one lonely apricot

tutorial: make your own valentine's day candy!

2012-02-10T08:04:00.007-05:00

I love certain holidays. I love Valentine's Day possibly because I love the color red and I think hearts are adorable. An excuse to make cute stuff that's red with hearts on it? I'm in!

For a few years when I was in college, my circle of artsy/crafty friends would have outdoor craft sales a few times a year. One of my favorite traditions is that we'd have one just before Valentine's Day. And I would always make these chocolate hearts to sell. This year I made them to take to a Valentine's Day party that my friends Jessica and Chris are hosting tomorrow. I'm really excited for it! We have been instructed to wear red and pink, and I think I've come up with the perfect outfit. I'll be sure to post pictures.

This candy is delicious, easy, adorable, and at least as affordable as buying a big bag of already-made Valentine's Day candy. I already had most of the supplies I needed, but even if you don't, there's not too much to wrangle up.

- heart molds--I use silicone ice cube trays! You could also buy real candy molds.
- chocolate--I use Ghiradelli chocolate chips. Whatever you do, no almond bark!
- add-ins--I made a batch with espresso beans and a batch with graham cracker pieces. You could stir in anything small.
- tiny bags--I bought mine at a craft store in the jewelry making area.
- colorful cardstock
- stapler

Step 1: Melt your chocolate. If you are using big pieces, chop it up. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 25 second intervals, stirring in between. Be careful not to overheat/burn it! You could also use a double boiler, if you lack a microwave or want to feel more like a real candy maker.

Step 2: It might be time to stir in your add-ins. It depends on what they are. For my graham cracker pieces batch, I stirred in the graham crackers at this point. For my espresso beans batch, I placed 2 espresso beans in each heart by hand. Use your judgement here.

Step 3: Time to use the molds. I bought these cute ice cube trays several years ago, allured by the idea of making heart-shaped ice. The ice cubes it makes are actually way too small, though--as in, you need to use almost a whole tray for one drink! I kept them around and eventually had the idea to make candy in them! You can always get real candy molds if you can't find any heart-shaped ice cube trays (though I think those are fairly common).

Step 4: Here you see how I dropped two espresso beans into each chocolate. I then pushed them down with my finger so that chocolate would cover them. You also want to shake the trays from side to side to make the chocolate fall down into place and eliminate air bubbles. You don't have to fill each heart completely, depending on how big your tray is. Mine makes a piece of chocolate that just feels slightly too big if I fill it all the way.

Step 5: After pouring the chocolate, I let it cool in the freezer. Otherwise, it takes a long time to become solid (a reason why people use almond bark...but don't do it! just read the ingredients...it's not real chocolate and it doesn't taste like real chocolate).

Step 6: Once my chocolates were cool, I immediately put them in my tiny plastic baggies. I left the baggies unzipped until the chocolates reached room temperature, to avoid condensation on the insides of the bags.

Step 7: I then got to work designing some labels. I did a very simple design using MS Word. It included a dingbat heart shape from the font Webdings, Happy Valentine's Day in a script font I downloaded awhile ago, and a description of the candy (very important warning in this case for those who don't like coffee! eep!). I printed them out on red cardstock, cut them out, folded them in half...

Step 8: ...and stapled them in place. Adorable! Now wasn't that easy?

Now I need to decide if I will make these for all of my students, or buy them pre-made candy...I promised them candy for Monday (we don't meet on Tuesdays)!

How will you be celebrating Valentine's Day?

where does a week go?

2012-02-06T16:33:00.007-05:00

Oh, blog friends...where does a week go? I am so looking forward to graduating in a few months (also simultaneously dreading it, for other reasons). The plus side of things: I am learning so, so much, and always moving forward. Downside: I rarely have time to relax, and must do work for school seven days a week! Yikes!

On Saturday, I learned the historic photographic process of wet plate collodion! It was really awesome to learn. At my school, every year the art department awards two post-MFA fellowships to selected artists who have completed their MFA in the past few years. The post-MFA fellows get to teach a few classes and make their work in our facilities for one year. This year one of the post-MFA fellows, Heather, is in the photo area! She specializes in historic processes such as wet plate collodion, and is doing a wet plate collodion workshop in two weeks. I volunteered to help at the workshop, so I got trained on the process a little early with the other volunteers (three fellow grad students).

