Early May Woods

Here are some highlights from our walk in the woods last week. Many of my favorites are in full bloom right now, I love this time of year!

Wild Ginger (Asarium canadense) uses ants to pollinate its flowers, and so it puts them inconspicuously at ground level. They are just starting to bloom, and the buds are so cute and fuzzy!

 

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) in this patch were some of the biggest I've ever seen. The flowers huge! So beautiful. 

Not the greatest picture, but does anybody know what this is? I'm not familiar with it, but it was really cool looking. 

The trout lilies were out in force. In Wisconsin, we see two types, the white (Erythronium albidum) and the yellow (Erythronium americanum). They are basically indistinguishable by their leaves, both have dark green leaves mottled with maroon. They grow in amazing carpets across the woods.

I think this is Wood Anemone (Anemone quinquefolia).

Bellwort (Uvularia sp.)

 I love how may apples (Podophyllum peltatum) come up looking like alien umbrellas. 

And the classic, my all-time favorite, Showy Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Still on my of favorites list that I'd love to spot this spring are Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Dutchmen's Breeches, Hepatica, Wild Geranium, Wild Columbine, Solomon's Seal, and Wild Strawberry. 

Mother's Day

Keeping up with my theme of being about a week late, here's my Mother's Day Post: 

  I usually don't subscribe to the hallmark holidays, but I wanted to make my mom something nice this year for mother's day. I miss my parents a lot now that we live a state away. My mom is a wonderful person who has been one of my biggest inspiration to be a do-it-yourselfer. My parents are so talented and seem to be able to do or make anything. I made my mom these Calla lilly earrings, and I think they turned out well. I'm really liking this link design that I have been using for my earrings lately. She looks great in them too, don't you think?! Love you Mom!

I tried to use Martha's DIY Pop-Up Mother's Day card to make my own card for Mom (I refuse to buy a card that I can make myself!), but unfortunately my haste and refusal to take care caused the card to be a flop. I colored the petals with pastels, and if I had actually followed the template, it would have turned out pretty cool, but I cut each one out free-hand. They didn't line up then when I tried to assemble the card. I tried again at work later when I had a little more time, and got the pop up to work a little better, so pretend that it looked more like the bottom picture Mom! Its the thought that counts, right? :D

Our Photography "Studio"

We are still working on getting the photos up to snuff, but I think you'll agree that they are much better than when I started this blog, right? Elis asked what we are using, so I thought I would devote a post to showing off how we've set things up.

The craft table in our spare bedroom has become the photography studio. Henry was procrastinating working on a paper one Saturday while I was at work a few weeks ago, and built this awesome soft box. He found instructions online, and then modified them to make it work for him. It looks a little "rustic" from the back, but I'm pretty impressed by him!

He covered a desk lamp with the same plastic table cloth that he used on the soft box front to add a smaller soft light that can be used to eliminate shadows and back light objects.

A piece of tag board is taped to the wall to make a uniform white background. I use a super super cheap tripod that we found at a dollar store. It does the trick though if I mount the camera on it and put the camera on a 2 second timer. 

I think we did all this for under $20. And that makes me happy!

The beginnings of a collection

I may have the opportunity to display my work at Rob's Loki's Clayworks Artstudio and Gallery in Wauwatosa, WI, and so one of the reasons I was so lax in posting last week was I have been trying to produce some pieces to put together a gallery display. Its a slow work in progress, but I thought I'd share with you some of the pieces that I've made so far. If you get a chance to check out Rob's Gallery, do it! He's got some amazing talent there, both of his own work and some other great local artists. 

Mokume gane earrings

Marbled black and white earrings

Octopus magnet.
 I was inspired by this book (which you may have heard about in this awesome Fresh Air interview) to create some sea creatures, and the octopus is what came out!

Sloth Pendant.
I love these, and the one I made for myself is probably my favorite necklace right now. I wear it all the time!

Carissa's Earrings

Carissa asked me to make some earrings that would match her purple and pink tops. The concept pics she sent me were of a corsage, so I wanted to incorporate that feel in the pieces. I also got this book last week, which actually is Amazing! I used the techniques to create roses, buds and leaves for these earrings. 

Easter (A little late)

Easter at our place was pretty simple. We didn't really have a lot of time to prepare before hand, so we didn't have much of a feast or lots of decorations. We did however, have a wonderful afternoon last Sunday baking and decorating eggs!

My mother used to make amazing hot cross buns for Easter, so I wanted to try my hand at it. I googled recipes, and found that unlike my mom's simple sweet bread, most hot cross bun recipes use spices in the dough. Always game to use cardamom, I decided to give it a shot! 

As always, Sheldon tries to "help"

Grinding the Cardamom

I think I ended up using a mix of cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and cloves. It was delicious.

Yum! I was too impatient to try them and put the frosting on while they were still hot (They are called "Hot" cross buns, right!?), and that melted, but they still tasted really good.

And now for the eggs!

We found this kit at Michaels, and anyone who knows Henry and me knows that we are easily distracted by shiny objects. It was a no-brainer pick. 

I'm coloring on my egg with a crayon to make a polka dotted egg. 

After dying the eggs, the instructions were to spread a thin layer of the included glue on the egg, and then apply the foil sheets. It took awhile to get the hang of it, and Henry had a lot more patience than I did. The packaged lied too. It said no mess... we were covered with sticky glue. It was messy, but a lot of fun.

Kitty Kisses!

Didn't they turn out cool?

Påskbordet, ready for our festive dinner of spaghetti. 

Sheldon was less than impressed with his Easter Bow. It lasted all of ten seconds once Henry let go of him.