Silly Sunday - Cheese

We were out for dinner last night and we all seemed to eat a fair amount of cheese.  I love cheese but try it eat it only occasionally....so last night was a bit of a blow out.  I thought for my silly Sunday post, I'd therefore feature cheese!

Here's the first one:  Cheese and cracker soap!

Available on Etsy

They not only look like cheese and crackers, they smell like them too!  But no - they are soap, so don't taste like them! Does that mean that after using the soap you smell of saltine crackers???

Next, cheese handbags.  I wonder how long it would last if you were a little peckish....or maybe you would get a little trail of mice following you????

Fulvio Bonavia

stingler.blogspot.com

And to go with the purses, how about these two dresses made from melted cheese:

http://style.mtv.com/2011/06/01/cheese-dresses/

What cheesy things have you seen this weekend?  I think I've had enough cheese for a while....

Weekly bird in the hand

Here's this week's good stuff - the things I am grateful for:

• A passerby who wished me "have a great afternoon".
• Spending time with good friends who are up visiting us for the weekend.
• Taking a class and learning something new.
• Going to my friend's art show.
• Warm weather (helping the grapes along) and still enjoying eating dinners outside.
• Cooking quince and enjoying all their flavors.
• This time of year. I just love it.
• Picking fruit off the vine or tree and eating it, warmed by the sun.
• The conversation between myself and my hair stylist.  It's such a different relationship from all others and  I always look forward to our chats.
• Seeing frogs jumping.
• Planning our trip back to the UK in 3 weeks time.
• Sharing green smoothies with friends!

One thing I am sad about this week however is that our friends from England who were due to arrive yesterday and share the grape harvest with us, had to cancel their trip due to ill health.  Here's hoping J gets better soon and that they can come another time instead.

Hope you've had a week full of things to be grateful for too.

Willow birdhouse - Part II

So here is my finished woven birdhouse:

I was really pleased with it.  The weaving seems secure and it all holds itself together well.  Our instructor gave us the option of decorating the houses with lichen and seeds and nuts and other things, but in my usual minimalist style, I left it as it is, with willow for the base and the roof woven in leaves.

My friends' houses came out great too. Here is Elisa with her large house, where the roof is made from eucalyptus bark and the house is decorated with twigs with lichen:

And here is Monique's house with her flower style roof made from leaves. Isn't it fabulous:

This final photo shows Monique with Cheri on the right - our instructor. 

It was wonderful day and I do think I'll be trying willow weaving again sometime....especially as I have a weeping willow tree in my garden.

Have you tried anything new recently?

Willow birdhouse class - Part I

This week I took a class in Sebastopol to make a twined (woven) willow birdhouse. Another new technique to learn!

I had purchased this class at a silent auction to benefit Bouverie, a local environmental and wildlife non profit that I used to be on the board of.  The class was for three of us, so off I went with two French friends to Cheri's home.

Elisa concentrating hard

What a great day we all had! Cheri had been collecting willow and bark and leaves etc and had soaked them all the previous day in a big bathtub she has outside.

Monique

We began by selecting 8 long willow sticks and holding them in a cross.  Another willow stick was then twined around these to make the base of the birdhouse.  The stick was twisted and woven and when it got short, we had to figure out how to add another.

It was awkward at first - holding everything and getting the twist correct, but then you get into a rhythm and it goes fine for a while, until you stop and forget where you are! 

The next challenge was shaping from the base up to the sides. There is no real technique for this - you just have to think about it and gradually bend the willows upwards.

Then there needs to be a little door for the birdies to come in and out of, so that meant changing direction of the weaving.

We had a wonderful lunch half way through our class - which was much needed, as we were all concentrating hard!

The rain just poured down all day, so it was lovely to be busy inside.  I'll show you the finished houses tomorrow......

41/52 Bird a week - Soar

This week's bird is one I started at the end of September. For September's Merry Go Round blog post, I wrote a tutorial on how to make a sculpture with plaster wrap, but I didn't finish off the sculpture.  Yes, you may have guessed that it was a bird, and so I finished him off today for this week's birdie "Soar".  

I had planned on painting him in acrylic paints, but in the end, I decided to use tissue paper instead. 

Doesn't he look like he is just soaring....so effortlessly.....!

You can read the plaster wrap tutorial here.  Plaster wrap is similar to the material they used to use to put a plaster on your arm or leg when you broke a bone! It's a great and quick material to use and you can then finish your sculpture in whatever way to choose.

I hope you soar this week!

If you want to see the other birdies created this week as part of the challenge, check the links below:

Della Fattoria Ranch dinners

We went to a lovely al fresco dinner on Saturday night at the Della Fattoria Ranch. Della Fattoria are local bakers and in the summer and fall, they occasionally hold dinners at their ranch.  This was our first time there and it was a delightful event. 

The setting was beautiful, the appearance of the food was gorgeous and it was all so tasty.  It was a great way to spend a fall evening with friends. This time of year is just my favorite.  Hope you are enjoying it too.

Happy Thanksgiving Canadians

Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends in Canada today!

Silly Sunday - Apples bite back

There I was enjoying my harvest, and dehydrating my fruit....and now I look at it all a little differently as the apples bite back!!!:

Photos from http://www.interactivelunacy.com/funnyphotos/funnyfoodphotos.html

Watch out for those apples!

