random reflections

Just a Note

 . . . to thank all of you for your kind words of sympathy. The love and prayers of our friends and family has been a huge support to us, and to Adam and Sarah.

Cardstock: Ripe Avocado & Vintage Cream; stamps: Take Three: Summer & Floral Frenzy; ribbon Ripe Avocado (all Papertrey Ink)

This is a card I sent off last week to a friend who is struggling with chemo. A couple of weeks ago I bought the Fiskars stamping press with a  50% off coupon. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but Jennifer McGuire raved about it on her blog. It is as good as she says. To create this card, I lined up the three bird stamps on the stamping grid as well as the sentiment. Then I lined up the cardstock underneath and was able to stamp all of it exactly where I wanted it with one stamp.

 

 

Sad News

Today Sarah and Adam lost their twin boys. We, and they, are heart-broken.

Let's Eat Blog Hop

It's the Let's Eat Blog Hop sponsored by Amy at Over At Our Place. You may be arriving here from Deb's blog Paper Turtle. If not, Amy has a complete list of blogs here.

I collect cookbooks and read them like novels. I love to look at the beautiful food photography, and I am always looking for new ideas and techniques to try in the kitchen.

 

When we moved into our house, the only thing left behind by the previous owners was this green bookcase which I quickly appropriated for my cookbook collection. It sits right next to our kitchen table so they're easy to get to.

Like a bride on her wedding day, I have OLD cookbooks . . .

You can tell by the stains on the covers that these are not only old, but well-loved cookbooks.

I have NEW cookbooks . . .

I have BORROWED cookbooks . . .

Sometimes these borrowed cookbooks become the next new ones in the collection.

And although I couldn't many blue cookbooks, I do have FAVORITES.

I can always rely on these recipes to be delicious and beautiful to look at. I have Ina Garten's newest cookbook on preorder at Amazon.

I have two recipes to share. One from the oldest of my cookbooks, purchased on our honeymoon nearly 40 years ago. It's great the first day and just as good leftover. This has been one of Tracy’s favorite recipes ever since we bought this cookbook. The inscription reads:  “Boston 1973.”

Cheeseburger Pie
From The Eatgood Revival by Holly Finlay and Judy Wallace

Crust:           1 ¼ cup stuffing mix
                       ¼ c. melted butter or margarine

Mix together and press into a 9” pie plate.*

Filling:           1 lb. ground beef
                        ½ tsp. oregano
                        1 small onion, chopped
                        ½ c. bread crumbs
                        4 oz. tomato sauce  (½ can)

Brown beef with onion and drain off all fat. Mix the meat and onion with everything else, and spoon into crust.

Topping:         8 oz. grated cheddar chees
                        1 egg
                        ¼ c. milk
                        ½ tsp. mustard
                        1 tsp. worchestershire  sauce

Mix together and spread on top of meat. Bake pie 30 mintes at 425°.

Sauce:            Mix the other ½ can of tomato sauce with ½ c. chili sauce. Bring to a
                        boil and serve with pie.

* I learned the trick of putting one pie plate inside the other to make a uniform crust when you are using crumbs, or in this case, stuffing. Works like a charm every time.

And my favorite recipe from the Barefoot Contessa, good all year long with garden fresh tomatoes or store-bought ones.

Roasted Tomatoes with Basil
From Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics

12 plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise; remove as many seeds as you can
¼ c. good olive oil
1 ½ Tbs. aged balsamic vinegar
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp. sugar
1 ½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. freshly ground pepper
10 large fresh basil leaves, julienned 

Preheat oven to 425°.

Arrange tomatoes on a sheet pan, cut sides up, in a single layer. Drizzle with the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with the garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. Roast for 25-30 minutes, until the tomatoes start to carmelize and the flavors are concentrated. Sprinkle the basil on top, and serve warm or at room temperature.

I have served these as a side dish with various meats, but this summer we chopped up the tomatoes and served them over pasta. Delicious and so easy! You can make these ahead. They keep in a plastic container for several days in the refrigerator.

