Make Your Own Vanilla Extract

Tempting? Expensive vanilla extract can be made DIY style for less $$ and more fun!

Here's what I did:

1. I bought some vanilla beans off Ebay - for $10.99 (and free shipping!) I purchased 20 Grade A Tahitian Vanilla beans and I received 22 of these beans and 10 Grade B beans extra for free!! What a steal - I paid about 35cents a bean!

2. Find some bottles. I used the beautiful brown bottle in the picture. I bought them from my friend Rachel - she uses these bottles for her wonderful Aromatherapy

3. Buy some booze - vodka to be precise - 3/4 cup for every bean is the ratio I used approximately (I actually used 4 ounces for each bean)

4. There are many many recipes online, they vary slightly... this is what I did with my friends... we heated the vodka (don't boil it! just heat it up a bit) and split the beans, scraped out the bean goodness and put the scrapings and the bean shells into the jars. Then pour the hot vodka into the jar to fill and put the lid on.

5. Shake the jar, shake it once a day for a week and then voila - vanilla extract!

I even read that you can refill the bottle as you use it up, just top it off with more vodka. It lasts for a couple of years. Oh yeah. This is much less expensive than the stuff you find in stores!

Then since I had way more beans then I needed for the extract, I also purchased a bottle of decent vodka (the extract was made with cheap stuff) and put some split beans in the bottle - DIY vanilla vodka. hm.... I think it will smell good :)

Screams of Joy

All day at the Portland Saturday Market I listen to screams of joy from the kids playing in the fountain. Its awesome. Sometimes funny, mostly its just cute. Occasionally there are screams that sound like bloody murder, but there is a smiling frolicking child behind that blood curdling noise.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day at the Market - in September - in Portland! Go figure. So I put my shade top back on the booth and cooked like a slab of bacon. It was ridiculously hot in my booth. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong. It was hot in my booth... I drank a lot of water and I sweated. I brought my wonderful new sunhat though, and that was helpful (and fun to get another opporutnity to wear it!!)

Sunday the Pacific NW cloudy sky rolled in and contrary to the weather reports (which called for mostly sunny, high upper 80s) it rained in the afternoon. And I had my shade top on my tent which is NOT water retardant - in fact its more of a weird mesh weeve, so the rain just rained right thru it. Yep. I got rained on, under my tent. I honestly considered going to my car and getting an umbrella to stand under, as in stand under my booth with an umbrella over my head to keep my dry. What a site that would have been! Luckily my work could care less, the mobiles were dancing in the wind and looking beautiful with rain, its more just me... and a few labels on product packaging... but I simply decided to repackage a few things later and not really worry too much in the moment - my regular tent top was in storage too far away and I crossed my fingers that the rain would just stop. In the meantime I went and got myself some beans and rice from Donna Lola and it stopped raining. Then it got sunny and warm again.

Ah Portland in the fall. Its fall now. hm...

USPS Virtual Box Simulator

This is pretty neat, using a printout of the USPS logo and your webcam... however I must admit that a much easier way to know what box will fit your item best is to just have a few of the different sizes available on hand at home. They are FREE boxes after all :)

Self Portrait with Life Size Art

While I had this piece hanging for a photo-shoot (documenting custom work to email to the client) I got crazy and put myself in front of the camera with my work! This one is sorta life-size, so I thought it would be fun to get in the shot.


Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it is like to be a full time artist. One word keeps plucking a string in my brain: Vulnerability.

I think being a full time artist is vulnerable lifestyle choice. Or at least it is for me. Don't get me wrong, vulnerability can be a really good thing - taking down the walls around my heart, letting people in and letting stress go... its a good thing. Makes me breath easy just thinking about it.

However, being vulnerable is notoriously avoided, as it can lead to great hurt and harm. Two sides to every coin eh?!

So what do I mean that I feel vulnerable as an artist?
Seriously - anyone can find me quite easily, both online and in person - I unabashedly use my birth given name to promote myself and my work. Also I sell my work every weekend at the market, thus putting my person out there very available to the world. I am very much aware that anyone can walk right up to me and find me - I have a sign on the back of my booth that says my name!

