An Artful Gathering

Still Celebrating Christmas

Our family celebrations began on the 24th with our daughter and her family and our son spending the evening with us.  We opened gifts and emptied our stockings - what fun we had.  I was given a fire pit which turned out to be the hit of Christmas this year.  Christmas morning after Santa's visit to my daughter's house, they all came over for a really late breakfast - I had an omelet station set up and my son-in-law did the honors.  The whole family laid around all day, some reading, some napping, SIL installed my new flat screen for the computer AND everyone sat on the porch tending the fire pit - the kids were in hog's heaven roasting hotdogs and marshmallows!!  As I said, it was the bomb diggity bomb!

I did finish a last piece of Christmas art yesterday and will post that tomorrow evening.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Christmas is just around the corner!

I got no sleep last night - it just did not happen - I was up all night prowling around the house - tonight I'm ready for bed!  I've continued to work in the Native American book today and have only some finishing touches tomorrow and by tomorrow evening I'll be able to wrap it ~

Here is another cake for all of blogdom to enjoy~

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Santa Baby - Please bring me a winter coat!

I live in central Texas and really don't even own a winter coat - a few lightweight jackets and some hoodies - that's it.  And it has gone from that 70 degree weather of yesterday back to COLD COLD COLD.  I am freezing - why you ask?  Because my huge art room has no heat - or has one very small plug in heater and that is NOT enough!!  My fingers are numb ~  OK, enough about the cold.  We are watching the Christmas story on the art room TV - all wrapped up but still cold fingers -lol.

I've not worked on the Native American book today so I have to do that tomorrow along with wrapping my Christmas presents.  I'm using mostly decorative bags so that will be quick and easy.

Today I cooked the best soup - here is the recipe:

Easy Italian Wedding Soup

2 cans (14.5 oz) chicken broth

1 cup water

16 fat meatballs (cooked and frozen makes it easy)

spices:  dashes of cayenne pepper, parsley, garlic powder, paprika along with salt & pepper, and 5 or 6 fennel seeds.

1 cup medium shell pasta, add all to pot and cook 9-11 minutes til pasta is "al dente"

add 4 cups of shredded fresh spinich

8 oz. can tomato sauce 

cook 2 more minutes  YUM!

Here is another Christmas cake for everyone to enjoy ~

 

This is Panatone Sweet Bread - isn't the wrapping beautiful!

Merry Christmas!

One Day Closer to Christmas!

I've spent much of today working in a Native American altered art book I'm creating for my son. I've painted some "signs" of a sun and dragonfly and lightening into the book.  I've sewn  silver, red, and blue beeds to the edge of an oddly shaped piece of pretty leather - I glued it into the book to form a pocket.  I will find a little leather pouch I have and add that as a medicine bag.   I think he is supposed to add his own "medicine" but I am going to find out what represents "strength" and add that.   I also looked up the indians of the Eastern Shore of Virginia as that's where my ancestors come from - added that info to the book - the pages in this book are fairly small BUT there are LOTS of pages in it - I think I now have about 7 more spreads to decorate - YIKES - I do plan to glue two sets of pages together forming pockets which will be a great way to get rid of many of those extra pages.  I will continue to work on this tomorrow and hope to have it finished by Monday evening.  Once I complete this book I'll add some pictures of it to my blog.

If you have not been to Cris Hurst' blog, Blissful Elements, lately - please do stop by - Oh my, I do love her work!!  You can get to her blog via a link I have in the upper right corner of this blog ~

Today's cake - ta da ~~~

   

Actually these are little mince pies.  In my opinion you simply cannot celebrate Christmas without eating at least one piece of mince pie (or mincemeat as I say)  By today's standards, there is no meat in the commercial brands unless the label states otherwise.  When mincemeat was made in homes long years ago, it normally contained meats and suet, along with spices and raisins and some other fruits - perhaps oranges?  Today it's a mixture of fruits/spices.  Enjoy your pie!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thank Goodness It's Friday!

Today is my last day without anyone else in the house - I'm all by myself, doing some last minute "straightening up" of the house.  I also plan to cook that pumpkin soup I've been talking about.  I want to sit down this afternoon and pull (or seperate) a set of card kits I created for the Cabin Fever retreat I attend each year - one of our members could not attend and I want to get her set of card kits into the mail NOW.  I also still must clean off my art table.  And I know the Christmas "art time" is drawing to a close - each year I adore the Christmas season and have so much fun creating little bits of Christmas cheer - seems like I haven't gotten my fill of it this time around.  Over the weekend hubby doesn't work so he will be here and we may ride out one evening to view this Season's lights and decorations and I think just the two of us should have a quiet Christmas dinner somewhere - plans plans plans.  On Monday morn bright and early the 3 girlie girls will arrive - I have planned a breakfast tea party one day, a trip to the book store one day along with Cheddar cheese soup in bread bowls at Panara's Bread.  We are also planning to get out our wooden bread bowls and make biscuits to eat on Christmas Eve - there are canned biscuits in the fridge - MONKEY BREAD - yeah, we're making some monkey bread too!!!!  And rice krispie squares too - oh my they love those.  And Lizzie's - fruitcake cookies, yummy yummy - this is a recipe I got from my sister Diann - it just wouldn't be Christmas for me without a plate of Lizzies during the holidays!  The one thing I don't have this year is a fruitcake (big SOB!) so the Lizzies will do double duty!!!

