Crow stamps

A few months ago I had an idea for an art piece very clearly visualized in my mind and I made these two stamps of crows that would be required. Then I put them away until I could get the black permanent ink required to make it work properly. I finally remembered they were there, and picked up the permanent ink to test them to see if they worked OK. These are only test stamps, so the color isn't really even, but i think the carving went well.

The real problem is that now I can't remember why I needed them - so much time has passed that I don't remember the original vision. Ah well, I am sure I can find some use for them.

amulets

Objects and Elements offers recycled sari silks. I use the spun sari silks to make pouches or medicine bag necklaces. It is difficult to crochet because of all the hanging strings, but the outcome is definitely worth it - the variegated colors are stunning!

Snow

Can you believe it - we have had snow for the last couple of days. The long weekend traditionally marks the time when the danger of frost is past, and most people spend the weekend planting their gardens. Well, this year we spend the holiday huddled inside against the cold and blowing snow. The dogs were all sick too, so everyone just moped around the whole weekend.
It's hard to compalin too much, though, because snow means moisture, which we are sorely lacking. All the ponds are dry, and we have been quite worried that the drought this year is going to be the worst yet. In fact, it is so dry that the trees are still refusing to leaf, but this snow should give them that boost of moisture that will encourage them to leaf out, and we can finally see some signs of spring. Yay!

Macarons!

I finally managed to try baking macarons last night. It takes a bit of advanced preparation, because the egg whites called for in the recipe have to be separated and left in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours before they can be used, and of course I never think of doing any baking except on a weekend. I used unblanched almonds, so there are lots lof little brown flecks, but otherwise I think they worked like they are supposed to. I even got little feet on most of them. I used a very basic recipe - I was quite disappointed to find that the luscious color of macarons is actually just powdered food coloring, and not flavour. I think I will try making them with a bit of cassis to see if I can't get them to make the same with a bit more flavour. I also tried putting them on a silpat, and that was a disaster. They didn't cook, and they stuck. The ones on parchment paper worked perfectly and slid off without any effort.

The recipe seemed small, and my weigh scale doesn't measure in such small amounts, so I doubled the recipe. I ended up with 8 or 9 sheets of cookies! I got bored with all the piping and started making them bigger and then made some heart shaped ones as well. This would be really pretty in pink or purple sandwiched with some purple jam.

Encaustics - again

Since I had all my encaustic materials spread all over my work table, I decided to play a bit with some small boards 4x5 I had prepared. The first board was well primed and had a fairly smooth surface, so it was possible to treat the surface like the slick paper usually used for encaustics, and the brushstrokes are similar:

I think that the second one turned out more interesting. The surface was still rather porous (which makes for better adehsion anyway), and the final image looks more like an oil painting from the 1800s:

Although it is small, you can still see the trees in the foreground, and the creek, hills and bluffs in the background.

encaustic

Rather than work on any of the sixteen projects I currently have underway, I decided to pull out my encaustic materials on the weekend and work on a rather large (for encaustics) painting. I spent a full day working on it, and another day struggling to make it look like the image in my mind. I finally decided to put it aside, because it simply wasn't working. I don't know if I will bother to spend the time scraping the wax off so I can reuse the board (it is a lovely 2 feet square), or just chuck the whole thing in the garbage. How frustrating! and a waste of a lot of time on the long weekend that would have been better spent raking grass.

Another fairy

I finished another fairy baby yesterday:

She is about the same size as the previous one (2.5 inches) and made from polymer clay.

Here she is asleep in her moss bed: