Flea Market Finds

The Friday before Christmas I hit my favorite antique spot in downtown Dallas. Set the tone for what's been an awesome vacation so far.

Here are all of the goodies I picked up and I was beyond excited to get the "Queen Mother" cabinet card for $5.00!



I love these taxidermy animals and can see why the Victorians had so much stuff collected around the house. An era I can definitely get behind.



A cabinet I'd love to try and make room for but unless The Doctor, preferably this doctor, (a la Doctor Who) comes to share his Tardis technology I'm outta luck.



Favorite shopping spot is Country Garden Antiques and I think I may need to check in again before this vacation is over!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Santa brought all the goodies on your list!

Festive Decorating

Tree in the kitchen.



Vintage tree in the dining room. All the ornaments except church, tree topper and magenta flowers are all yummy vintage ornaments.



Bird tree in the bedroom



Snowmen in the hallway bookcases



Some favorite ornaments on the big tree in living room




Sugar/glitter houses in the dining room



Studio tree



Another studio tree



Glowing Santa from my friend Bo the girl.



Large view of Christmas tree in the living room.

New Camera Goodness

I have been coveting a Lecia for a few years but it's totally out of my price range. A friend suggested this one as a great affordable option. Hubby found a super awesome deal so for $100 bucks it's mine. I couldn't resist pictures right away so this is the view out my desk window.

One of my favorite things about Dallas is the neon Pegasus that lights up downtown and luckily, it's my view when I'm sitting at my desk (which is almost never) but there you go. Some days I get super lucky and get to see the morning and evening glowy goodness!

The buildings with red roofs off in the distance are the Dallas Farmer's Market barns. Close enough I can easily check it out at lunch.

Time, Time, Time...

I have a two week vacation coming up and I'm giddy with the possibilities for what I can do with that time. Unfortunately, I'm also terrific about the over booking and over committing leaving myself with little vacation. Here are a few of the things I really want to get done.

1. Reorganize my studio space and garage workshop
2. Play with all my new goodies from Sublime Stitching
3. Start some of the bread recipes from the Tartine Bread book
4. Look at next year's calendar for art events, workshops, shows, etc I'd like to sell at or just attend. This year was supposed to be the year of art and that didn't go so well. I'm just moving it on to next year since it's still a priority. I've already started by booking this class
5. Create more pieces based on my Stephanie Lee's online class
6. I've also got some plans to hang out with some friends I don't see very often: Suzanne, Yuri, Bo the girl (although we do get in a fair amount of girl time :) ) and even Bo the Boy and the old True gang if they're around. Holidays are challenging for schedule synching.
7. Read about a million books I've been collecting: Urban Fantasy, Travel, Cookbooks, and at least my weight in magazines.
8. Go to the day time yoga classes I haven't had time to check out
9. Visit the DMA (Dallas Museum of Art whose website seems to be on the fritz)
10. Sleep in past 6 am!

Any terrific holiday plans you are super excited about?

Unintentional Hiatus

So I definitely didn't meant to take such a long blogging break but sometimes life gets a away from us. November flew by and I can't believe it's already Christmas time! Luckily, we're on top of it with the trees and outside lights. Most of the shopping is done and I've got two cookie doughs in the freezer with butter thawing. This holiday will be wrangled whether it wants to or not!

Here's a quick update on some of what's been going on. We went back home to Missouri which looks like this in the fall.



I love this picture looking down into the valley. I always forget how beautiful it is back home and then when I visit I want to stay!



We also saw Rolland's family, and Anita makes friends wherever she goes!



The main reason for our visit was my nephew, Hudson's first birthday, here are us kids with my Mom at his party. He was super cute and seemed to have a blast. He is adorable and just such a happy kid. It's awesome, my brother and sis-in-law are definitely aces in the parenting.



Next post, pics of the trees and holiday decorations! Now, I'm off to shower post gym and head into Big D to hang out with my friend Bo (the girl). I haven't seen her for a few weeks and can't wait to catch up! Also, I see a cheeseburger in the near future. :)

I hope you guys are having a fun filled Saturday!

Art from desk clean up

In trying to clean up my desk I came across this canvas that I had started but never finished. Slowly I've been adding to it over the last 3 days and when I got the blue paint mixed up I had a lot left so now I have 3 boxes drying along with two more canvases. When I get the desk finally cleaned I should end up a lot of finished work.

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned with all the layers and a row of sparkles. I tried to use only materials from my desk so it was all pieces parts that I've tried to use up.

Scot

Today is my brother's birthday and while I might be biased I think he's fairly awesome.

He and my Dad the day before his wedding.



Snuggling a bunny (mine to be fair) at Starbucks.



He and I at 6th floor museum.



In a few weeks we'll be heading up to Missouri to visit him and his family. It's my nephew's first birthday and while I can't believe my little brother has a baby it's been awesome to watch him grow up and see him with his own family. They're all pretty awesome as well.

Happy Birthday, I love you!

Best Ice Cream

Lately I've been getting a lot of Border's coupons for 40% and I typically use these to feed my cookbook addiction. My last fix included The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. And it didn't disappoint!

This was in progress



Then the perfect scoop(s).



I added in marshmallows and toasted almonds turning it into Rocky Road. Beyond tasty.