On Tusday morning of this week, in the freezing cold, I dashed out to my tiny herb garden for some sage (pumpkin soup!) and decided to get bunches of sage along with a lot of my rosemary - both these plants come back for me each year, but I just had the need to break off greath swaths of them - here is a picture - wish you could smell the fragrance in the air ~

Rosemary is for remembrance and I am honoring my mama and daddy with this herb swag ~ and of course the sage always reminds me of daddy and his mama - he once told me that his mama grew sage outside her door and when it got cold she would go out and pull up the whole plant and hang it inside.

Here is another cake for you to enjoy - friend Brenda commented that she is going to gain 500 pounds - no you aren't girl - these cakes are special - "cake eye candy"

 

Little Venice Christmas Cakes - aren't these the bomb diggity bomb!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Second Post of the Day

Here is a picture of some art I created in an altered book round robin - I worked in my friend Cher's book themed Music -

The two spreads are the song sung by Cher, Dark Lady ~

 

Here is a pic of the little "hangie danglie's" I created for each girlie girl at Sunday's tea party:

 

Merry Christmas!

Sad Time ~

OMG - I could not sign onto Typepad last night for my daily posting and it was a sad time around here. 

Here is a wonderful brazil nut cake with spun sugar - lovely!

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Day 16 of December

It's still extremely cold in my neck of the woods - brrrr and double brrrr!!  I'm sitting here all wrapped up in my blankie.

This morning I created a bit of art for a friend's anniversary.  It came together rather quickly and I'm happy with my creation - will share it with you soon ~  Tomorrow I hope to finish work on a handmade Native American book for my son - it will be a special gift to him.

Tomorrow I think I will cook pumpkin soup - I've never eaten it but am suddenly intriqued.  And there is just something about a pot of soup on a cold winter's day - I better make the most of "cold" because it's supposed to get into the 50's tomorrow and on Thursday back into the 70's -  Gotta love that Texas weather, and here I thought winter had arrived in full force ~

Another calorie free cake created just for you - cranberry sweet potato - yum!

 

Merry Christmas!

Baby, it's cold outside!

A big whopping 25 degrees in central Texas - brrrr!  It was 31 degrees early this morning and tonight the temps have dropped even lower.  Winter has finally arrived in central Texas (I think).

I promise to add some images tomorrow of some art I've done recently and also the gifts I recieved from my 12 Days of Christmas Swap.

Now a yummy coconut cake to make you feel good!  My mama always made a sour cream coconut cake at Chrismtas time and would store it in the attic to keep it cold -  We'd pull down those attic stairs and climb up and get the cake - she had some type of tupperware thing that she kept it in.  Good cake!

 

Merry Christmas!

Tea Party Time!

I held a tea party for my girlie girls and their friends today - what a time we had.  As always, each girl picked a teacup from my collection.  The table was well supplied with finger sandwiches, little cakes decorated to look like wrapped gifts, rice krispie bars, red and green decorated cookies, and little strawberry cream cheese and chocolate fudge rounds.  Candy Shoppe tea was served along with pink lemonade.  One of the mothers brought a selection of hats for the girls to wear - and they were all dressed up.  One of my girlie girls had on high heels - silver ones no less - and she was clunking around - just cute as could be.  The girls exchanged gifts and then we took lots and lots of pictures and created some cards.  Before the party I created triangle shaped banners with each girls' name on them and also clear glass ornaments stuffed with shredded paper, a tiny reindeer, and some jingle bells.  The plan was to print their names on the ornaments but the Krylon pen was leaking - they loved them anyway!  It was a fun Christmas tea party.  For the past 3 years the girls have had a Christmas sleepover - think 12 hours of 12 to 16 little girls singing, dancing, screaming, laughing, crying, pouting, putting on make up, planning a play in 10 minutes, eating, exchanging gifts, OH MY - the tea party lasted two hours and was perfect!  One of the little girls was making her cards and said, "I want to be just like Grami (all of these little girls call me "Grami") when I grow up - yes, I'm bragging because it made my day!

Here is another Christmas cake - under that red icing is CHOCOLATE CAKE - enjoy!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!