It's difficult to explain in a few sentences what wet plate collodion is, especially with a wide audience of readers with varying photo knowledge, so if you are interested to know, take a look at the Wikipedia article here. We learned how to mix the chemistry, coat the plates, take and develop the image, and varnish the plate! All in one day. It was a magical, mad science photo time. I took some snapshots of us working but I used a 35 mm camera and haven't developed them yet...sorry! I'm a little behind on everything at the moment, so snapshot development gets pushed to the bottom of my list. I'll post them soon. Also, the whole day was spent mostly just learning the process, and I only made images on two plates, which I then ruined while learning to varnish them. So I'll also post my wet plate collodion images after the workshop. I have some awesome ideas!

Yesterday, I spent half the day cleaning my apartment and half the day doing a take-home essay test. I feel relieved to have both of those things done! My apartment was definitely suffering since I've been telling myself not to worry about it and just to focus on school. It feels so nice and clean now! I am thinking of painting a few rooms new colors soon and I may post pictures here and ask for your opinions. I'm ready for a new look! To anyone else going through a stressful time...if your living space isn't as clean as you usually keep it, do not blame yourself! It will be okay. Just avoid having people over for a few weeks, and focus on your work! I don't feel like we get this permission from many people/places, so I just want to throw that out there for those of you who need it. I felt really guilty that my apartment was so messy when I was so busy, and I think I should have just cut myself some slack! Yes, I function better when my home is clean...but everyone has limits!

Take home essay test...took me a little over 5 hours, and ended up being 7 pages of writing (6-10 was the required length)! Oh my goodness. Did I mention how I can't wait to graduate!? Let me clarify here...I love learning. LOVE IT. I wouldn't still be in school if I didn't. I would just like to have a little more free time on my hands. The class I was writing for is an art history course on the history of video art...it's very interesting! lately we have been learning about guerilla television, which I find very intriguing because I am interested in learning about counter-cultural movements. Check out some footage from this video we watched from this group from the 1970s called the Videofreex:

The Videofreex were an artist collective based out of a small town called Lanesville, New York, where they ran the first pirate television station (for six years!), since Lanesville couldn't pick up any regular channels. Pretty ingenious!

Okay, that's all I have for today...I'm currently dreaming of summer when I'll have time to sew and garden and make things and sit outside in the sun...it will be so wonderful! Until then, school school school! Going out with a bang. That's how it should be.

p.s. Welcome new readers from the Comment Love Challenge!!! Leave me a comment and I will check out your blog!

p.p.s. Millie-cat says, "Get off the computer and play with me, already!"

...and she follows that up with an I-mean-it look!

second vlog & february comment love challenge!

2012-01-31T07:30:00.010-05:00

Hey, everybody! I am feeling so on top of things because yesterday I had an amazing day! I had my review with my thesis committee first thing in the morning and it went really, really well. I got some helpful feedback and positive encouragement, which is all I could have asked for. Oh, and I passed! Later in the day, a few other good things happened as well...I made a vlog in order to tell you a little about them:

If you want to know how Nick Offerman was, stay tuned for a more detailed post later this week! Now, to talk about the blog challenge I mentioned, which officially starts tomorrow, February 1st...

I have teamed up with three of my favorite blogs, Desirous of Everything, Edison Rex, and Tamara Like Camera, to bring you the Comment Love Challenge! The four of us have talked about how awesome it feels as a blogger to receive comments on posts. We want to feel like our posts are read and appreciated, of course, and the best affirmation of that is receiving comments.

So what exactly is the Comment Love Challenge? The challenge lasts from February 1st to February 14th. Anyone can sign up, and the goal is for each participant to comment on at least 3 blogs a day for 14 days straight! The blogs you comment on do not have to be other participating blogs from the challenge, but exploring the blogs of other participants is encouraged. We especially encourage you to check out and even follow the four of us, since we're hosting the challenge!

Besides receiving new followers and lots of comments, you'll be entered in a giveaway to win Elsie Larson's Blog Love E-Course! simply by completing the challenge and making 42 comments! Thanks so much to A Beautiful Mess for sponsoring our challenge. We will also feature the participant who makes the most comments throughout the challenge.

Imagine how many new readers you'll get through completing the challenge! And how many new blogs you'll discover! Sounds great, right? Are you interested? First, add your blog to the link-up! Then, post this Comment Love Challenge in your side bar. That's it, then you're in! Keep track of your comments with plain old pen and paper. We're trusting the honor system here.

progress report!!

