Purple

As I had a lot more free time than usual this weekend (no vending at the PSM, the rainy weather does not make for good outdoor vending in my opinion), I took a lot of walks and I went to the farmers market. I spent most of the weekend cleaning and working in the studio, but hey, it was a great weekend. Just now I was taking pictures off my camera and strangely, I did not take a lot of pictures over the weekend. This makes me sad, I like pictures. But what I did take, was purple. Inspiration? I am usually not that into purple (orange obsession runs deep) and its pumpkin time... but hey, these are great purple pictures.

PS. whats with organic eggplants that have noses? hm? did they lie about being organic :)

Sugar Cookies for Rainy Days

In the spirit of this rainy fall Portland weather, last night I made Butternut Squash Soup and Brown Sugar Cookies. Ummmm. Yummy.

This is the best Brown Sugar Cookie recipe I know - its goooo-ooo-oood. You don't even have to wait for the butter to soften, you brown the butter in a pan (which is so yummy!)! I had to share.

INGREDIENTS
14 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1/4 cup granulated sugar (about 1 3/4 ounces)
2 cups packed dark brown sugar (14 ounces)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
preheat oven to 350F

1. brown 10tbs of the butter in a pan on the stove (keep an eye on this, stir often as to not burn the butter, get a nice dark nutty brown on the butter) then take off the stove and add the remaining 4tbs of butter to the pan (this will foam up and replace some of the lost moisture, as well as cool down the butter). Set this aside to cool for 10-15min

2. combine 1/4cup brown sugar and 1/4cup white granulated sugar in a shallow dish (like a plate or a pie pan) and work out any lumps in the brown sugar. Set this aside to roll the cookies in before baking.

3. combine the flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl. Separately mix the 1 3/4cup remaining brown sugar and salt with the butter. Once the sugar has mixed in thoroughly, add the egg and yolk and vanilla to this mixture.

4. combine your wet ingredients (the sugar, butter, egg mixture) with the flour. Once stirred together so that there are no pockets of dry flour, divide the dough into two pieces. Set one aside.
6. pinch off small pieces of dough (you will make 12 out of this 1/2 of the dough - 24 cookies total) and roll into balls. Toss the balls in the sugar mixture you made in step 2, then space them out on a pan to bake. Bake 10-15min (check for doneness- take them out when they have sorta cracked on the surface but the center still seems uncooked, this will result in a great finished cookie once cooled)
7. When the cookies are done, cool them for 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Take the other half the dough (you can even prep the other 12 little cookie balls as the first batch cooks) and make the rest of the cookies.

Enjoy!

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Portland Weather

This is the weather forecast for the weekend. The Portland Saturday Market is an outdoor venue... I think I will skip tomorrow and perhaps online vend on Sunday (its open Sunday as well)

If you would like to come down and visit on Sunday, heres a map to the market...

View Larger Map

My booth is located along Ankeny Road. There is plenty of parking all around the market, all down Naito Parkway (along the river) and there are many many parking lots. There are fun places to eat around the market too (as well as the food court that is down there), the Bijou Cafe, Mothers, McCormicks and Schmidts... not to mention the Chinese Gardens. Its a fun area.

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Handmade Glass Buttons

Yesterday I had fun with a friend of mine making making some borosilicate glass buttons. We have another friend from the Market that wants to adorn his tie-dye dresses with handmade buttons (the dresses he tie-dyes come with simple manufactured buttons, he wants to replace these). Isn't that a great idea. I think his customers will like that extra touch. These are just some first samples to see how easy/hard they might be to make.

Basically I took a gather of borosicate glass color and smashed it, took if off the colored rod and attached it to a puntil, smashed again and fire polished... then I used a combination of two tools to make the holes - the "Handy Andy" and a tungsten pick. Fun stuff. They could be any colors at all, any sizes, and they weren't too hard to make.

I was doing some research on Etsy, there aren't a lot of handmade glass buttons that I could find on there... a couple of soft-glass bead artists with really exquisite soft glass buttons made on button mandrels. I own one of those, but I've never used it... I like popping the holes with the tungsten. Anyhow, there is not a lot of competition, and I am wondering if it would make for a popular Etsy product?

Do you think there are clothing makers or purse makers out there who would like to buy handmade buttons? I was thinking about pricing small ones like this at $2/ea or a set of 7 for $10? What do you think?

Glass Give Away!

A big thank you to everyone who has been helping me get the word out. Thank You and don't stop now! Keep spreading the word about the Garden of Leah, I will keep giving stuff away to my lucky readers!


These glass triangles are fused onto steel wires, the steel is relatively flexible, so you can bend it with pliers and it will hold the shape you desire. There are 10 of them. One lucky winner will receive all 10 in a box free of charge!!!



here you can see that the glass is a red color.... translucent... although the color is very dense, so they look nearly black.




I have meant to make something neat out of these for a long time. It simply just hasn't happened. So now I am passing on the fun - one lucky winner will get to make something crafty out of these yummies.

They are like jewels stuck on wires. Very yummy.

Be sure to send me pictures of what you do with them!


If you would like to be the lucky winner - leave a comment and spread the word. This give-away will run thru Oct 15th, 2008. I will contact the winner to get an address to send the prize.

:)

And the Winner of the Tripod is....

And the lucky winner of the tripod give-away is Krista!!!

I have started a page on my website to centrally locate buttons for the most current give-away, as well as chronicle the winners of each of the contests (this also serves to authenticate that I honestly am sending people free stuff!)

Check it out and you can have a sneak peak of the upcoming give-away (which will be officially released September 1st)

Please keep your eyes out on my blog for the constant give-away opportunities... its always fun to win free stuff! And spread the word - thats the idea here - if you think this is fun, tell your friends, increase your odds of knowing the winner and getting to play with the prizes... word of mouth is so key for a small business like mine! :)
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Fused Glass Embellishments

I am teaching a class on October 20th called "Torch for Fusers", the name says it all: you learn to make embellishments for glass fusing using a torch.


The above picture shows a glass flower that I created in the torch which later I fused down onto the glass circle.

Here you can see the finished piece.



Class takes 3 hours and you will learn a number of techniques that make for really fun embellishments. We will do flowers, petals, swooshy lines, dots, encased dots (which are pretty much really simple millefiori), latticino (swirly canes) and curly cues. Its a great way to take your fusing to the next level. Some of those design elements that involved a curved line or a rounded organic touch can be achieve by using a torch to manipulate the glass. So this class is a great way to open up your fusing, as well as a fun way to learn how to use a glass torch!

If this sounds interesting - call the Aquila Glass School to sign up or ask questions - I teach this class periodically during the year, so even if its 2009 when you are reading this, if you would like to sign up call: (503)240-9449

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