Back To School Book Week- Craft Books

i ran across this idea from the vintage chica while checking out some new blogs and decided i had to play along. my kids home school and this year we are making our own schedule, so while most of their friends have already gone back to school, mine have another week of lazy days. but it's close enough.

Monday is craft book(s) day and I'm not sure i can share just one. i suppose my collection is small compared to most out there, but still filled with some great stuff. i have jewelry books, stamping books, altered art books, sewing books and a sizable collection of various somerset magazines. but my new favorite is the book, Enchanted Adornments by Cynthia Thornton the creator of green girl studios.


i wasn't sure that i needed or wanted another jewelry book but when i sat down to look at it at borders one day i knew i needed it in my collection. in it she shares various techniques using metal clay, wire wrapping, resin, and all sorts of fancy bits. her explanation of each technique is thorough and easy to look at.


in the projects section she has a story for each piece, showing how they are unique to each character and offers alternative designs as well. and the entire book is saturated with sketches and paintings and wonderful tea-colored swirls to match the stories and the projects.

another favorite is Artist Trading Card Workshop by Bernie Berlin. i think i love it for some of the same reasons. she has very doable ideas with very easy to understand techniques and step by step pictures for each. and she has dozens and dozens of examples, which is always a plus with me.



the last new fav I'll share is Keeping A Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth.


this is such a great book for beginners as it doesn't just say 'hey these journals are great and every great artist keeps one' and follow it by telling you how you have to set it up and what you have to draw. that would annoy me. no, the authors give a nice explanation of nature journaling and really keep everything on a low key level so that you feel as if anyone can do it.

they even share ideas of how to have a nature journal in any sort of weather or without even leaving your house. there are many many pages of simple sketches and paintings, exercises to try and some ideas on how to annotate. these ideas are presented in such an easy going manner that it really just makes you want to give it a try. i haven't even read half of the book through yet, i just love looking at all the sample pages and tips and ideas. there is also a section on teaching nature journaling, drawing techniques and journaling for children.


the kids and i will be making our own journals very soon and we are all excited about the possibilities. i just love the idea of taking some quiet time each week to really observe my environment and be a part of it. i think this will really help to improve drawing skills and the journals will make wonderful keepsakes as well.

sorry i haven't written in so long...here, i baked you a pie.

homemade punkin pie with a gluten-free crust

so i've been experimenting with flour blends. i've been baking wheat free/low gluten for a long time but not necessarily entirely gluten free. i'm trying to see if its practical or necessary for me to eliminate gluten all together. here is the flour mix i used for the crust. feel free to experiment yourself and tweak it as needed. : )

2 1/2 c oat flour (if you need completely gluten free be sure to get certified gluten free oats. oats are naturally gluten free but are often processed on the same machinery as wheat and can pick it up in the processing)
2 1/2 c brown rice flour
2 1/2 c sorghum flour
1 1/2 c buckwheat
1 c potato flour
1/2 c arrowroot starch
1 1/2 T xanthan gum

this makes about 10 1/2 c of flour mix so you'll have a bit for later.

pastry crust recipe:

1 1/4 c flour (high altitude add about 1/4c more)
1/4 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1/3 c butter or coconut oil
4-6 T cold water

stir together the flour and salt, cut in the fat (with a pastry blender, fork, or clean, dry hands) until the pieces are about the size of a pea. sprinkle 1 T of water over the mix and toss with a fork. repeat until moistened.

(I often find that with flours like oat or rice, they seem to like more moist as opposed to less so experiment with this to find what works for your flours and climate. you don't want to add so much water that the dough becomes sticky but you do want it to be able to form into a ball fairly easily. I think this time around i may have added too much butter as the dough was a bit crumbly-i tried to guess instead of measuring- while the crust was still fabulous it wouldn't hold together for me to transfer to the pie plate. i ended up piecing most of it together in the plate. was this from the butter or the flour blend? no matter. still tasty.)

this crust looks a little bit darker than you may be used to because of the buckwheat.

on a floured surface, roll the dough out from the center trying to make it circle-ish. place in pie plate either by wrapping it onto your pin or piecing it together : ) trim edges and flute.

punkin pie filling:

now i used homemade filling made from a pumpkin we had picked from our trip to the farm. making your own filling is slightly more time consuming but it sooo much more delicious than canned words can't describe it. it is totally worth it! to get your filling cut open your li'l punkins and scoop out the innards. (the seeds can be dried for planting next yr or baked with a spritz of olive oil and salt on a cookie sheet 'til golden for a healthy snack) bake your punkin halves or quarters at 350 until they are soft (probably close to an hour) cool a bit then scoop out all the smooshy goodness. this can be run through a processor to make it more pureed or used as is. i processed mine in an old fashioned hand processor then separated the batch into 1c baggies to freeze and use later.