2012-01-25T20:59:00.005-05:00

Millie "helping" me write my thesis.

I just sent the first draft of my thesis to my advisor!!!!!

It felt SO good to press send!

It is not as long as my goal, BUT it's longer than the minimum requirement, and I still have several things to add for draft 2! So I think when all is said and done everyone will be perfectly okay with my page count.

Now to get all my new images ready for my review on Monday! It's going to be a long weekend but I feel relieved to have this big step out of the way!

48 questions

2012-01-25T15:57:00.003-05:00

Keeping the 48-questions trend going! Thanks, Sarah!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:45...I set my alarm for 6:00 but I just couldn't get up!

2. How do you like your steak? I am a vegetarian and the last time I had steak was probably sometime around 8+ years ago!

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Last week I went to a night of short films involving contemporary dance, as homework for my ballet class. It was really good! My favorite one isn't online or I'd link you to it.

4. What is your favorite TV show? That's a loaded question because it makes me think of every tv show I have ever loved. My favorite ever is Gilmore Girls. My favorite that's on the air right now I think would be...dun dun dun...Parks and Recreation! A year ago I would have said The Office but without Michael it's just not the same. Of course, I still watch though. I only started Parks and Rec last month but I'm sort of obsessed now. I'm actually going to watch Nick Offerman do stand up on Monday at my school! It will be my post-committee-review gift to myself.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Italy, hands down!

6. What did you have for breakfast? Coffee, more coffee, and peanut butter toast.

7. What is your favorite food? I have a lot. Let me list a few for you: clementines, avocados, olives, cashews, chickpeas, salad, tomatoes, eggplant, peaches...the list keeps going.

8. Foods you dislike? Meats, of course. Bleu cheese...just learned this last week. I rarely, rarely, rarely eat cheese. Like, less than once a week. So when I do I want it to be an awesome cheese I love. But I treated myself to some fancy gourmet salad last week and mistakenly though that bleu cheese was similar to feta cheese, my favorite cheese ever...lesson learned, it is NOT similar!

9. Favorite place to eat? My favorite in Columbus are Hal and Al's vegan bar and Whole World vegetarian restaurant...nothing beats being able to eat anything on the menu! I also like sampling various restaurants' falafel sandwiches, and comparing them.

10. Favorite dressing? Anything mustard-y and also, lately, poppyseed. I also make a mean balsamic vinaigrette!

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? I feel weird talking about this in my blog, especially since parts were stolen from my car a few weeks ago! I think I'm just gonna pass?

12. What are your favorite clothes? Skinny jeans, tights, skirts just above the knee, cardigans, pashminas, ballet flats, fun prints and pops of bright color. That encapsulates my look. Lately I am really obsessed with peter pan collars and I want some shirts with them.

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? I would go back to Italy in a heartbeat. I would also visit pretty much anyplace else 'cause I love traveling and I love going anywhere, it doesn't have to be a typical touristy travel spot.

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? Amanda once said, when I was in her high school English class, that whether the cup is 1/2 empty or 1/2 full depends on if the cup started empty or started full. I think that is pretty accurate.

15. Where would you want to retire? When I retire I hope to live on a small farm!

16. Favorite time of day? Morning, easily.

17. Where were you born? Arkansas!

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? The only sport I watch is figure skating (and I don't very often anymore). I also make a point to watch cross country skiing during the winter Olympics. Other than that, I am not very sports-oriented and it honestly takes a lot of effort not to be annoyed with people who are! I know that's so bad.

19. What is your favorite fragrance? Warm vanilla sugar from Bath and Body Works...I'm a sucker for it. I hate all their other fragrances. I would like to find a more eco-friendly substitute, maybe something handmade off Etsy. Feel free to recommend.

20. What is your favorite face cream? I use Aquaphor face lotion during the day, with SPF 30, and at night I use almond oil! It's great for dry skin and Ohio will do that to you.

21. Favorite baby/kids products? Whaaaat does this mean? I really like apple juice. Is that a kid's product? I also like Lisa Frank stuff. And Hello Kitty.

22. People watcher? Yes, I have to apologize to people I go get coffee with for getting distracted people watching.

23. Are you a morning or night person? Morning.

24. Do you have any pets? Millie the cat!

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Mmmmmm...nope! Nothing that I can think of.

