Saturday, April 30, 2011

Rocky Mountains, paper dolls and deviled egg recipes (more!)

Hi y'all!
Mt. Evans, Rocky Mountains

Today I am off to the Women's Retreat our church is having in Idaho Springs, CO.  Idaho Springs is an old mining town in the Rocky Mountains.  We will be meeting in the BeauJo's Pizza conference room.  If you don't have a BeauJo's pizza around, I am sad for you. Their pizzas are YUM! You don't order by the diameter size, you order by the pound!

I will be leading a small devotional on prayer, and teaching the napkin decoupage on glass technique later.  You can find the tutorial in an earlier blog.
yeah, I still don't know why this one is sideways!
We are also building time in the schedule for chatting and getting to know one another. Really, you can't have a Women's Retreat without coming into it knowing that we like to talk!

There will also be things to do if you finish your projects early. Among other things, we are going to play with paper dolls! Cathy has the most wonderful magnetic paper dolls. I have never seen anything like them. The clothes are like magnetic fiber paper or something. I am looking forward to researching this further at a later time.

I will be bringing my big Barbie dress up folder, with re-usable stickers. Way fun. Of course I have a Barbie one? Did you doubt it?

Golden Angel Barbie, c.2006
and no, I don't have this one. Boo hoo.

Since I will be playing with paper dolls, I thought you might like to also!
Here is a great Twiggy paperdoll, courtesy of OrigamiBears.
I picked her because of the bright colors in her costumes!






"Educating the mind without educating the heart
is no education at all."
- Aristotle

c.1908

Here is another fun paper doll for you to play with:


"Hobbit House" by MyGardenRocks, etsy.
She does wonderful rock painting!
Mountain lamb, Denver Zoo

c.1903

I realized that I have not given out any more deviled egg recipes!
My oops.
So, here are a couple more,
just in case you are still wading your way
 through mountains of hard boiled Easter eggs!

From Ladies Home Journal '100 Great Appetizer and Snack Recipes' :

Curried Stuffed Eggs

8 large hard cooked eggs, halved
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbs sour cream
1 Tbs chutney
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
Paprika for garnish

Place the egg yolks, mayonnaise, sour cream, chutney, curry, salt and pepper in a blender or food processor.
Process until mixture is smooth.
With a pastry bag or spoon, fill egg white halves.
Sprinkle with paprika to garnish.
Makes 16 half eggs.

tips:
>I never let the lack of a food processor stop me. I can cream most things with my hand mixer.
>No pastry bag? Put everything into a Baggie. Snip a hole in one bottom corner. Squeeze out through hole for a controled piping of contents.
>>This also works GREAT for piping chocolate as a decoration,
or drizzling glaze/frosting onto a baked goodie.

I picked this next one because it had celery seed, and some other tweaked ingredients from previous deviled egg recipes:
Mustard Stuffed Eggs

8 large hard cooked eggs, halved
1/3 Cup mayonnaise
2 Tbs sour cream
1 tsp grated onion
14 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
Snipped fresh chives or parsley sprigs, for garnish

Place the egg yolks, mayonnaise, sour cream, onion, mustard, salt, celery seed, and red pepper in a blender or food processor.
Process mixture until smooth.
With a pastry bag or spoon, fill egg white halves.

Garnish with chives or parsley, if desired.
Makes 16 half eggs.
Time for me to say goodbye for now.
inkspired


Friday, April 29, 2011

Iris, Iris, where are you?

Hi!
I am looking at all the bright green leaves crowded together.
Tall, flat, spiky leaves.
But where, oh where are the lovely iris?
Goddess of Spring Barbie, classical, 2000

The people that owned our house before us had tons of iris bulbs planted.
They then let them grow undisturbed for a couple of years.
When we moved in we were treated to the most beautiful display of iris blooms in the late spring.
These photos were taken previous years, of my garden:
I didn't know that iris came in so many different colors!

This is the color that I get the most requests to have a couple of tubers from:
So now I am waiting for this year's display!
Last fall my husband tried to divide some of them. We gave quite a few tubers to neighbors. He didn't pay attention however of what color he put where. So this year will be a surprise!

"Nature does not hurry,
yet everything is accomplished."
- Lao Tzu

Iris Barbie, c.2001

The following mermaid costume of Liana's will fit
Grace from yesterday, or Ivy from the day before:


Liana has a series of "Monday Mermaids" on her blog.
Check it out, addy to the right of my blog.

Here is another Monday Mermaid.
This one reminds me of the varying colors and stripes some of my iris have:
Oh, and here is the doll that fits it:
Her name is Sylvia.
Let's give her another outfit for today, to honor the Royal Wedding in England:

from ehow.com, their home section:
"The Iris flower is named after Iris, the Goddess of the Rainbow. The Iris flower can come in shades of blue, purple, white, yellow, pink, orange, brown, red and black. The Iris flower is in a genus by itself with between 200 and 300 different varieties and can be found around the world. The Iris flower is hardy from zone 3 to 9 or 10 depending on the variety."

