Down For the Count

There was girl who drove far north, then south,

her fun adventures took her all about.

She wants to share them, she has so much to tell

but to tell the truth, she's tired as hell.

She is off again, to relax and go fishing,

but she can't wait to get back and get on with the dishing!

Okay, so I am no poet...but I have literally been here, there, and now going again and I have so many photos to share with you...people to thank....people to talk about....things to show you....I can't wait! But for some reason, my barber husband is insisting that I go fishing with him and wants to have me all to himself with a cozy campfire and his boat.....sounds good to me!

Miss ya'll and will have lots to gab about soon!

from my house to your house,

Creative Cooking Simple Serving

I am honored to once again to have my work featured in Where Women Cook. I came home last night and found my autumn issue waiting for me and I never stop getting excited to see my work or ideas published. I never take it for granted that there are so many very talented individuals wishing that they too, could share their ideas and talent with the world and they are hoping that someday they will be able to do so.


So, thank you Where Women Cook for doing such a beautiful job with my feature and the layout is, as always, spectacular. This issue is especially exciting because it features Cristina Ferrare of "Big Bowl of Love" from OWN network. She will be one of the keynote speakers at The Creative Connection Event that is just only a couple of weeks away now! I can't wait. Remember, like I said in a few posts ago, if you grab this button and leave a comment and post the button on your blog's sidebar, your name will be entered to win either a subscription to Where Women Create or Where Women Cook. Jo Packham, founder of both publications, generously offered that to my readers!

CONTEST GIVEAWAY! 

Just grab the button below. 

Place button on your blog sidebar just until Sept 15th. 

And leave me a comment that you did so.

There will be Two winners:

One will get a year's subscription to Where Women Create

One will get a year's subscription to Where Women Cook

Click HERE for details!

Issue of Where Women Cook that features my latest work

But for now, let me say that the little feature I did for Where Women Cook is a feature called "Art Bar." It is a regular feature only added in a couple of issues ago. I believe mine is the third Art Bar? Not sure exactly.  I chose to feature one of my favorite holiday drinks: Wassail.


I fell in love with this European traditional punch back when I lived in Germany. There are many ways to make this punch and so I shared my version in Art Bar. I will share some of the photos that were not used, as the feature is purposely kept to only four pages and only the recipe.  You will have to read WWC to get all the photos and the recipe.....yes....the recipe (for a while at least) stays in WWC to be fair to them. But I will say, that this punch is served warm and is so good, (and beautiful) that serving it year round is something too hard to resist. But I will give you some serving tips, as they could not be included in the issue...so I am giving you something, even if not the recipe.  :-)


I hope you enjoy the extra photos and tips.

I use a metal, vintage punch bowl when serving warm punch. Not only does it lend to the traditional feel of the punch, but the metal keeps the punch warm longer. I line up the tarnished silver goblets on an old mirror for texture and old world beauty. 

Sometimes, keeping things simple is simply elegant. Just lining up the goblets on an old mirror is all that is needed for this little drink station....

I like using an antique, tarnished creamer, instead of a ladle to dip out the punch. Have you ever noticed how ladles are awkward to handle and tend to spill the punch anyway? Now you know what to do with those little three dollar creamers you find at any flea-market but wonder what to do with them. They are easy to hold, and pour directly into any little cup, without spills!

Using left over fruit to decorate is an easy, quick, and inexpensive way to finish off the table. Save your money for great appetizers and don't spend it on decorations...guests will love the simplicity and will enjoy gabbing and eating the tasty treats that you were able to purchase with the saved $$.

As a special treat, poke the oranges with cloves in a decorative manner. If you have a guest of honor...poking his/her initials into the oranges is a nice surprise! In this case, I honored Where Women Cook. A little trick: First float the orange to see which way it floats. Poke the cloves on the upside and if necessary, poke one or two toothpicks on the bottom of the orange which will help stabilize the orange to keep the cloves upward. Be sure to push the toothpicks far enough in to keep them from falling out.

The baked and scored apples look so cozy among all the floating fruits and spices. It just screams autumn! I love the crinkled skin. You will need to cut fresh lemon and orange slices before serving - they aren't so pretty after simmering in the punch :-)

Well, I just couldn't put away all the fun ingredients without playing a little...I guess you can see where my heart is...


If you want some fabulous recipes, some really heart-warming stories about some fabulous women to inspire you, this is a really great publication that Jo Packham has created. This publication is for women (or men) who like to cook, who love to peek into other women's kitchens, and who love a good inspirational story. I am really honored to be a part of Where Women Cook. If you are looking for some connections, inspiration, or just wanting to jumpstart your passion to a new level, again, I will be at The Creative Connection Event, and if you are still on the fence about this, I encourage you to visit their blog which will give you lots of information, ideas, and last minute registration deals and tips.