2c (or 16oz) pumpkin
2/3 c turbinado or raw sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 t ginger
1 t nutmeg
1 t cardamom
1 whole egg
2 egg whites (save those yokes for your homemade lemon curd! I'll share that recipe soon :)
1 1/3 c coconut milk

combine pumpkin with sugar and spices, add eggs and milk and mix well. pour this mixture into your unbaked pie crust.

cover the edges of the crust with foil to prevent burning. bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.

remove the foil and add any little decorations (like the hearts or leaves made with extra crust) and cook for about 25 minutes more. the pie is done if a knife inserted in the middle comes out fairly clean.

makes 8-12 servings, store leftovers in the fridge.

we had this fabulous pie for dinner the other night. yes, dinner. punkin pie and a cuppa tea. i was very popular around here that night. : )

let me know how yours turns out. did your crust give you any problems? did you change the blend? i loved how the coconut milk made the punkin so extra creamy and delicious, what do you think?


even after using the extra crust to make little hearts for the top i still had a bit of dough left over. i just hate wasting good crust so i cut out a few more hearts, spritzed them with oil and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. cooked for about 10 minutes or so they made great little "cookies". (very low in sugar compared to normal cookies but the kids loved them just the same)

The Great Family Camping Adventure...pt2 (finally)

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! (maybe) (I have been anyway).

As you may have noticed I've been gone for a while. I'm easily distracted. And I don't really like to type. But I do like to yabber incessantly to no one in particular and blogging makes that sooo easy. I suppose it would be easier if I could just let everyone hear the ramblings in my head. Then I wouldn't forget them by the time I got to paper and I wouldn't have to type. Of course, then I may be sedated and locked away somewhere, or else have no friends at all, because I'm a nutter. So maybe it's best that I just improve my typing skills.... moving on....

In case you have forgotten, our story left off with me, the non-camper, insisting that we will be camping, we will do it in our own front yard, and we will like it too, dag nabbit! (Here is part one, in case you need a refresher.)

the tiny white and black speck is my 'dog' Poppy

Was I totally mad!? I hate tent camping. I haven't gone in 12 years, we have no airbed to make the ground more bearable and the mosquitoes in our yard will pick you up and carry you back to feed their horrible little bloodsucking babies like some tiny Jurassic vampiric monsters. After drenching ourselves in bug spray and still being eaten I was seriously considering calling it quits. Or investing in something with lots of DEET. (I restrained myself on both accounts.)

We begin setting up camp in the meadow (aka "front yard"), the 2 older children helping Papa set up the tents while the 2 younger ones entertained themselves. I think I just milled around and took pictures for the most part. I don't remember being at all helpful. I do remember being obsessed with the horrible little bugs.


We brought much of the camp gear to our site and got set up for the night. All of the children were in the large tent with us the 1st night (it had started to rain at one point so we just threw all the junk in the little tent before we got to finish organizing it.) It was a little crowded and a little annoying with all the giggling going on on the other side of the tent.



After we set up our tiny little patio fire pit in the meadow and lit our campfire. We cooked a traditional cruddy family camping dinner of hot dogs and s'mores over our little fire and by the end of the 1st night the girls were smiling and enjoying their treats. And as a bonus, I get to pee in a real toilet, in a clean, familiar bathroom. We did not, however, shower until we 'got home' from our trip. We also didn't let the kids stay inside the house. Oh, they tried to convince a couple of times to let them watch a DVD,

"No, we're camping. We don't have TV."

"No, you can't use the laptop, we're camping an we didn't bring it."


This resulted in lots of tree climbing. Surprisingly, the baby went to sleep easily and even the girls didn't stay awake all night fighting.

