I loved taking that Souvenir Foto School course that did in February, I learned so much from the instructors, and also from fellow students. Jamie is one of those fellow students that blew me away from her very first photo. I will admit I spent a lot of time in Photoshop trying to emulate her gorgeous, soft, creamy shots. I learned a lot about Photoshop in the process, but could never come close to the end results that Jamie got. I was thrilled when she opened an etsy shop, and now am honoured that is offering one of her photographs to one of my readers!
I would love this tree one blown up - I could stare into those leaves all day. I should probably just get this to replace that old tree our back!
To enter the giveaway, please visit Jamie's Etsy shop HERE, then come back and leave a comment with the photo you would choose if you won. Yup, winner gets to choose the print, up to 8 x 10 in size!
For extra entries, you have lots of options, just leave a comment for each one you complete:
Follow my blog over there on the right! I love seeing new faces over there. :)
Follow Jamie's sweet blog - her friend's baby bump photos on there now are the cutest I have seen.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the deadline! You can enter up to Sunday evening at 8 pm. I will announce the winner on Monday (and I may even have more goodies to give away!).
Her stuff is so dreamy... Wouldn't that cloudy sky be lovely in a nursery? And I love the of having all the food shots be lovely grouped together in a kitchen. They just make me think of fresh summer air and wispy curtains. What do you think?
Well, miracle of all miracles, my poor little lemon tree produced a lemon. This tree started out with an abundance of gorgeous fragrant blossom, but seemed to go downhill from there. It got spiders and some sort of mould, which I battled in the summer. It is losing leaves daily, it looks withered and sad, and we were all convinced it was dying a slow and laborious death. However, in spite of all this, the two tiny fruit it had sprouted continued to grow and turn yellow and last week one fell off into my hands. My own little Meyer lemon!
I figured I had to do something special with it! Someone in my photo course suggested lemon curd, and that sounded like just the ticket - a nice treat that will last for a little while. I found this recipe and am happy to say that it is delicious (although decidedly UN-healthy). It is like having lemon merengue pie whenever you want! I made some scones to eat it with on the weekend, but they disappeared in an instant. I decided to use a crumpet for my impromptu photo shoot instead. Deeelish!
I can't wait to see what becomes of little lemon number 2 - he doesn't seem to be faring well, but this tree seems intent on surprising me...
I received this book for Christmas and have been religiously perfecting my bread with this recipe. I am still on the basic boule, but have discovered that my super-fancy (& overpriced) oven is 25 degrees under temperature, that parchment paper works better than cornmeal for me, and that muffin tins make great water trays. I also re-discovered how amazing bread in the oven makes the house smell!
It is a good thing I am running, because I have been eating a LOT of bread. Damn good bread, if I do say so myself! I look forward into branching out into some of their adaptations, like olive bread. Yummmm.
"The falling leaves, drift by my window, the autumn leaves, of red and gold...." I have had that song stuck in my head all day long! We have been doing all sorts of autumn leaves-related projects around here, and when I found this cookie cutter at Michael's I knew I wanted to make "Falling Leaves" sugar cookies. I don't normally do anything too strenuous around Thanksgiving food- or decor-wise. Until about 4 years ago, we really had no family to celebrate with and honestly just enjoyed it as a long weekend, maybe visiting with some friends from home. We also didn't eat turkey until recently! But now that we are our own little family, it seems appropriate to make a little more effort. (That, and I am Suzy Homemaker now, professionally-speaking.) :)
The boys love helping out in the kitchen anyway, so it wasn't difficult to talk them into it. Just look at those eager beavers... The little guy was of course covered in flour before we were two minutes in...
I made a glaze icing (using corn syrup instead of butter) since they seem to yield brighter colours. I went with green, red, yellow, orange and brown. With the differently-coloured bowls, icing, and spoons it made for a LOT of colour... I will put the recipe at the end of the post.
Then we had fun painting. We mixed colours with spoons and tooth picks and I must say the boys made some really beautiful cookies!
The cookie recipe I used came with the cookie cutter: Roll-Out Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 3/4 cups all-pupose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Preheat over to 400F. In mixer bowl (or if you are old-school like me, with a hand mixer) cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approx. 1/8 inch thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 6-7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
The icing recipe I adapted from one online: Sugar Cookie Glaze Icing
1 cup confectioners sugar (adding more to desired consistency)
1 tbsp light corn syrup
2 tbsp water
food colouring
Because some colours needed more drops of food colouring than others, I added more sugar to keep them on the thick side - if they were too runny they would run off the cookie and on to the tray.
