Treasury

I've been having fun making 'Treasuries' on Etsy...this is probably a big time-waster, since there's not really any practical purpose that I can see. I don't include any of my own items in my treasuries, so it's not like there's any promotional benefit. But it sure is fun. This is my latest, inspired by the song 'I Can see Clearly Now':

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4ca0b43591c78eef982534fd/i-can-see-clearly-now?index=0

ArtFIre

So, a real post soon, I promise, oh invisible readers...but for now, a plug for ArtFire, which I would probably plug even if I weren't trying to win an iPad in their new contest.

Right now ArtFire is offering upgraded accounts at a discounted price, but 20,000 people have to opt-in for the pricing to become live. So, if you're a crafty seller like me, check them out...http://www.artfire.com/groupdeal

My ArtFire shop is here: http://www.artfire.com/users/eclecticgarden

farm sampler

Just a quick note, because I really am trying to be better about posting (it occurred to me that if I actually posted on a semi-regular basis, people might be more willing to read my blog!), with an update on the custom farm sampler. I am REALLY going to try to get my behind in gear and finish this up over the holiday weekend. It's been fun to stitch, and I really hope my customer will be happy with it.

Just a few more things to add...some more vines, a couple of critters, and maybe a pumpkin or three...



By the way, I don't know if I mentioned before that this is done on one of my fabrics. It's a new color, but I want to try it on linen too before posting it to the Faery Fire site.

food

Every now and then I get a wild urge to be creative in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the things I like to cook rarely fall into the 'healthy and slimming' category, so unless I've been able to successfully avoid mirrors for a couple of days, the urge is usually suppressed due to my fat ass fluffy curves. But alas, I recently stumbled across the awesome site foodgawker.com (actually, I didn't stumble across it; my oldest daughter forced me to look at it knowing full well that a foodie like me would be helpless before its siren call), and I HAD to try out some of the recipes I found therein.

The weirdest compulsion thus far: homemade marshmallows. I blame the photo (the source of all evil on foodgawker.com is the photos), which made the marshmallows look like confectionery heaven. The thing is, I don't like marshmallows. Toasted, sure, they're okay, but I'd rather have just about anything else, and plain marshmallows make me gag. Literally. But I couldn't stop thinking about the challenge of making homemade marshmallows, so I finally caved, ran to the store for corn syrup and gelatin (ugh! two nasty ingredients! honestly, it's like I was possessed) and set about following the instructions. I am, at best, a competent cook, so I was more than a little surprised when my marshmallows turned out like, well, marshmallows. They tasted bleh to me, but hubby - a true marshmallow aficionado - says they're "awesome" and much, much better than the store-bought kind.

Dunno if I'll ever make them again, but it was a fun experiment. I even choked down three or four of them, in the vain hope that just because I'd made them they would suddenly taste yummy. Actually, they tasted fine; it's the consistency I hate. But hey, if I've just got to cook fattening, gooey sweet things, better that they should be things I won't eat, yes?

Here are the darling little things. Mine aren't nearly as pretty as the ones on foodgawker. But I made them all by my little self. Go me.