Well, that is it for now. I hope you enjoyed the little bit of eye candy. I always enjoy getting up a post that shows my passion. I have been super busy finishing up a huge project and I haven't had a moment to rest, gather my thoughts or even clean up after my project. And boy, how I can't wait to share with you ANOTHER HUGE project that just landed in my lap...but it is a project that will take quite a while to work on, a TRUE labor of love, and will fulfill many, many years of dreaming, loving, wishing, and a very unbelievable story that goes with along with it. It will be such a fun project, a long project, I may start a whole separate blog about it.....stay tuned!


Until then my dear readers, I wish you all the chance to create, dream, wish, and continue to grow your passion in a direction that fills you up with pure joy.


from my house to your house,

In the Heat of the Moment

Hello Everyone!

I hope this very hot summer is finding you all doing well; creating, and staying somewhat sane with this heat. I have tried, unsuccessfully, several times to get out a new post, but Blogger would not allow my password to go through, and I have no idea why. Blogger has also deleted my posts due to "illegal" fonts or something and would not "save" my posts when I was half way done with them. I have no idea what that means, since I am only using the fonts provided by Blogger. I have started (and almost completed) this post now about five times. It took some doing to get this up again, and I am about to pull my hair out with this server. Hence the opening photo - I feel like I lost my head there for a week or so!  :-)

I have a couple of quick fun updates I want to get out and if you hang in there, I have a creative, (but sort of sick) confession that I will share, but sure to regret later, I am sure....

First I would like to say CONGRATULATIONS to CHRISTIE and a friend of her choice who is the winner of the free pass giveaway, plus hotel to the Creative Connection Event. Click on Christie's name above to read more about this interesting winner!  

Christie - The Winner of TCC Event passes plus hotel!

As I have mentioned before, I am attending The Creative Connection Event next month, and I am very excited to attend. The more I learn about the wonderful classes the more I can't wait. Although I will be helping out most of the event, I will try to take in a class here and there. Hopefully a photography class or something in publishing.

But what I found out that is super cool?

All of the cooking classes! Not only are there cooking events, but there are cooking classes at the Cooks of Crocus Hill site, a fabulous and very prestigious cooking school in St. Paul. Cristina Ferrare, Diane Cu & Todd Porter, Carolyn Robb & Sarah Champier, and Terry Walters are experts in turning their passion of cooking and food into careers and will be sharing how they did that at the event. To have these professional ladies, who have been there, done that, share their adventures and experiences, is something I am looking forward to hearing and learning a lot from.

And once again, Jo Packham, the co-founder of The Creative Connection Event is offering us creative women a way to hear these fabulous professionals with us being down to the last 25 days to the big event!

Visit The Creative Connection Event Blog for the details. The rules are SUPER SIMPLE and the rewards are great! 25 days, 25 winners, who will get 25% off when they register. 

Click HERE to go to link for information about registration.

Okay, my good friends. I have been super, super busy and very tired! I have had a very exciting and fun job these past couple of months. I was offered a fabulous (but very challenging) to shoot a book! At this point, I am not sure what I am allowed to share with you, as the publishers haven't told me yet, but I will get some information and as soon as I get the "okay" I will be happy to share.

But the book is about a quilt designer and I was hired to scout a location, style the entire shoot, and photograph ten quilts, the cover, the double spread shots, the opening page shots, and all the detail shots. I really LOVED this assignment! The quilts were to have an "environment" and "be very different" and not traditional. Luckily I did not have to do, what I call, the "clinical shots" of just a flat shot of the quilts. Those were being done by the publisher in their studio. I got to do all the beauty shots and location - which is extremely hard when working with quilts, but I loved that the publishers trusted me with my ideas and styling.

So, back in May is when I had to scout a location and shoot the cover and a few detail shots. I have never worked with this publisher before and so I working blindly, so to speak. So, after many, many days of scouting, and even sending out a mass email to friends about finding a place, I happened upon a place purely by accident.

Visiting a friend's store (I will provide all details, when I get more photos to really be able to share), the owner's husband happened to mention the abandoned space above the store, and I was running out of time, and Ta Da!  A VERY run down, awful, but beautiful "set" awaited me! I was in heaven!! So much light! Giant windows! Cracked wallpaper! Dirty floors! Heaven!  Below are my scouting shots of some of the rooms...

I rented a U-haul, my barber husband and I hauled props and furniture above, I took hostage many props from good friends, generous store owners, and went to work. The publisher was thrilled with my first disc of photos and I spent hours and hours, day after day, designing areas, moving furniture and downloading photos and learning new programs to meet their specifications.

Believe it or not, I am really making this very long story short to get to what I want to say just for today...