26. What did you want to be when you were little? For awhile I wanted to be a teacher (and now that's what I want to be! and am, temporarily...hopefully permanently within a few years, if that makes sense...although when I was younger I wanted to be a grade school teacher), then a writer, then a marine biologist, then a fashion designer, then a photographer. Now I want to be a photographer/photography teacher and on the side I have been learning to screen print because I have dreams of designing my own fabrics and sewing things out of them. I also still like to write and do often, just not in the same ways as before. So I am basically living a mix of all my dreams except the marine biology one. I still love the water and I'd love to have my own boat one day.

27. What is your favorite memory? I have so many. I'm very memory-oriented.

28. Are you a cat or dog person? Both! I don't have a dog though. But someday I will.

29. Are you married? No.

30. Always wear your seat belt? Of course. Always!

31. Been in a car accident? Once.

32. Any pet peeves? When my students show up late for my class and make me lose my train of thought mid-sentence! Today I had 6 late students, coming in one by one...I was so upset by the last one and told them, "You'd all better start getting to class on time!" Can you imagine me being mean? No, me either... :( But I'm not a pushover!

33. Favorite pizza toppings? Any veggies!

34. Favorite flower? Zinnias, sunflowers, carnations.

35. Favorite ice cream? Riesling Poached Pear sorbet from Jeni's ice cream in Columbus! It's so good.

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Fast food's not very veggie friendly.

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? None!

38. From whom did you get your last email? The art department secretary.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Hmmm...a photography store! I would like to finally get all the equipment I need and be done instead of getting it piece by piece!

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? Making that video blog on Monday was spontaneous!

41. Like your job? Yes! Unfortunately it ends when I graduate so I'm looking for things to apply for now! Eep.

42. Broccoli? Love it!

43. What was your favorite vacation? Study abroad! Best trips ever....so far, anyway. I hope to travel more when I start making the big bucks (ha). Or at least just a little more than I do now.

44. Last person you went out to dinner with? Corey!

45. What are you listening to right now? Big trucks outside digging up the gas lines.

46. What is your favorite color? I have a lot of favorite colors. They include, but are not limited to: mint, teal, mustard, bright red, white, gray, caramel, the color blue that the ocean is on world maps.

47. How many tattoos do you have? Zero.

48. Coffee drinker? I probably couldn't live without coffee.

my first video blog

2012-01-23T16:29:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Sarah and her Jumpsuit Friday vlogs, I've been inspired to make a video blog! I hope it entertains you a little bit. Topics include vlogging and what it feels like to talk to the camera, grad school, and big cookies. Thanks for watching!

p.s. If you've had trouble leaving comments lately, they should be fixed now! I could not figure out what was wrong with them, but they are magically better. So, comment away and I shall write you back!

streamlining research

2012-01-16T13:52:00.004-05:00

I've been working really hard today on all of my stuff (off school for MLK Day), but I just wanted to take a short break to post this quick tip for research. Again, this may be most beneficial for other students but I think everyone could find a use for this.

Have you noticed that on Amazon you can search through many books before buying them? Duh, Kristen, of course we have noticed...that is so last decade! Okay. Well, then you know that you can view a small sampling of pages this way. I used to only use this to determine if I was interested in a book or not, and I still think that is a great use for this feature.

However! I have found an even more exciting way to use this. When you click on the "Click here to look inside!" book cover, the familiar little window pops up, and you'll see on the left side bar "Search Inside This Book." I used to think this would only search those pages available in the short preview of the book.

But! I recently realized this actually searches the entire book for your chosen keywords! Not all of the pages are available for you to click on, obviously, but the search will give you a list of page numbers with phrases that include those key words. In my scholarly writing I have found this is a great tool to use in addition to having the physical book in my hands. If I didn't make proper notes when reading, can't find the note I made, or do not intend to read the entire book, I can do a keyword search to find exactly the pages I need!

Maybe only those as nerdy as I am will be fascinated and excited by this, but honestly I think it is amazing! Go grab a book off your shelf and try it out over at amazon.com.

throwing caution to the wind vs. being cautious of the wind

2012-01-15T11:35:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, it is a good idea to throw caution to the wind. Leave things to chance! Don't worry! Fly by the seat of your pants! But notice I said, sometimes this is a good idea. Sometimes it is a better idea to be as cautious as possible.

Being in the middle of writing my thesis, I can tell you I have learned a few things along the way in this seemingly-never-ending academic career of mine. Today I will share two tips that I believe can benefit every person, not just students. These might seem like no-brainers when you read them, but sometimes a nice little reminder can be good.

