blueberry jewelry

  

 Blueberry Bud Posts

The jewelry designer Amber Mahler has a whole line of jewelry that is composed of botanical casts. The pieces she has created from parts of blueberry bushes are my favorite. Her process is briefly described on her Etsy shop, ManiDesigns, page :

The seedpods, flowers, buds and twigs in my botanical series are collected from my walks in the woods near my home. They are lost wax cast silver and gold originals of the actual flowers and branches that I gathered. This commitment to "live casting" insures that I must continually forage for or grow in my garden new material to be cast.
The beauty of the lost wax technique is that each casting is entirely unique. By pushing the boundaries of what is considered possible with this process, I have captured very detailed organic matter, I think not yet seen before in metal. Each season, sprung from the live castings, I offer a number of new and limited edition production items. - Amber Mahler

 Budding Blueberry Hoops

 Miniature Blueberry Posts

 Intertwined Wild Blueberry Branch Wedding Ring

Wild Blueberry Branch Ring with Blue Sapphire Set in Blueberry Bud, Engagement Ring

oana befort

 

 Oana Befort is an incredibly talented illustrator who, lucky for us, has an Etsy shop. She also has a link on her site called sketchbook, lucky for me, it captures her creative process. I love seeing work in progress-whether it be the initial sketches or an inspiration board- everything about a piece of art is fascinating to me. Ms. Befort records the unfolding of her creations and it is just as beautiful as the final product.

 All images: Oana Befort

happiness

“Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.”

― E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Image: win7wallpapers 

lemon goodness

Image: insidethekaganoffkitchen

A great dessert for this time of year is Lemon Bars. If you are looking for something to contribute to a dinner party or brunch- this is it! They  are fairly simple to make and are the ideal combination of sweet and tart....Recipe courtesy of Allrecipes.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup white sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour

4 eggs 1 1/2 cups white sugar 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 2 lemons, juiced

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and golden. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. Pour over the baked crust.
4. Bake for an additional 20 minutes in the preheated oven. The bars will firm up as they cool. For a festive tray, make another pan using limes instead of lemons and adding a drop of green food coloring to give a very pale green. After both pans have cooled, cut into uniform 2 inch squares and arrange in a checker board fashion.

An Herb Garden for Spring

Forest & Kim Starr [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

An herb garden is that most wonderful combination of things: beautiful, delicious, sustainable and affordable. After years of avoiding recipes that called for fresh herbs because of the cost and mysterious age of those little plastic packets at the grocery store, I have an herb garden of my own. It was originally my goal to have a completely edible garden and I planted rosemary (for height), lavender (for scent), sage (to saute with butter for pasta), golden lemon thyme (for its looks), and chives (in hope of pretty purple blooms). But my plantings looked a bit puny and weren't the vision of glorious abundance that I'd hoped for (though this will change in a few years, I hope). So, after hearing a friend speak about the value of colorful flowers for attracting pollinators, I was sold. There would be flowers and herbs side by side.

For more about herb gardening, visit designing-edible-gardens.com or the National Gardening Association's herb page. A few tips:

• Most herbs like full sun and are perfect for container gardening
• Plant what you'll eat (add herbs to salads, pastas, quiche--I've found those dishes do well with almost any combination of herbs)
• Plant the herbs where they can be easily accessed if you need to grab a handful before dinner
• Basil does well when planted with tomatoes. In hot climates it gets leggy and flowers at summer's end so I think it does better in a vegetable patch than with other herbs

Enjoy!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Have you thanked a teacher this week? There is still time- Teacher Appreciation Week is the 6th-the 10th. Dimple Prints  has some cute free downloads (like the one above) to send in with your little one if want to express your gratitude. 

cinco de mayo garland

 

The blog Love +Cupcakes has a great, step-by-step DIY for this festive Pull Pinata Garland. This is an easy, fun, colorful way to spice up your Cinco de Mayo gathering!

Tutorial and Images: love+cupcakes

thirsty may

Well, let's hope so- we are shy about three inches of rain so far this year. I can't complain about the sunny days, but for the sake of our flowers, I would not mind a few sprinkles....

 Images: thewheatfield on etsy, imgfave, contentinacttage, flickr

oliver jeffers

Oliver Jeffers Author Film 2013 from Oliver Jeffers on Vimeo.

I am a big fan of Oliver Jeffers- he is responsible for a large percentage of the nighttime reading giggles around here. My favorite book of his is probably The Incredible Book Eating Boy, but my kids would most likely choose This Moose Belongs to Me. Lost and Found  is a sweet and funny way to end any day, so that is favorite as well. 

I found this little film to be as charming as his picture books.

Film courtesy of vimeo

arnold palmers

My favorite warm weather drink is an Arnold Palmer, or Half and Half as some call it, and I think this weekend hitting 70 degrees calls for the first batch of the season. The drink is simply a mixture of iced tea and lemonade and you can alter the sweetness to your liking.

This recipe from the Food Network is a good one:

Ingredients

4 English breakfast tea bags
1 tea kettle filled with boiling water
1 cup Simple Syrup*
1 cup lemon juice
1 lemon, zest
2 cups ice cubes

Directions

Tie the tea bags together attach to the handle of a large pitcher. Pour the hot water over the tea bags and into the pitcher. Set aside to steep for 5 minutes.

Lemonade:

To a blender, add the Simple Syrup, lemon juice, lemon zest and ice cubes and pulse to puree. Place the mixture into the freezer until the tea has finished steeping.

Add ice cubes to a large glass and top with the tea. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the "lemonade" into the glass.
 

*Simple Syrup:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Add the sugar and water to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and allow to simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool completely.

Image: eatdrinklove