After a storm

Yesterday evening the rain started and was soon horizontal in the fierce wind.

This morning the rain stopped after Alice went to school and the sun came out. 

I thought it would be worthwhile putting out the washing

.

But the rain returned before I came back after coffee with two friends.  So I made the wrong choice of clothes line!

More photographs

I have become hooked on Blipfoto and it's fun each day to choose a single photo.  However, some days the decision is hard.  Here are two of today's possibilities, from Mary's garden.

It was a gorgeous sunny morning, but it began to rain after 3 and the evening was stormy, with very heavy rain and much wind.  This didn't affect us as Monday night means University Challenge and Only Connect.  Of course tea carefully coincided with Pointless.

I'm toying with doing NaNoJouMo.  In which case inceptionwould apply to the beginning of my love affair with daily photography and blipfoto.

Blipfoto

I'm often impressed by people's daily photos for Project 365 but, since I don't remotely blog daily, I've never got involved.  However, now having found http://www.blipfoto.com, which is not only British but Scottish and open to anyone to use, I'm now looking for inspiration.  Do have a look at blipfoto.
I'm really delighted with it.

Cup cakes

Helena on the blog hop has reminded me of my daughter's baking to take to her English class to celebrate her 16th birthday.  She had a fine time with food dye.

This was before she discovered her wheat sensitivity but that hasn't curbed her baking enthusiasm.

Thank you to everyone who has left a comment

Today has been very busy and I haven't had much chance to go blog hopping but I hope to be able to visit everyone tomorrow.  I did take a few moments off when I saw the lovely sunset.

It's going to be a cold night.

Let's Eat ...

When I joined Amy's blog hop it didn't occur to me that it would happen at the end of half term.  So I haven't got any photos or other artwork. However, you are most welcome.

I was horrified the other day when my husband said that mince was my signature dish.  I'd heard the phrase and thought it had a far posher image.  I was also shocked my husband knew the phrase.  However, I suspect it's true.

When I was in the sixth year at school my mother thought if I took over the family baking it would improve my speed during Physics practicals (following a comment on my report!) and so I baked every Friday night, listening to Desert Island Discs which I'm sure was at night in the 70s.  I rarely cooked a meal.  I'd far rather read a book and wait for my parents (more often my father) to concoct something delicious.

At university I didn't need to cook but when I got a flat of my own I started to experiment.  I liked doing roasts and lots of vegetables but the easiest meal involved mince, a tin of tomatoes and tomato puree, chopped peppers and mushrooms, some stock and any herbs.  Leave it to simmer, cook some potatoes or pasta and you've got a tasty meal for family or friends.

If you would like a recipe here's one for wheat-free chocolate cake.  My mother found the original version in a magazine at the hairdresser's and we've used it for birthday cakes for decades.  This year I adapted it for my newly wheat-sensitive daughter:

6 oz butter
6 oz caster sugar
3 eggs
6 oz gluten free SR flour
2 level tbsp drinking chocolate
mixed with 1 tbsp warm water
4tbsp milk (leave this out if using ordinary SR flour but add 1.5 tsp baking powder to the flour)

Bake in a fan oven at about 160 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes

I use a handheld mixer to mix everything but I do it in stages, creaming the butter and sugar, mixing in the beaten eggs then the chocolate mixture, and finally the flour.  Cook it in two tins but it will not rise as much as a conventional cake.

Now let's visit the delightful Mel whose recipe blog is wonderful.

Me: The Abridged Version

Having heard that paperclipping is giving a discount on classes at Big Picture Scrapbooking I thought I would look at the Me: The Abridged Version class. 

Mellow yellow

Shimelle suggested taking a photo and doing something with it.  I liked the yellow cones blocking a small road beside our house for resurfacing and photographed it recently.  I rarely "do anything" with photos other than store them on my pc.  So I decided to do some cropping and here's the result.

Now we have a pretty road with white paint beside us.

Creativity Boot Camp

When I first read about the Boot Camp I thought I didn't have the time.  Then it occurred to me that was exactly the reason why I should try to fit some regular creativity into my day.  So I've joined up with Maegan and we'll see what happens!

BTW Thank you to everyone who commented on the It's All About Me post.  It's lovely to read all the comments and to visit your blogs.

It's All About Me and a blog hop

The lovely Mel suggested another blog hop, this time using the It's All About Me project from Big Picture Scrapbooking.  It didn't sound too difficult so I signed up and started thinking.  The first ingredient was to be an accordion book in a tin.  I had a tin I'd painted years ago and I tried folding wallpaper samples to fit.

But one day I was flicking through Cover to Cover and remembered a favourite type of folded book.