So what are your Thanksgiving traditions and recipes? I definitely need to add to my repertoire. Style at Home has a ridiculous array of ideas for food and decor - this recipe looks especially yummy. House and Home also has come great decorating ideas that I may attempt, but I am going to try to stick with projects the boys can help out with. Here are some awesome ideas my friend Blake wrote about for Canadian Parent, including gratitude rolls - genius and delicious. Most of the American design sites aren't as crammed with suggestions yet, I guess don't have the same deadline looming this weekend!
I leave you with this, so you can hum along with me - for the next few days at least:
Our wee garden has produced quite a bit of food for us in the last few weeks! The cherry tomatoes are like candy and the boys just love taking a break from playing out back to have an impromptu snack. We also got several cucumbers (although I have not yet tested them for bitterness), jalapeno peppers, tons of herbs, and beautiful Swiss chard in red and yellow. I used some yesterday in a pizza and I must say - it was delicious!
We don't have a lot of cutting flowers to bring indoors, but in trimming one of the hydrangeas out front I got enough branches for a mantel bouquet. I think this is the Oak Leaf variety? Our big Annabelle puff balls have stayed green all summer and didn't turn white at all - anyone have any idea why? Ah, the mysteries of gardening...
'Tis the season for cool backyard treats, and I happily jumped on the homemade popsicle bandwagon this summer. My ever-eager kitchen assistant was a fantastic sous-chef, measuring, pouring, and of course, taste-testing. Our first attempt was blueberry-yogurt pops, the recipe for which came with the moulds (rocket ships - of course).
I don't have the recipe anymore, but here is practically the exact same recipe, from The Gracious Pantry:
Ingredients
2 cups non fat yogurt
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup agave (honey is okay too)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
Directions
1) place your ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth
2) pour carefully into each more
3) freeze overnight
The real fun of course comes the next day when you get to eat them! Or, since they are rocket ships, fly them with much noise and commotion until they drip down your arm. Your choice, really.
Now to be honest, these didn't turn out as well as the kids let on. I think my frozen blueberries were too old and dried out, making the popsicle too dry as well. But I did not give up, and recently, thanks to this great article by Blake Eligh, made some Greek Yogurt and Strawberry pops as explained by Cup of Jo. They are much better, and some may disappear while the kids are napping...
Are they worth the effort when I could pop over to the store and get some already made?
I think they are because 1) I know what is in them, 2) it is a great activity for the kids on a hot summer day, 3) it teaches them that some things are worth waiting for, 4) when they eat them they can proudly explain "I made these Mummy!" (maybe I was their sous-chef?) 5) they taste waaaaay better. But there is certainly room in my life for corner store freezies and ice-cream truck delights too!
Do you have any fun summer recipes or activities to share? Seriously, I am running out of ideas...
I love how the internet is full of visual wisdom... or wisdom in visual form? Or... stuff you agree with that is pretty to look at. Yeah, that. While winter isn't sucking at the moment (love all this snow), it would definitely be less enjoyable without clementines, wouldn't you agree? Now... carry on with whatever you were doing before you started reading this inane post... Thanks for the visual, um, thing Melanie. Artwork by Dan Meth.
Man this time of year is nutty! It is the craziest of all for me at work, and of course Christmas with family on either side of the country is always a bit of a zoo. And for some reason I decided that this year it would be a good idea to reinstate out annual Christmas party (which has been on hold since the birth of our first little guy). The party is this weekend, and I have something after work every day leading up to it, and have had my folks visiting last weekend until this morning. Brilliant planning Lisa. However, I stumbled upon this great article from the New York Times Minimalist blog: 101 Simple Appetizers in 20 Minutes or Less. Sign me up! I'll let you know if any of them work! Anyone else have a great and easy appetizer to share?
We are all decked out in green today in honour of St Paddy's Day! And on Shelterrific, I found this recipe for Guinness cupcakes, which would totally be worth making even if you couldn't care less about St Patrick's Day - hello BEER and CUPCAKES. What more is there?
Find it here - and if you make them, tell me how they turn out! Or better yet - give me one!! :)
a great and easy appetizer to share?