Off you go now to Scrap Dreams. I’m sure Cheri has cooked up a great post for you!

 

 

Journal Your Christmas 2010

I've completed four Christmas journals and although each one is different, I love them all. Only the first one followed the prompts in Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class, and it's the only one with a page for each day of December. After that I combined a variety of prompts or made up my own. Looking back at them, I'm so glad I kept track of the little things that made each holiday season a bit different. Each of my albums have been a different size and a different format, and I like that, too.

 

Every year I try to decide how I want to proceed. I've never really followed Ali Edward's December Daily process, but her initial post really inspired me. Combined with Shimelle's class (free every year after the first one), Jessica Sprague's notebook "Holidays in Hand" which I completed last year, and Tracey Clark's upcoming class Picture the Holidays, I think I'm going with a December Daily format this year.

I'm also going to use the same set-up Ali showed on her blog:  transparencies followed by a journaling and photo page. I downloaded the journaling/photo pages over the weekend from Designer Digitals and will use them either digitally or print them out; probably a combination of both. I went through my Christmas stash and found a few transparencies as well as a few in other collections that should work well. Now I have my eye out for the rest I will need to purchase. A few years ago I purchased some lovely red chipboard which will be perfect for the cover. I need to get all of this put together so when we return from California (arriving here a few minutes after midnight on December 1) I'll be ready to go.

Scrapbooking the Weekend

On our way to Canada, I stopped in my favorite stamp/scrapbook store in Buffalo. We don't have anything like it in Rochester, so I'm always anxious to see what's new. I picked up a Tim Holtz stamp set, a Hero Arts set of leaves, and a few papers and ribbons. I bought just one sheet of a Basic Grey Whiskers & Whiskers paper. It just called out to me for a fall layout, so yesterday I put together a quick layout of photos from our weekend in Canada.

  

I started with a digital template from Moon Ko which I've used in the past. I like the combination of landscape and portrait photos that it accommodates. Once I printed that out, I wanted some embellishment. I so envy people like Sian who seems to pull together the most wonderful collections of items into beautiful focal points on layouts. It's not a natural process for me, so arranging the items on the journaling circle from my Scrapbook Circle kit took longer than doing the digital template. I'm happy with the final result, though. There's a wooden ring with sticker from Sweetwater which has been in my stash for years, two leaves from Prima, a sticker from Jolee, and one of Studio Calico's new rub-on birdies. I fell in love with them at CHA.

I finished taking the photos and writing my post for this weekend's "Let's Eat" Blog Hop. Are you ready?

Scrap-Mart Projects

I've had several projects go live on the Scrap-Mart blog, and I often forget to share them here as well.

Sadly the bumper crop of tomatoes has ended, and we need to get over to the garden this week to clean it out. Our investment in the Community Garden plot was returned many times over this summer--both the financial and time investments.

I love this "Autumn Blessings" stamp from Just-Rite. I colored it with Prisma colored pencils and then sponged some ink on the Scrap-Mart exclusive Nestability. It's become one of my favorites. So many images seem to look good on it.

As usual, the layout looks a bit crooked in the photograph. I've been investigating some different options for photographing projects. Does anyone have a process (or product) that works for them? Our house is so dark I always need some artificial lighting. And I'd love to get more reliable results when taking photos of scrapbook pages that are too big to be scanned.

This layout uses new Jillibean papers from the Pasta Fagioli line which I love.

 

Gift Set

We made our annual trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake this weekend. As always we took in a play (The Ideal Husband, this year) at the Shaw Festival, visited some wineries (new ones this year; never made it to our old favorites), and had dinner with the couple who used to own the B&B we stay in who have become our dear friends. We had a glass of wine and delicious pate and cheese, with Pat and Ian before we went out to dinner so I wanted to take her a little gift for her hospitality.