Evil Queen, from Disney's Flower Pin series.




Spring Sun

On the Day of Cold Food
I go out to smell the perfume of the flowers,
Along the bank of the river.
Happy and at ease,
I let the soft East wind bathe my face.
Everywhere the Spring is blazing
With ten thousand shades of blue
And ten thousand colors of red.

by Chu Hsi,
 from 'One Hundred Poems from the Chinese'


Vincent Van Gogh painted several pictures of iris.
Here are three of them:
c.1889

"Still Life with Iris", 1889


"View of Arles with Iris"

"The flowers are smiling again,
The winter is past and gone,
The dandelions are nodding,
And dew is on the lawn."

-vintage verse


Mary Cicely Barker is one of my all time favorite fairy artists.
She is a classic.
She used the faces of children from her sister's pre-school as her fairy faces,
so each is unique!
Her Flower Fairies are charming,
with botanically accurate clothing!
Here is her Iris Fairy:
"Come fairies, take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you upon the wind
and dance upon the mountains like a flame!"
- W.B. Yeats

a vintage vase

Here is Alphonse Mucha's Art Nouveau Iris Lady:
from H. Jackson Brown, Jr.'s
'Life's Little Instruction Book, Volume II':

1. Pay as much attention to the things that are working positively in your life
as you do to those that are giving you trouble.


I'm off to admire my ONE tulip that is blooming!
Have you been outside today?

inkspired



Thursday, April 28, 2011

Is it time for Cherry Blossoms?

Greetings!

I have loved the cherry blossom tree and flowers for quite a long time (we're talking about almost dinosaur ages here).

I have penciled them, watercoloured them, painted them, punched them, rubber stamped them, scherensnitte cut them.....pretty much any way I can be involved in cherry blossoms!
from inkednation blog
 
I'm not really "up to date" when the official Cherry Blossom Festival is in Washington, D.C. Some day I will make a trip there, just to see the blossoms!
Well, okay, and the Smithsonian museums, and the memorials....
Day dreams for now.

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams.
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
tread softly,
because you tread on my dreams."
- W.B. Yeats

That is one of my all time favorite quotes.


Here are some more beautiful costumes for Liana's paper dolls.
Have you checked out her blog yet? She makes almost a costume a day!
Verrrrrry creative.....


Grace, from yesterday's post, will also fit these costumes, as will today's Ivy fit into yesterday's costumes.
The spring green tunic with cherry blossoms is styled in the Vietnamese custom.

Here are some terrific vintage song sheet covers. These are from Indiana's Music Libraries. Check out their site listed to the right of my blog.

c. 1917


I truly love these vintage graphics. I have spent many (too many...) hours at the Indiana Music site. They are a wonderful slice of history.

courtesy of the Vintage Workshop - check out their web store!

According to some of the info on the internet, Chinese cherry blossoms and Japanese cherry blossoms are both revered, but have different meanings for each culture:

Chinese cherry blossoms are a symbol of power, feminine beauty or female dominance. This usually applies to great power and the symbolization of love.

Japanese cherry blossoms are established on or around strong spiritual beliefs. The nature of life is very short lived and it is considered very sensible to not get too close or connected to anything because it will end eventually. (Cherry blossoms bloom for one day only.) It is also a perceived emblem of feminine design. In ancient Japanese culture the warriors carried these symbols by the heart as in the Bushido code of honor and loyalty.

"Break open a cherry tree and there are no flowers,
but the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms."
  ~Ikkyu Sojun
Dolls of the World (DOW) Barbie, 2nd edition Japanese, 1995

c. 1904

 
"Where flowers bloom so does hope."
- LadyBird Johnson

 


c.1914

"Spring hath put a spirit of youth in everything."
- William Shakespeare



Here is  very nice and simple cherry blossom craft, courtesy of



Branch Out:
Cherry blossoms bloom only briefly, but these tissue paper versions can last all spring. Layer a sheet of dark pink paper atop light pink paper. Snip out a five-petal flower that's 2 to 4 inches in circumference. Once cut, reposition the dark pink daisy so the petals won't align with the light pink ones. Twist the center bottom of the flower, wrap with a 3-inch length of floral wire, and hot-glue onto a bare branch. Repeat, varying sizes of flowers so blossoms look realistic.

I hope you have enjoyed my focus on cherry blossoms today.
I would love to see your photos or handiwork with cherry blossoms!
 
Have a beautiful day.
 
"Look deep into Nature,
and then you will understand everything better."
- Albert Einstein

inkspired