new/old camera treasure!

Months ago I picked up an old camera at the local Salvation Army store, and just now got around to Googling it, and what a treasure!  It's a Zeiss Ikon, Super Ikonta 530/2
Thanks to Mike Elek at Classic Cameras, I have access to a manual and lots of lovely images of my camera!

There was a roll of film in it when I got it, and now I know that only six pics had been taken.  I got the film developed at Cooper's Imaging in Norwichtown, CT--very nice people! I brought the negative home and scanned it into Photoshop to see what was there.

I like the rose the best, and the last one of the trees and barn next, but have no clue where they could have been taken.  The Cooper's guy said the roll (Kodak Vericolor III, 120) was probably from the 90s,  and one of the images has an above ground pool in the back--behind bushes and a railing (#4).

I bought a new roll of 120 film and armed with the manual from Mike Elek's site, I'm going to learn how to use this really cool piece of German engineering!

My Challenge Blog...

So, I've officially created my Virtual Bakery, a dream  that just needs visualization, and a bunch of money, to come true.  This first baby step is the creation of it's own blog, http://rowantreebakery.blogspot.com/ where I'll post pics of the results of the challenges I'll try in The Daring Bakers monthly challenges.  The first one is for September, and is Croissants, using the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two. Julia Child and Simone Beck.

I'll also post more baking pics there as I practice new recipes and techniques. The challenges will tell me if I'm ready to go for it and make RowanTree a reality!

More cake! ...and Daring Bakers!

My latest adventure is with l'Opera Cake. It's French, and so delicious it can make me cry!

The recipe was online, and it's basically the one Dori Greenspan uses in her fabulous book Paris Sweets (which I immediately ordered from Amazon), and she adapted it from one made at Dalloyau, a shop on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in Paris.

It consists of layers of joconde (an almond sponge cake)drenched in espresso syrup, then spread with a generous layer of espresso flavored French Buttercream--something that, once you've tasted it, you may never go back to the stuff you make with shortening and powdered sugar, for sure!--then more cake and syrup, then ganache, more cake and syrup, then a glaze made of melted chocolate and clarified butter blended into something unbelievable!

So, now I'm on a joconde journey. I'm going to try at least ten different combinations of this scrumptious cake and fillings and glazes--how can I not?

My search for Joconde led me to The Daring Kitchen and I joined right up to face the challenges put to Daring Bakers there! I can't wait for the first one!

Cakes, Cakes, Cakes!

I've been so busy baking, that I haven;'t had time to blog--I even have a new smartphone, but I'm not quite 'smart" enough to blog from it yet--soon!

Meanwhile, I've uploaded all sorts of pics of cakes I've been making to my fotki site, click here to see them!

This one is an almond cake with Raspberry Buttercream, and lemon lettering, and toasted almonds on the side.. The hummingbird was done freehand.

What tarot card am I?

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

OWOH WINNER!!

IMGIRL is the winner of my OWOH giveaway! I've e-mailed her and just waiting for a reply!

Congratulations to all winners and bloggers in this fun event!

One World, One Heart Final Giveaway Event

This is the final year this event will be held, so I had to join up again.


I'll be giving away two 12" quilt blocks SIMILAR to these two--the colors and fabrics will be different as they are scrappy quilt blocks I haven't made yet! The patterns will be the same, and the fabrics will all be quality quilt cottons, prewashed and carefully sewn.



I'll make it with preferred colors if possible if the winner has made a preference in his/her comment.

LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS TO
THIS POST
TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

One World, One Heart--Final Event!

It's starting Monday, 1/30 so check back here to post your comments again this year--my giveaway will be posted on Jan. 30 so you can leave your comments and hope to win!

This has been and is a great bit of blogger social networking--visit all the creative and artistic and crafty bloggers who link in, and see how wonderful the world is!!

One World, One Heart--Final Event!

It's Coming!

Nuccio's

I'm hired! I have three good jobs now, all adding up to one full time, which is great. It works perfectly into my ADD, since every day is something different, and I have so many new things to research and develop and learn--from Microsoft Word and Excel and Quickbooks, and a big list of other interesting programs in the secretary job, then general cooking and menus and recipes for the cooking dinner job at the monastery, and then there's all the baking!! I love baking!