1. When you are working electronically, back up your files. You've heard this before, right? Well, do you do it? I hear of people losing important files all the time. They knew better. But they didn't back them up. The two most common excuses? I was too busy and I didn't think it would happen to me. Well, stop being too busy to insure something of such great value to you (seriously, backing up files requires you to click, click, click, then wait for the transfer to finish...you have enough time for a click, click, click?) and stop thinking nothing bad will ever happen to your computer because something eventually happens to every computer, and that's just the way the world works (yes, even yours, you Mac users who are reading).

It is always a good rule to back up your files, but becomes especially important when you are working on a Big Project with a Specific Deadline. Normally, I back up all of my photographs and important documents once a month on two separate hard drives--as a photographer in the digital age (though I still often use film) I really cannot afford to take chances with my work! One of these hard drives never leaves my desk area at home, and the other can travel with me to places like school, the library, etc. I leave photographs that haven't been backed up yet on my camera's memory cards--I never delete photographs from my memory cards the moment I load them onto my computer.

I also try to leave back-ups at my parents' house when I visit (I forgot this last time, oops!). This can be done on a DVD (non-archival CDs and DVDs don't last forever though, be warned) or a flash drive, or another external hard drive if you have a lot of important stuff. You couldleave this spare copy at any trusted friend's home. This is important in case of fire, theft, etc. In the worst case scenario,--may it never happen--I simply would not want to lose all of my data, which includes all of my college and grad school papers, all of my image files since 2005, and more.

A third option for back-up is storing your files on the internet. You can now upload files to "the cloud" through various hosts. I haven't taken advantage of this yet but I would really like to for my most valuable files. You can also e-mail things to yourself! I do this all the time as a temporary way of backing up my files. My thesis in progress? You can bet I'm e-mailing it to myself every day when I finish writing! Why? If my computer crashes for any reason, I don't want to start over! I'm only fifteen days away from meeting with my committee and I don't want to have to pull out any excuses. Be prepared for anything.

Adorable kitty bookmark was a Christmas present from my friend Sara! From Ten Thousand Villages.

2. When you read, hear, watch, or in any other way encounter something that interests you, make a note! I have a lot of information to pull from for my thesis, and that's because in my everyday life, I take good notes. I make bookmarks when I find something online, I write in my sketchbook when a professor or colleague mentions something I should look up, and I scribble notes in the margins of books I own and on my bookmarks in library books. When you find something that is really intriguing to you, you'll have the tendency to think you will remember it much later without any physical reminders. Well, I'm here to tell you if you don't know already, that this time next week you will be thinking to yourself, What was that really important thing I read last week? Ugh, it was so interesting! At least, that's what happens to me when I forget to make a note of something! I don't use every note I make, but I am very, very grateful for the ones I do end up using. Even if you aren't in the middle of writing a thesis paper, if you write other things, consider yourself a creative type, or just want to enrich your life, I promise taking notes will benefit you.

I hope these two tips are helpful to some of you! Now, if you haven't backed up your computer in over a year, go do it right now!! What are you waiting for?

getting started

2012-01-14T17:17:00.002-05:00

Dear readers, I must offer my apologies for not posting as much as I'd like to lately. As some of you know, I have only two quarters of grad school left until I graduate--hurray! That is exciting news. The less exciting part is that I am right in the middle of writing and producing my thesis this quarter! I suppose that's actually really exciting when you think about it, but it doesn't feel that way when you're in the middle of it.

What does "writing and producing" my thesis mean, exactly? I feel like I should explain it a little more, since every degree is different. Since I'm getting my masters degree in fine art, that means I'll produce a body of art work to be shown in a group exhibition in April with my colleagues. The written part of the thesis is the paper I write about that body of art. The hardest thing is working on the art and the paper at the same time! Since my program is so short (2 years) it's almost impossible to escape this overlap. The best thing is that I'll be done by spring quarter and can spend that last quarter making awesome work while not being super stressed out!

Coming up on January 30th, I have a review with my thesis committee (three of my professors). At that time, I am expected to be done with the first draft of my written thesis, and have in-progress pieces to show of the visual thesis. I was not in a huge hurry to start the written part for several reasons:

1. It's a paper and who gets in a hurry to start those? (Duh.)
2. I wanted to know exactly what my visual body of work would be before writing anything (less revising necessary this way).
3. It's not super long like you may be thinking...it varies from person to person but my committee head advised me to aim for around 25-30 pages.