I made Rolland vanilla with actual vanilla beans (go figure) to which he added almonds (untoasted) and dried cherries. But since he was impatient to let his chill I put his in the fancy maker that has the compressor while mine was in the more old school frozen bowl maker. Ice cream turned out great with both so no super fancy equipment really required.

I have a blood orange sorbet recipe that sounds super tasty as well.

Halloween at Canton

I took an unintentional hiatus on blogging but I've been stocking up on the photos and outings so I should be back in the blogging saddle! So I'll just jump right back in. :)

Since I've signed up for Artsy Mama's swap I've been thinking about all things Halloween.



Turns out, I'm right on schedule according to the dealers in Canton. Here are a few pics of the awesome Halloween merchandising they had going on.





So this one isn't really Halloween but I love the neon arrow pointing to the fudge sign. As if we needed a sign!







My friend Bo (the girl) and I made the trek out to Canton. She's a lifelong DFW girl and had never been before so I felt duty bound to make sure she had the full experience including roast corn and the giant corn dog. We had a terrific time! I highly recommend it most anytime although I try to avoid the hottest months of the summer since the thousands of people crowding into the barns can make it even more sweltering and as I'm a delicate flower it's just not for me.

Next post, best ice cream. Ever!

Mini-road trip

I'm heading to Kansas tomorrow to pick my Mom and head to northern Kansas. We're going through Kansas City on the way and I plan to pick up some goodies at Dean and Deluca while my Mom wants to check out Victorian Trading Co. From there, we're heading north to spend the night in St. Joseph before hitting the HWY for the HWY 34 sale. I'm a little apprehensive since there seems to be nothing much online about it but hopefully I'll get a chance to use this



which I will be storing in here



Tomorrow will be a long driving day and quite the trip since I'll hit 4 states in one day! I'm trying to be good diet wise but it's a road trip and if I see a Cracker Barrel all bets are off!

Baking Goodness

I came into a little book gift card windfall and picked this up as part of my loot.



So far, I've made the Chewy Oatmeal cookies, blueberry buckle and pumpkin bread. I was especially excited about the pumpkin bread since my current recipe, which is super yummy, has shortening and I'm trying to avoid it. The cookies came out really weird but tasty. I think they would be better if chilled prior to baking.

Pretty much this has been the extent of my labor this weekend. It's been awesome to take 3 1/2 days to do nothing except relax and do all kinds of odd errands in and around the house. I'm thinking we should all revolt and make these holidays mandatory every week!

Hope you guys had a great weekend.

Cupcakes, Holiday and Oh My!

I had a baked goods request the other day so I went with the favorite cupcake which is truly just a vehicle for icing. In this case I went with the all time best chocolate cake (recipe on the back of the hershey's cocoa tin) and peanut butter cupcakes. Turns out, the only peanut butter I had was the super crunchy flax seed from Trader Joe's (seriously come to Dallas already!!!) which made them a little dense and dry but still tasty.

Pre-frosting and cool on the wire racks.



Double batch of frosting (not the one found on the back of the cocoa tin) but a double batch does have 6 sticks of butter. You know, just to keep it light.



Frosted. These are the peanut butter designated by a lone peanut on top. I wanted to pipe the icing on but all my icing bags and tips have vanished. A trip to Sur la Table is imminent since I have a coupon and have ambitions to get the piping down. Also, it cuts down on the icing looking like poo.



All packed up and ready to go. The lone cupcake was for a friend who requested no frosting. He prefers things not too sweet but the cake was super moist (hehe) and yummy.



I plan to start working through a few books. This one and this one specifically.

I'm beyond excited about the long weekend. My vacation started at 12:40 today and I immediately grabbed a chai tea, hit the bookstore and grocery store. Back home by 2:30 and watched The Time Traveler's Wife. It got mixed reviews but I loved it. I thought they did a great job translating a fairly complicated idea and feeling from the book to the big screen. Also, I covet that house they bought. Seriously, I would sell a lot of cupcakes for that! Ready to rest up, bake and play in the studio.

Happy Friday!

Wicked!

On our trip to NYC we saw Wicked which is the musical based on this book. Both of them are awesome! Although someone needs to talk to someone about the bathrooms on the mezzanine level. There 3 stalls, yep 3 for about 500 people. Someone is out of their mind. Luckily we sat right by the door so at intermission, first one in. Yay! Also, they have ginger ale at the concession stand so another big win. It's the little things that make me happy!

Stage pic from Rolland's iphone using hipstamatic. Love that app.



Rolland and I waiting for the show to start. Fabulous! Seriously, it's a great show if for everyone. We loved it as did Rolland's family so that's a pretty good span of age ranges. I'm not sure about the little guys and what they might think is scary.



Us on Broadway after the show.



I didn't really realize we matched until now. Yikes.

Summer Love

Friday night the hubby and some of my girlfriends and I headed for the fancy new opera house downtown to see Garrison Keillor's Summer Love Tour. It was fabulous! I love Garrison Keillor and this show was very much like a Prairie Home Companion with a little more music and less of the usual skits although it did have the news from Lake Wobegon and Guy Noir.

Here is a truly awful picture of Garrison Keillor. He did have a lovely white linen suit and the trademark red shoes and socks.



Rolland took a pic of us girls. Jen, Bo (the girl) and myself.



Bo and I on our own while Jen tried to brave the line for the bathroom. She gave up as she realized it wrapped around the lobby.



A really terrific night!