Nuccio's Italian Market is a NY style Pizzeria, with a deli and market on one side and a bakery case I get to fill daily--well at least the three days I work there. There's another woman working there, too, who has been there a year+ and basically has the experience in how this particular bakery case needs to be filled, and I'm learning it gradually, since I'm only there three mornings Thurs, Fri and Sat.

January with all the new snow we're getting has slowed things down a bit, but I can work in the kitchen doing other prep if there is no baking to be done, so it's ok. I'm also going to try to enter some cakes in the CT Cake Competition in February. It's a busy time for me! YAY!

New cakes

I've worked a little in a new place--still waiting to hear if they actually want to hire me. These cakes were part of my "audition"



Birthday cake #1











Birthday #2




















Wedding Cake #1

nanowrimo is already almost half gone...

...well, a week into November anyway, and again, life is just a little too busy for writing. At least novel writing. I used to write a lot before I had a real life--this one is pretty full and I barely have time to paint, or draw, or do most art. I spend a lot of time on the computer, admittedly a lot of it watching tv and checking my e-mail LOL--but I'm working on three websites, and organizing my photos, and back to work at both jobs after three weeks out for shoulder surgery--I'm doing ok all things considered.

I have a list now, of prioritized things I actually must get done in a reasonable time, and I'm checking things off every day--this is a great feeling! Next in line is Lara's wedding dress and the gumpaste tropical flowers for her cake! I'll be carrying them down on the plane (that decision finally made, too!) and assembling the cake there. I may ship cake layers down there if I can find a shipper that's trustworthy enough to get them there in one piece...each.

Pictures will be coming soon, as I work on things.

Oh, and did I mention it snowed last night? A heavy dusting that rapidly turned to slush and rain--it all came from what they are calling a Rogue Storm, the likes of which have never been seen before. In the satellite pictures it looks like nothing but a hurricane! There were 62mph winds in Maine, trees down and power outages--not so bad here, but there was definitely wind!
It's a little early for snow, our lilac bushes still have some leaves on them!

NaNoWriMo is coming!

I've know about this for several years now, but always remember it sometime in early December. This year, I stumbled upon someone else who likes the idea and had a link in their page--Voila! So I'm adding it here, so I may notice it again before November rolls around in full force!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

http://blog.lettersandlight.org/

The Grill Cake! LOL

Fred told his brother I'd make a cake for the annual family picnic, a Grill Cake--so I had a challenge!






The hot dogs are pretzel rods dunked in melted butterscotch chips, the burgers are cut out of fudgy brownie, and the cheese is gumpaste. The flames are royal icing.

The cake was from scratch, and flavored with a secret blend of extracts! Yummy



The frosting is all real chocolate buttercream, colored black with icing color, and the hot coals and ashes are ruby red petal dust, and powdered sugar colored with a little black icing color.

It was gigglingly received and eaten up!!

Pepper's getting plump

Pepper has outgrown her "window seat" in the front porch/Cat's room. Fred built two wider shelves for them to sit on now and gaze out at the world...or nap.

New cakes and some pondering...

This is the final cake I did for the Wiltons Fondant and Gumpaste class. The cake is a 8" x 3" layer of yellow cake, crumb-coated with buttercream, a little thicker than just a crumb coat, with pale green fondant covering it. The board is covered in white fondant with Royal icing rosebuds around the edge, then a green fondant rope border at the base of the cake. The Roses are Royak icing in peach, dark pink and pale yellow; the daisies are gumpaste with yellow sparkly sugar on the center part; the primroses are royal icing, and the leaves are modeled fondant and cut out gumpaste.

Close-up of the flowers.

This one is the final cake for the Flowers and Cake Design Course, which I took at the same time as the Fondant and Gumpaste. The cake is a two layer 8" round Butter Pecan cake with buttercream filling, and blue buttercream frosting. The basket weave is white vanilla buttercream, and the flowers and top border are royal icing.