I started with a notepad I created in August and made four cards to go with it. One thing I love about Paptertrey Ink products is how easy it is to pull together a set like this. I chose the 2009 Autumn Tags stamp set and the Turning A New Leaf patterned paper pad. I added some twill, ribbon, and buttons (all Papertrey Ink), a few pearls, and stuck with a basic card design. I made envelope liners this time with the  liner die I picked up at the Papertrey booth during CHA. It really makes the set seem much more finished, and it's so easy I think I'll start doing this regularly. The notepad and cards fit in one of Papertrey's large glassine bags perfectly, and I added a little topper to it with scraps from the project.

 

A Card and Macro Fun

I have been getting some papercrafting done, but most of it is for the Scrap-Mart blog. I did finish a birthday card for a friend today that I can share here. I had a lot of fun with this one. I found an old piece of leaf-printed vellum that I knew would make a good background for a fall birthday card. First I covered it with Amber Clay chalk ink and rubbed it in with a tissue. Then I misted it with some Sunshine Glimmer Mist and a couple of shots of Studio Calico's Mr. Huey Sunshine mist. Despite the same name, the two mists are quite different colors. I like the final effect.

The wreath (Wreath for All Seasons by Papertrey) is overstamped with red and orange Brilliance inks which has a pearlescent glow to them that doesn't show up in the photography. The sentiment is from Impress Rubber Stamps, and the ribbon is from my stash.

Today was lovely and the forecast for the next couple of days is for rain so I decided to take my camera to Highland Park and try out my new macro lens. I know I am going to like this lens a lot. For the first time out, I got a couple of decent shots. (And a lot more that went directly into iPhoto's trash.) I'm going to have to work on sharper focus. I usually rely on automatic focus, but I think I'm going to have to make friends with manual. Here are three:

We  haven't had a frost here yet, so there are still some pretty flowers in the park.

I love the light shining through the leaves' veins in this one.

The same tree, different focus. The bokeh is great with this lens.

 

 

 

 

 

10.10.10

 

It's not often that I post twice in one day, but the Shutter Sisters blog had a link today to a special web site set up especially for photos taken on 10.10.10. If you have a Flickr account (free and easy to set up if you don't) you can add your photo to the pool of photos taken on this "most auspicious day."  The photos can be added for the next ten days. The only requirement is that you took the photo today. You don't have to have a Flickr account to look at them. Here's the one I added. There will be more from our trip to Watkins Glen in a couple of days.

Photo Field Trip

Friday, Tracy and I headed to Letchworth State Park to hike and take some photos. I had three objectives:  try out my tripod in the field, play with the color polarizer (which I've had for years, but have had little success with), and try out the neutral density filter (never used it before). Two of the three goals were met. I love the new tripod, and it's getting easier to use. I use the 2 second self-timer with it, and that works like a charm. I had great success with the color polarizer. It was a perfect day for it. Sun coming from a good angle (that's the key it turns out), and a beautiful blue sky with autumn colors. We ended up hiking part of the Fingerlakes Trail which is above the gorge so there really wasn't much opportunity to try the neutral density filter. I might get a chance to day at Watkins Glen. So here are some shots from the trip. I ran the Pioneer Woman's "Define and Sharp" on all of them. I didn't need "Boost" since the color polorizer took care of all the saturation I would have needed. A couple of them needed a bit of adjusting with Levels.

The trail walking south.

The trail coming back.

I loved the reflections here.

The railroad trestle (still in use) built in 1873.

Another view

And another; like the shadows here, too.

The falls

Pretty leaves on the trestle bridge

The photography posts on Darcy's blog continue to be excellent. If you're confused by the exposure triangle or unfamiliar with it, today's post is wonderful. I've read a lot about this, and taken a couple of online courses, but almost every day I get another "aha" moment over there.

Kent Weakley had a fabulous post on why you should stop (or turn around and go back) for that shot. Being a girl from Kodak city, his analogy really hit home.

And my friend, Kat, has a wonderful post on photographic essays.

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend! The weather here continues to be just perfect: sunny and just the right temperature. Great for walks and photos!