With three cuts a wallpaper sample can become a 16 page booklet

I spent so much time thinking and planning the book that I nearly ran out of time making the book.  So I've been photographing it in artificial light in the early hours of Saturday.  But I hope you get the idea of It's All About Elizabeth before you go on to visit Helena.

The first of my quotes "We are the musicmakers, We are the dreamers of dreams".  The other page has an envelope with some journalling about maths.

A selection from my many tapes and brads, beside an allusion to my favourite shop.

When I was young autumn was my favourite month, now it's spring as I eagerly look for signs of green on the trees, longer days and (slightly) warmer temperatures.  The sea thrills me, especially when the sun is rising over the Isle of Rum.

All being well 2010 will see improvements to a few of our rooms.  (This is our first home and we were married in 1983.)  So our bathroom is not my favourite place but I love taking a bath, and I like the colour turquoise, so this would be a happy place for me.The other picture represents something I do nearly every day.  We love vegetables (being omnivores) and they steam very well in the microwave (which is an absolute essential in my life).

Two pleasures: origami and coffee or

..... what I'd do given some spare time.

How would I describe me in three words?

And colour makes me happy.

The second quote is "I am, yet what I am none cares or knows" and I love words and dictionaries.

Do I have a collection?  Yes, several, but my  button collection goes back to before I was born.

Thank you for exploring my book with me.  I wish I'd had the time to crop and tidy up the pictures but I can already hear the dawn chorus.  Now let's go and see what Helena has done, and many thanks to Mel for the inspiration. 

House Party Blog Hop

I was excited when my envelope of bits came from Rinda to make a house.  I had looked at several of her houses and had had some ideas, none of which matched the oriental theme of the envelope.  Because the girl's boyfriend was coming for tea I had cleared the dining table of my craft bits so, after they had gone out, I was able to set everything out and see what inspiration I got.  One piece of patterned paper had curves on it which made me think of curtains, I trimmed the ladies and used Rinda's hint about the ribbon.  I looked through my stamps and found a Ma Vinci one of calligraphy. An eBay purchase of a crane transformed the maroon card and I could use something from my metal stash.  I was in the mood for a quote from Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy (the poem that begins "We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams"). Lo and behold I had a house.

Quite amazingly, I had begun something and finished it in one day.

Now I'd like you to hop over to Amy to visit her house.  I've been keeping a page of her blog open in my TooManyTabs for ages because it reminded me to make origami boxes.  Thank you for visiting me.  Do come back: I might possibly be going to blog my buzz of recent card making!

My wordle

I like "punched flower" and "excellent think day" but not "I died" and I'm not sure about "terrible craft circles".  However, I frequently "virtually bought book"!

YES

A very enjoyable evening at the Young Enterprise awards.  The girl's company didn't win any awards but their presentation came third, I think, and the refreshments donated by M&S and Waitrose were excellent.

A flower

I was wrapping a present two weeks ago and saw the flower I'd punched from newsprint.  It reminded me of this flower of Clair's so I punched a couple of circles and rummaged in my metal stash.  The card was from the offcuts I bought at Craft Creations and I finished it off with my beloved corner punch.  It justified buying the scalloped circle punch when I was in Glasgow.  I repeated the idea when I was giving a basket of hyacinths to a friend of my in laws whose husband had died.

Journalling

 

I am a terrible procrastinator. Instead of doing a page in my journal I read blogs or dream. So today I checked out Blogger and then I made a few pages. Here's the first.  It was night time so the picture is not brilliant.  There are four stickers on it so it fits the Something from Almost Nothing prompt for today.

Poems

One of the wonders of the internet is that I can read the review of a book on a blog, check it out on Amazon if necessary, then reserve it, virtually, at my local library. A few days ago I went to pick up some books and was attracted by some little cards at the desk. I picked one up, then collected lots. I found out it was all about carrying poems. Later I emailed the website to say how I carry my poems. I was thrilled to find my entry was on the blog the next day.

How do you carry yours?

Guilt

I'm feeling very guilty. I regularly read blogs, but I've not added anything to my blog for years. Now that Mel's put a link on her blog I think I must make an effort. It might help my creativity as well!

Journal Your Christmas

Last year I enrolled for Shimelle's class but got no further than downloading each day's prompt. The delight of her class is that each further year is free so I have enrolled again this year and hope actually to journal this time. It's certainly fun looking at everybody else's work!

I'm Balanced, Secure and Realistic

http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/what-your-taste-in-art-says-about-you-test

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

5 Impressionist, 5 Islamic, -9 Ukiyo-e, -6 Cubist, -3 Abstract and -14 Renaissance!