Let alone the fact that I love what I do. Love is a vulnerable place to be! Artists put their heart on their sleeves so-to-speak... this makes us very vulnerable. Profoundly. Unless isolated in your studio with no desire for feedback what-so-ever... but then without feedback and sales, how is an artist supposed to go on thriving and growing.... again, there two sides to every coin!

Another personal example of all this vulnerability is I've always felt particularly uncomfortable in front of the camera - but in order to promote me and my work, its the voyeur in all of us that wants to see pictures of the artist with the work... online the only way to share this perspective is by getting in front of the lens. *gulp*

What are the huge slugs in Oregon!

Oregon has some huge slimy slugs. This critter pictured above was at least 6-7inches long.

Even though they give me the heebeegeebees I had to take some shots of them... the texture in their skin is neat and the rusty old train tracks made for great pictures! I like how you can see his slimy trail in this shot below

I am not sure, but I think these two slugs are getting it on! Slug sex! Kinda looks like a yin yang with a ball of foam in the middle.

The thing that was freaking me out the most about these gigantic slugs, was they were all over the train tracks and I was afraid of accidentally stepping on them. Oooo slimy shoes - that'd be gross.There were a lot of neat caterpillars too! Seemed like every one looked different. (I called the one above the "camo caterpillar") And it definitely seemed like caterpillar time of year (is there such a thing) because they were everywhere, chillin', movin' along, munching leaves and being cute...

I took so many pictures of a couple of them, I made stop-motion films! So cute!

Following the Salmonberry River Train Track

Today I went on a walk along the old Salmonberry River train track. The tracks themselves are now unused. I thought it would make for a great hike and really neat pictures. I brought along the Nikon D80 to play around a bit.

A swollen river last year rocked this train track, blew out the bridge and many mud slides covered the Salmonberry River train track
It was difficult to find, sortof, I did a crap job of trying to follow the directions, and frankly, they read that you drive 11 miles or so down this small road until you cross the train tracks and you park on the left. Well now the road just ends where the river blew out the bridge and the train tracks. So you just park at the end of the road where you can see there is a Train Crossing sign sorta leaning over lamely. Kind of an odd experience. But we found it! Yeah! (side note, we actually missed a key turn on the drive and ended up driving all the way out to the beach and had lunch with some pushy sea gulls before turning around and trying a second time to find the road to drive down to find this obscure location!!)
The birds wanted our sandwiches.
After our beach distraction, and stop to refuel and recharge, we set out to find this crazy Salmonberry train track place.

It was really beautiful to walk down the tracks. The trail guide described it as a "Stand by Me hiking experience"... "Have you ever wanted to wander off down the railroad tracks? This is your chance. The Port of Tillamook Bay allows hiking access on this not active 16 mile section through a roadless canyon in the Coast Range."(60 Hikes winthin 60 Miles: Portland)

I thought this would be awesome!

I enjoyed it. Walking along the train tracks was hell on the ankles, brilliant for concentration, and I couldn't get over the imagery. I loved the big steel bridges. The river was beautiful, I can only imagine what it looks like when the water is higher.

It was a bit disappointing, but somehow integral to Oregon all the same, there was a big patch of active logging going on. It was late enough in the day that they seemed to be shut down for the moment, but you could see all the equipment at the top of a bald patch. We stopped when we actually hit road blocks in the tracks concerning the logging activity. I want to go back and hike to this little remote ghost town of Enright. A train station and a post office, sort of two ramshackle old houses from the 1920s. I want to see that! Next time :)

This time I saw logging.

A Wet Weekend

Its been raining here in Portland this weekend. I was "rained out" of the market this weekend. Okay, so I am a wuss and I just didn't feel like hanging out in the bad weather all weekend, outdoors, trying to sell my artwork?! No thank you. But rest assure the Portland Saturday Market is open rain or shine, I just didn't happen to be there.

Image is from back in 2001 - me underwater in Koh Tao, Thailand.