Early in the morning (like 3am early) I awoke and was again filled with appreciation for the 'stay' part of our camping 'staycation'. It was just so nice not to have to stumble down an unfamiliar, most likely booby trapped, little path in the dark dead of night trying to find the nasty latrine. That horribly unpleasant place where, by this time of night, I'd probably have to wait my turn. I'd be right after the gargantuan hairy spider that's using the seat first.

The local coyotes have quieted down, the neighbors chickens are still asleep, but somewhere down the road, presumably on the outskirts of our little town, someone has a cow. This cow is hollerin' at 3 o'clock in the morning. What's up with that? As I drift back to sleep on the uncomfortable ground (despite the huge pile of cushions Gabe has found for me) the cow is still mooing. And at 5am when the chickens wake, the cow is still mooing.

Day 2
Our first camp breakfast is pancakes cooked on the little camp stove. We realize that we didn't pack a bowl to mix them in and lucky us!, we don't have to try to borrow one or buy one somewhere. 'Cause we're in our front yard. Awesome.


Breakfast was delicious. Gabe has packed a library book about tying knots, and a bit of rope. Despite my concerns he taught the girls a few of the knots that he's learned. Thankfully, he refrained from teaching them the hangman's knot. Even though they pleaded. (Twisted little monkeys)

I have been talking about a cute little garden canopy that I hoped Gabe would build for me for a couple of years. It's a simple thing, just a pretty bit of fabric and some poles. While I don't have the fabric yet, we do have the poles and an old sheet. Gabe wants to practice some knots he's learned so he finally agrees to build one for me. Just for practice. The poles come from some of the trees that we cleared from the yard, a fraction of the number that need to be cleared. But it's a start.

He had piled them up near an old crate in our garden area and when he began to move them this is what he found...


A hornets nest the size of a dodge ball. And he kinda annoyed them. Thankfully, we have a friend in pest control who offered to take care of it for us. (It was kinda funny watching him . We were safe in the house while he slowly, ever so gently, placed his applicator under the nest, gave it a quick pump of the poison and ran like the blazes to his truck and took off. He did get hit a couple times but I guess he's used to it.) A couple days later Gabe was able to remove the nest and all that was left was a sad little pile of perished pests.


Gabe spent the next couple of hours setting up the canopy. Perfecting the position, adjusting the knots, anchoring the poles and keeping the girls from falling off his ladder. Other than the brief moments on the ground to eat or help with the canopy, the girls spent most of their time in the trees. They talked Gabe into cutting off bits of his rope for them to practice with too and eventually they had a rope swing in one of the bigger trees.



The weather was calm and warm. It had sprinkled off and on since the night before which helped to discourage the mosquitoes from coming out for most of the weekend. That was a lovely bonus as well.


I had packed a bag with paper, pencils, paint and favorite magazines. I had joined a group of artists in a mail art project making 30 unique postcards to send out, and (hopefully) getting as many in return. (I've received about 21 so far.) I had hoped to be inspired by living out in the woods with the bugs and nature and stuff. After the canopy was up I moved my little table over and pulled out my pencils and chalk. Here is the 1st card I made, while sitting outside in 'the woods' enjoying nature...



For our 2nd nights dinner we made soup on the stove. I have to admit it was lacking something. That doesn't happen very often though. Camp food I guess. We finished off the rest of the homemade graham crackers for our s'mores and retired to bed. It's so much easier to go to bed at a decent hour when you're not tied to electricity. This time the girls were in the little tent. Much better.



Day 3
No one had even mentioned South Dakota. The girls were in the trees again and the oldest was smiling and playing instead of being all serious and moody. We opted for pancakes again, instead of eggs, and I snuck some zucchini in them for good measure. The kids gobbled them up and ran for the trees. Gabe lowered the canopy a bit so the shade wasn't so far from the base.



After lunch we cleaned up and started to break camp. We took down the big tent and packed up most of the gear, leaving the canopy and our small tent for the girls to continue using. It stayed up for another month and a half. By 5pm we were mostly cleaned up and a friend had come over with dinner to share so we didn't' have to cook after an 'extremely exhausting' weekend of camping. (Yes, he knew we stayed home. He offered anyway, who am I to argue?)

We were showered (finally), fed (generously), and had had a wonderful family weekend without distraction. Just us. Together.