad. I figured she’d work perfect for the yellow portion. I used gel medium to adhere the magazine image to some printer paper so she’d have a little more stability as I cut around her.

    For the background I once again decided to use gelatos…

    SOC5 week3 2

    So far they haven’t failed me. Although I was surprised at how pink the lavender gelato appeared on the page. I decided to just press on since the tube was clearly labeled lavender.

    SOC5 week3 1

    Instead of doing a straight up checker board I went with random rectangles. The blending gave a slightly dreamy quality in my eye.

    SOC5 week3 3

    I searched through my collection of phrase fragments until something came together.

    These colors definitely had me stepping…or perhaps leaping outside my comfort zone. That’s what challenges are for, right?!?!