Yesterday, I finally got things in gear and started writing! The first page is always the hardest, isn't it? It is for me. Luckily, I made an outline to go by a few months ago, so I didn't have to worry about that before starting the actual writing process.

To help things along, I employed the writing method of my friend Sarah of Desirous of Everything. Sarah is an awesome YA fiction writer and is currently working on a manuscript. To stay on task, she makes calendars which she fills with stickers for each day that she reaches her goal of writing 500 words (which is every day, because she is so awesome at sticking to her plan!). I made a similar calendar on the wall above my desk for myself by dividing up my thesis into 15 2-page writing days. Today was day 2, and I have over 4.5 pages written! For each page I complete, I mark my progress with a sticker. It really does help me to look at the wall and know how much I have done and how much is left, and to see that I'm making progress. As long as I stick to my schedule, I'll be done with my draft in just 13 more days! How exciting. It's going to be nice not procrastinating and writing 30 pages the night before the draft is due...I mean...uh, not that I would do that... (I kid, I wouldn't write 30 pages in one night...but I would definitely procrastinate a big chunk without these mini daily goals).

I'll try to make more posts about what I've been up to lately! I just need to remember to carry my camera with me to document things. Once the thesis madness is over, I have huge plans for this blog and my Etsy store. I wish I had more time to put in sooner, but realistically I know I just don't. I really need to focus most of my attention on school for now. I'm glad a deadline is in sight, though! Until then, I'll make updates here about school and I hope you'll find them interesting.

don't worry, i got this

2012-01-09T21:05:00.003-05:00

Recover from cold. Check!

Have car repaired. Check!

Catch up on approximately one million things I am behind on? Ah!

I can't blame the cold and car troubles for everything, but they did start a sort-of snow ball effect that has left me feeling frazzled and a little behind on just about everything. I'm trying my best to catch up and luckily, Millie helps me write essays for my art history class so I can focus on other things (I kid). Just look at her, she's saying, "Don't worry, I got this!"

My art history class this quarter is focused on video art, and Millie just loves watching Vito Acconci videos like this one. Who knew!

Writing essays, watching video art...I might be making her sound like a little prodigy. She still does the normal cat things too, not to worry. Oh, and she's afraid of oranges for some reason. She shudders and backs away at the sight of an orange.

car parts and sniffles

2012-01-03T21:53:00.004-05:00

I have oh-so-many posts planned!
New features! New ideas! New directions!
And oh-so-many things have been keeping me from writing here (and taking down my Christmas decorations...eeep!).
Stolen car parts, a cold, and school starting back up make the top of the list.

For today I'll leave you with this cute snippet from Christmas of me and my brother.
As soon as my sniffles die down I assure you I'll be back in full force.

saying goodbye to arkansas

2011-12-29T09:14:00.003-05:00

Goodbye, Arkansas! I am leaving today to head back to Ohio. I should have written some posts in advance for my traveling period! Oops. Next time I will be prepared.

I hope you're looking forward to the new year as much as I am! I have some great things planned for this space.

12 days: wrapping up

2011-12-24T23:33:00.006-05:00

Days...9, 10, 11, 12? Where did they go? I think I realized they were lost around the same time I found myself running through the Memphis airport to catch my connecting flight after my first was over half an hour late, my Christmas plans flashing before my eyes (a slight exaggeration, given Memphis is only a 2 hour drive from my family's house, so worst case scenario if I couldn't get another flight, someone would've picked me up). I made my flight, though (whew), and after that, I decided to slow down a little, and not worry so much about anything stressful, such as keeping up with blog posts (even though I love writing this blog, of course!).

I'm sorry I wasn't able to keep up with all the 12 Days of Christmas posts. Sometimes I want more structure here when clearly I'm not so great at sticking to a blogging schedule. Maybe my plan, instead of trying to follow a plan more, should simply be to fly by the seat of my pants. I'm pretty sure I don't do that as often as I should.

After all...I've had a great holiday. That was my goal when I decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas series, so...failure? What failure? Mission accomplished! Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays, One Lonely Apricot readers! And now, for a little more Christmas cheer...

Ugly sweater t-shirt photos with Corey, sans tripod (that's why you can't really see the shirts, which is what we wanted to show off, oops!).

I decorated these papier mache ornaments to give as gifts! (A DIY project? Why, yes, I believe it must be!)