Here is a 'from-the-top' view: I wanted a sort of Wedgewood look, and I may touch the edges with some white or pink luster dust to add some shimmer and maybe color--still thinking about that one.

Cake Decorating

I've been taking Wilton's Cake Decorating classes for a month and a half now. I took the first one, which was the basics, and the book and kit were the "old" ones, then between that class and the second one, they put out the new versions, so my second class is the "new" one--I'm also taking #3 at the same time so I can finish them up quicker.

It's fun, and I've remembered a lot of what I did back in school (Johnson and Wales in the '80s) so I'm catching on fast and already looking outward to new and different ideas.

I made a couple of cakes for the church I work for:


they were for the Parish Council Dinner, welcoming in the new Council and thanking the outgoing members. The chocolate cake is German Chocolate cake, with a chocolate ganache frosting, and buttercream flowers. The Flowered cake has a very pale pink buttercream frosting, and buttercream shell border, with gumpaste flowers I made in class--two calla lilies, three roses and two carnations, the edges of which are dusted with gold dust. The Chocolate cake was eaten to the last crumb, and the other had a few pieces left over for Sunday's Coffee Hour. A pretty successful endeavor!

Need for CDs!

Still no word from Netflix

I need a source, or multiple sources for thousands of old, damaged or just defective or unwanted CDs and DVDs. Any size, and condition--even pieces and parts--they will be drilled, so no one will ever use them again even if they were good. Also old dead motherboards, ethernet cards, modems, hard drives, any interesting looking bits and pieces are welcome, but mostly the discs. My goal is 4000, so please contact me if you have any to donate to this art project, or know any place that might have a LOT to dispose of in a creative manner.

Secret Sundays

Seth Apter has several inspiring projects going through his blog- The Altered Page.

"Secret Sundays" just ended--18 weeks of wonderful "secrets" from artists all over the place.

"...Over 150 (!) artists have answered a series of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented as a series of online and print projects. And the first begins right now!

Beginning today, join the The Altered Page every Sunday for "Secret Sunday." Here the secrets of all your favorite artists will be revealed. It could be a technique, a product, a secret source, a little-known website, a hidden shop, an inspiration, just about anything!..."


Next up is the Book Guild "...The Book Guild will meet every Sunday, rain or shine. So stop by to be introduced to a whole new library of art-related books. The Guild will be more than just a list however. There will be links, book reviews, giveaways, and interviews with many of your favorite authors. And I promise you that there will be some major events that are guaranteed to knock your handmade socks off!!..."

Come along and join the fun!

New Spring-Summer projects Project

Ok now I'm stepping away from all the swapping, which is a fun thing to do, but takes up a lot of art time. I've just about finished my 400th swap, so it's a good time to stop for a while and do something else.

I've been sewing quilt blocks most lately, you can see some of them here I've sent all of these out so far, and now just wait to get blocks back in the mail. I'll assemble the most likely ones into a scrappy type quilt top.

I have plans for three quilts now--the scrappy swap quilt, a string quilt (sample here--not mine,
but a basic idea of what they look like), here is one of my blocks:



and a dutchman's puzzle variation

this is a virtual quilt of the pattern, created in Photoshop. The dark blue pinwheels are a fabric with celestial images in blues and yellows and touches of white, the yellow is a yellow-on-yellow geometric pattern fabric, the white is just white with fine sparkles all over, and the outer blue border is a sponge-looking blue on blue pattern, and the light blue squares has also a celestial sort of pattern with little yellow moons and yellow and orange-red stars, with dark fine scroll design over all.





The other projects I'm looking at, besides cleaning out the garage to make studio space, are more paintings, and the Secret CD Project.. Of the 4000 required old cds and DVDs I need for this one, I have now acquired about 900. I'm also looking for dead motherboards, hard drives, old RAM chips, and any other components that have the green circuit board parts. Once I get at least 2000 parts, I'll start assembling. I recently wrote to Netflix to ask if they'd like to recycle their old DVDs through me--that could bring my totals right up! I hope they consider it!