Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Greens (and Reds) from the Garden


Swiss Chard takes the gold this year. It may be our favorite cool season crop. It just feels like the healthiest thing you can eat, and it tastes good too! We like it best sauteed in olive oil with some garlic, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese. It cooks down a lot, like spinach. Did I mention how easy it is to grow? And look at those colors! I like the rainbow / neon light varieties and even planted some with my flowers in containers this year.

Spinach Rows

Lu keeps an eye on our early beds.

First year for strawberries! with a few mulberries from the neighborhood. I added some blackberries to try out the pioneer woman's cobbler recipe. Very good! It's more like a coffee cake than traditional cobbler.

And, first year for radishes...

Yummy radish dip with cream cheese and green onion- so easy, just mix up these ingredients in a food processor.

... and with some fresh lettuce from our garden! Not sure what else to do with radishes?

The chef's specialty: anything in a skillet with some garlic...

or some kind of meat grease.

What's Lulu always grinning about?

Sugar snap and snow peas! So pretty on the vine and so tasty right off the vine.


Mary and Jeremy's red leaf lettuce. Tempting.

The real bloomin' onion

AL said she carried some of these as a bridesmaid? They are pretty.

Will be harvesting our beets soon!

Lots more to come from Ruby's Victory Garden! You can see some of it's history here.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Paper Blossoms






I always find lots of inspirational design from Anthropologie and love these beautiful cut paper spreads from their last catalog. I know it seems like they're infringing (pun intended) on Real Simple's terrain, but then I remember a bright sunshine I created in elementary school out of cut paper with layers of frayed circles in orange and yellow. I think my sunshine even had sunglasses on. I hope my mom hung on to this one, I'll have to look for it next time I'm visiting.

The jewelry adds a nice touch, but in my opinion the cut paper steals the show here. I might have to experiment some with this technique and flowers have been on my mind lately...

These are some irises that popped up in our yard this year. I can't wait to see what else will come out when we finish clearing out some more beds!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Happy Birthday Emily!!


A birth announcement canvas for sweet Shep! We finally got to meet our little nephew last weekend, and he's the cutest most cuddly little fellow. He's only two months old and so happy and content, even with big sis loving on him all the time! I matched the colors and theme of the canvas to Shepard's bedding and think the lamb is a fun and fitting image for him. I'm working on finishing up some standard boy and girl birth announcement canvases, which I'll just add the personalized info to- more options will be in my shop soon. I think this lamb is a good one to use. I could even change the blue details to pink and it might work for a girl. What do you think?

Of course big sis gets a personalized canvas too! Sydney just had her first ballet recital with more to come I'm sure. I love having the cutest little niece and nephew to create fun canvases for, and happy birthday to the joyful mom today!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Livening Up Copyright Law


Here's a sneak peek at some of my recent work. This is part of the title page for an eBook project on copyright law. It's always a fun project when I get to play with type! There's more to be included on this page, but I like how the title turns into its own logo of sorts. Next step is adding some color... maybe some subtle peppered paper as the background to my pen and ink illustrations? I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

orange you going to give me a bite?




Just one last blog post inspired by our trip to Florida... not about wildlife, nature, or sunshine, but simple sustenance. We camped the first few days of our trip, and because we couldn't travel with our camp stove our morning adventures usually began in search of coffee. It just so happens that there are Dunkin' Donuts are all over Florida. There's something about the pink and the orange logo that's hard to resist. Warm, bright, round, and sugary... it's as if the logo itself could be the sprinkles on top of a donut. I may not have thought this through thoroughly, but I'm willing to bet I'd like any product that can use orange and pink for it's logo. The coffee's alright, and the donuts aren't my favorite, but their bright and welcoming logo's sold me. (maybe the caffeine and sugar a little bit too)

Another product I buy purely because I like the logo and packaging, which also makes great use of these warm happy colors...

And, some Florida wildflowers that use the same striking color combinations...

Sunday, May 2, 2010