I added two Christmas coffee mugs to my collection and had a cup of cinnamon coffee in one the day before I left Ohio! (Notice my poinsettia in the background, and my awesome vintage tablecloth!)

Cooked an early Christmas dinner with Corey, featuring green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, pineapple, and veggie "meat." Plus, leftover birthday cake for dessert!

I tried fruitcake again. The first time I had it was in my college cafeteria, and I haaaated it. I could only be convinced to try a piece this small...and I can't say I liked it the second time either! But, it was better than the cafeteria variety, I'll give it that.

Wrapped presents with my brother...I am a TERRIBLE present wrapper! I decided that next year I'm going to get/decorate some really cute gift bags and skip the paper. Seriously.

Wrapping in action.

And I baked about 6-7 dozen more Christmas cookies once I got here! This batch is no-bake chocolate-oatmeal-peanut butter, my brother's favorite.

Merry Christmas!

12 days: turn twenty-five years old

2011-12-17T21:42:00.006-05:00

Dear readers, my apologies for being a little behind on my 12 Days posts, especially *ahem* the DIY ones! They are in the works, but not quite finished. I supposed the holidays are busy in their own way. I have every intention of publishing all 12 of the days here, so don't worry.

Today is my birthday. I decided to include this post in my 12 Days of Christmas because my birthday and Christmas have always been intertwined. I have never minded receiving birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper, and I even decorated the birthday cake I baked today with Christmas sprinkles.

Yep, I baked my own birthday cake. Because I wanted to. And, let me just say, it tastes delicious! I used this recipe for vegan vanilla cake and I made vegan chocolate buttercream frosting.

Let me share a few of my past birthdays with you. A few years ago, I turned five:

For as long as I can remember, my parents have been telling stories that start with the phrase, "Twenty years ago..." Only a couple of years ago I started having my own, "Twenty years ago..." moments, and of course, with every year, I have many more memories that occurred that long ago. It's hard for me to believe, but this picture of me with my Little Mermaid cake was taken twenty years ago.

We'll fastforward a little bit. I was going to show you a picture of me on my birthday from every year in my 20s so far, but the year I turned 20 was only available on an external hard drive and I didn't feel like pulling it out, so we'll start with twenty-one. I feel the need to comment on what I looked like each year, since these photos make a neat little timeline. Year 21: my hair looked awesome, and I practically lived in that gray sweater, which I had to retire last year after I spilled fix on it (a photo chemical that turns clothes brown). Check out my "art cake" too!

Twenty-two. That tablecloth is a winter staple in my family's house (I really like it). Different gray sweater (I really like gray).

Twenty-three. Photo adventure with Corey. I wanted to do that today but it was snowing and I am a wimp when it comes to the cold! I love this outfit and sometimes still wear it.

Twenty-four. First trip to our favorite restaurant in Columbus (the one we did the beer tasting at this week). This was a couple of days before my actual birthday.

And twenty-five. I got a replacement gray sweater. (Did you notice how I'm wearing a cardigan in every picture? In 24, I'm pretty sure I was wearing one under that coat.) Also check out my awesome bee earrings, a birthday present from Corey. These are my favorite glasses that I've had too.

So now I'm 25. It kind of feels like the perfect age. It's not too young-sounding, or too old-sounding, but the perfect in between. I'm looking forward to all the good things that this year will bring.

p.s. Only 2 days left to enter the giveaway!!!

12 days: thank you card preparations (and a giveaway!)

2011-12-15T20:34:00.007-05:00

DIY Christmas posts will be starting tomorrow! Stay tuned! Day 6 of my 12 Days of Christmas did involve making something, though: thank you card designs. I love writing thank you cards the day after Christmas. Since my birthday is only one week before (coming up on Saturday!) I write them to anyone who gave me a Christmas and/or birthday present at the same time. I always feel like I need to hurry up and write the birthday ones by the day after Christmas, plus I just really like sending cards.

I had a fun time drawing these. I love scallops so naturally I put them on everything. I have also been practicing my banner drawing skills lately. I decided on colors that seem sort-of Christmas-y when you see them the day after Christmas, but that won't seem Christmas-y should I have leftover cards to use at other times during the year (smart, right? I know). They are adorably tiny just like my Christmas postcards, 3.5"x5", so they can be sent with a postcard stamp.