Weekly bird in the hand

Here is this week's bird in the hand - all about food:

• Harvest time.  It seems my week has been full of fruit from our garden - apples, pears, green table grapes and now the figs are just ripening!  What a perfect time of the year. And the main grape harvest is yet to come!
• My aga.  The aga is our stove in the kitchen, but we don't use it in the summer when the weather is too warm.  This Monday I turned it back on and it's like a friend has returned to stay!  Yummy...lots of baked sweet potatoes, roasted vegetables, tasty comfort food...and a place to warm yourself when you come in from the cold.

My colorful Aga cooker

• My dehydrator. It's been working flat out this week!  I have an excalibur dehydrator - a wonderful machine, and it's been busy dehydrating apples, grapes to make sultanas (golden raisins), and blended grapes to make fruit leathers.  The last of the sultanas and grape leathers are finishing as I type this...then it's back to more apples.   We are eating the pears fresh as they are so heavenly and juicy, but if we can't keep up with them, we may have to start dehydrating them too!

Dried yummy apples from our trees

Hope you've had a fruitful week too!

Our own sultanas in the making!

Stained glass windows

While I haven't been making much jewelry recently, I have been busy learning new things - namely Adobe Photoshop.  I want to do more stained glass window bangles, but I've never grasped Photoshop and as I need to do some photo manipulation, I've been working through the AdobeTV tutorials. They are really are good. 

When I was at the cathedral in SF on Sunday, I took quite a few photos of the windows there and so have lots of material to jiggle around with on photoshop.  There are some contemporary windows and also more traditional ones at Grace, so it'll be interesting to see how they all work out.

I get a great deal of satisfaction learning new things and while I had tried photoshop before, it was more just me fiddling around and trying to figure things out, rather than actually going step by step and following tutorials etc. It now makes much more sense and I can see myself using it for lots of different things.

And soon, there will be new bangles - if my manipulations work out!

Do you use photoshop in your work? 

(Oh dear! Looking at this post now, you can see that I am really my father's daughter! Some of you may recall his "Sunday's spotlight" blog posts, with photos of stained glass windows in them!  Am I on the same slippery slope :-D ????????)

40/52 Bird a week - Warning: Low flying bird

This week's bird is the top bird in the above piccies with the yellow feather. He's a bit of a trickster and loves flying low - and annoying the parrot!  So much so, I've had to separate them.  I've kept the parrot brooch for myself, but the low flying bird brooch has gone to Santa Rosa, CA, for a new customer! I hope she keeps an eye on him! :-D

The low flying bird is similar to my first steel bird pin, but this time, his wing and special feather are attached (rather than just held with a magnet) and his beak is a different shape.  Both birds are brooches and secured using a simple magnet.

PS. I create my little vignettes using SuperLame.  Quick and easy!

If you want to see what other birds have been created this week, here are some links.  Can't believe we only have 12 more birds to make this year!!!!!

Watch out for low flying birds this week!

Dawanda Lovebook Winter 2011/2012

I am delighted to be featured in the 2011/2012 Dawanda Lovebook.  Mine arrived in the mail just today! 

If you don't know who Dawanda are - you should! They are the group that I sell my jewelry through in Europe. They are based in Germany and have a German, French and English platform. 

I was approached by them a couple of months ago and asked to complete an interview for inclusion.  Dawanda are always sooooooo good to me.  I have been selling with them for quite a few years now - and they really do look after me well. They pass on my info to other media - for example, I appeared in the Sunday New York Times last year because I was found on Dawanda....., they include me in their own promotions....I just can't say enough good things about them!  Here is the inclusion they put in their new Lovebook:

Thanks Dawanda, for spreading the love.  You can see the Lovebook here - and check out all the great sellers and products that they feature. Just in time to get ordering for Xmas!

Silly Sunday - Snake ring

As this week was a week for spotting snakes, I thought my silly Sunday picture would be snakey - and what better than snake jewelry! Look at this ring (no, it's not one of my creations!!!):

Oh, oh! I didn't mean you Betty.  Sorry! Betty is my neighbor with a real phobia for snakes!

Let me know if you buy one!

Weekly bird in the hand

Here is this week's list of things I'm grateful for - my "bird in the hand"

Angie!

• My friend Angie who's birthday it was yesterday! Happy birthday sweetie.
• My new cookbook "Plenty" by Ottolenghi. I cooked 4 dishes from it for a dinner party this week and each one came out well and tasted yummy. It's a vegetarian book and no one misses meat when you use these recipes.
• October.  I love this month.  Getting ready for warmer clothes, and putting the aga on.....
• The hot sunny days this week that have been ripening our grapes.
• Having time to get to know people better.
• Passing exams! I passed one yesterday..more on that another day.
• The new technique I learned to get pomegranate seeds out of pomegranates! Works so perfectly. Cut the pom in half horizontally.  Hold one half in your hand, cut side down to your palm.  Use a rolling pin to hit the back of the pom and all the seeds just pop out through your fingers and into the bowl. No splash, no mess, no yucky white bits to pull out.
• Tasting perfectly ripe juicy pears, like these below that we harvested from our tree a few weeks ago and left to ripen in the wine cellar:

Hope your week has been bountiful like ours.