Then the shoot was delayed....May went by....June went by....July went by....and so guess what? I get to now shoot at the end of July and into August....can we say HEAT WAVE...as in triple digits??? The abandoned place had no electricity and it being on the top floor it was at least 120 degrees on some days!  My dream location, my heaven on earth, is now H-E-L-LLLLL!

Well, I delayed shooting an entire seven days because it was just impossible with the heat wave. But, I had a deadline, and so I HAD to get some shooting done. So, for the last three weeks, that is what I have been doing and nothing else. If you ever want to test your age or stamina, go do something in the heat for hours on end....you will feel OLD!  And after a while, you start to do things like talk to yourself, have a shitfit when you realize you left something in the car and the LAST thing you want to do is walk down a huge flight of stairs, down the street, go get it, and then back again, and chance tripping over the long, long extension cord I had running down the stairs into the store. You soon realize that equipment doesn't like heat very much either must remain somewhat cool as well. 

Gatorade - drank 1 large bottle an hour at least!

I had a few fans, but they did very little to help, except to blow hot air on me. I wore a cut-off t-shirt sleeve on my head, and dipped in ice-water from the cooler I brought and wrapped it on my head to prevent heat stroke. But it was this one particular day, a day of extreme labor, that I think all the fans in the world and ice-watered, and a t-shirt sleeved-wrapped head, didn't save me from what I now realize was a day that the heat got to me.

I had been avoiding using a particular room because the windows were nailed shut, but I knew this room would be good for a huge double spread shot - a sewing scene with lots of mannequins, a huge work table, an ironing board, and all sorts of goodies and props. I bit the bullet, and decided to go for it (which by the way, the publishers loved the photo, thank God), and I had to clean out the room for there were some gross stuff on the floor. 

I was very hot, very tired, and decided to clean, set up the scene and come back the next day and shoot. During all these weeks, I took "behind the scenes photos" for my dear readers, as I know you like to see what "really" took place in addition to all the "pretty shots." So below is what I started to sweep:

As I started to sweep (and this was the "good" corner), I notice something odd...do you see it?

 That's right! A dead bird...one who died of a heat stroke!!

So here I am, kneeling next to this dead bird, taking a photo (so my readers could appreciate all the gross stuff I had to deal with when I can finally show you the "pretty photos"), sweat dripping into my eyes as I lean forward, my knees killing me, stifling HOT in this room, trying not to shake as I lean in and focus on this little, sweet bird, and suddenly it hits me....


.....what am I doing??


.....why in the world am I on my knees like this?


.....what is wrong with me?

I pause, then really think about how crazy this is....because I just realized.....I rented a perfectly WONDERFUL 100mm lens that would allow me to STAND and get GREAT shots! Yes! How crazy am I to kneel, when I can stand without kneeling to get close and grunting like a pig in this heat!! Yes! That is the answer!! I am not joking...this is the truth...do you see how sick a person you have been following all these years...are you ready to unclick the "followers" button yet....?

So, I hop up. Go to the next room, change lenses, all excited at how "smart" I am for thinking of this, go back into the blistering hot room, and STAND and get great photos without even having to get CLOSE to the icky thing....I mean...sweet thing....

Below are the photos I quickly snapped, STANDING UP, in the DOORWAY (next to the fan) and while I snap, with the camera to my eye and as I point the camera, I am thinking...now this is where it really gets bad, as if it isn't bad enough, I think....I wish the lighting was better today...damn clouds....

It wasn't until my long drive home (this location is 1.5 hours away from my house) did I start laughing at myself and my excitement over my lens and my thought process and how others might actually think it was crazy to be taking photos of a dead bird in the first damn place! I can't believe I am telling you this story.  But in my defense...this was at the end of a long, hot day, after about three weeks of long, long days working in the heat, so I really feel the heat got the best of me that day...and I am sticking with that story. 

And I will add, that when I told this story and showed the photos to my friend, Renee (yes, I am outing you, Renee), she laughed and laughed and SHE said: "Oh, only if you had a cloche and covered the bird, and then took the photo to show your readers how sick you really are...." And we both laughed until tears...  And what is even sicker?? I really, really wish I had thought of that!

 Well...Okay...


So, how does one end a post like this with a thoughtful quote or a bit of wisdom? Well, I could say something like:


Creating from the soul and with real passion can bring out pieces of us that we never knew...


or


Creating from our heart and being true to our soul is not about being honest with not just yourself, but also with others....


or I could tell you what I am really thinking right now...


I REALLY WANT TO OWN A TOP QUALITY CANON 100MM LENS, AND NOT HAVE TO RENT


Hey! You just try kneeling on a hard floor, in 100 degree room, and photograph a dead bird, then you can judge....  :-)


from my house to your house