I will be selling a few sets of these through the One Lonely Apricot shop (in sets of 8 and 4)! I ordered a limited number of extras from my printer so act fast if you are interested. Also! I am giving one One Lonely Apricot blog reader a chance to win a set of 8!

This giveaway will end on Monday, December 19, at noon! The winner will receive them in the mail a few days after Christmas. To enter, you must be a follower of this blog. Simply leave a comment answering the question:

What are your favorite types of cards to write/send?

*Deadline extended! Friday, December 23 at noon! Enter!!!!*

12 days: winter beer tasting

2011-12-15T08:39:00.004-05:00

Tuesday was Day 5 of my 12 Days of Christmas. Corey and I and a few of our friends went to a Christmas & winter beer tasting at our favorite bar, which happens to exclusively serve vegan food. Being a vegetarian, I love going to restaurants where I can eat anything on the menu! That is because at most other restaurants, I can eat 1-2 things on the menu. Big difference.

I took all of these pictures with Corey's phone, by the way.

A few days before, they had a Festivus celebration, and the decor was left up from that. We are big Seinfeld fans, so of course we were amused. That's a life-sized cutout of Frank Costanza, by the way, with an aluminum pole beside him. There was also a bulletin board where people could post their grievances.

Technically, I didn't do the beer tasting. They have a beer tasting every single Tuesday (the theme varies) but normally you taste 4-5 beers. For this one, it was 12! I decided to pass. I tasted most of Corey's, though, so I still participated.

Each table had a list of the 12 beers with descriptions. Since moving here, I have learned a lot about different types of beer, because there is just a wider variety available here. It's actually a really interesting topic to me, and I am impressed by my own knowledge of it since I used to know next to nothing! Now I would like to learn more about wine.

Corey was talking very animatedly to our friends so I couldn't get a good picture of him!

This one was a chocolate cherry beer. It tasted like a cherry cordial! Corey did not like it, so he gave it to me. I thought it was good, but I don't know if I could drink an entire glass of it.

We had a lot of fun! Stay tuned for Days 6-12 of my 12 Days of Christmas! I will be posting some DIY tutorials.

12 days: adopt a christmas kitty

2011-12-13T10:07:00.003-05:00

Corey told me over and over, all he wanted for Christmas was a cat. So yesterday, we went to our local Humane Society and adopted this little girl. She's 8 months old and at the shelter, went by the name of Frosty. We want to rename her but haven't decided on a new name yet.

Overall it was a really great experience and very different than I thought it would be. I had never been to an animal shelter before, so I didn't quite know what to expect. A few of the animals looked a little sad, but most of them seemed cheerful and all were well taken care of. There were lots of volunteers circulating, playing with the animals and answering our questions.

She even likes her red bow tie. I got this just so that we could take a Christmas picture. I thought it would be fun if Corey and I dressed in Christmas colors and the cat wore a red satin bow tie. (We haven't taken the picture yet, but we will!) I put it on her and she seemed to like it, to my surprise. I thought it would be a struggle just to keep it on for a photo! I got the bow tie collar from Parkside Designs via Etsy! Lots of cute handmade stuff, check it out.

Tonight's 12 Days of Christmas activity...dinner with friends and a winter beer tasting!

thrift store finds: vintage levi's skirt (and a special surprise)

2011-12-12T20:54:00.006-05:00

Saturday morning I woke up feeling [temporarily] free from responsibility (finals week just ended) and wanting to celebrate. I decided to go shopping...thrift store shopping, to be exact. The "regular" stores are crazy right now, and we all know thrifting is my favorite type of shopping anyhow.

Pictured above...Tomato pincushion ($4) and old farm photograph (25 cents): found at an antique store I visited with my friend Jessica. I haven't shared these photographs yet, but I've been doing some work with tomatoes and tomato-like objects, including my own 15-year old pincushion of this sort. This one is much, much older, so I grabbed it in hopes of using it in a future art project. I always snatch up farming and gardening vintage photographs when I find them, so I had to have this one, of course.

From my usual thrifting spot: cloth Christmas napkins (5 at 39 cents each), hand-glazed Santa tumbler with a signature and 1965 carved into the bottom. The glaze on the lips ran which is probably my favorite thing about this creepy, creepy Santa.

I find lots of old, mostly worthless point and shoots at this particular thrift store, all the time. I always, always look at every single camera. As a photographer, I just can't help it. I pass up plenty of semi-good stuff, to be honest. My younger self would have wanted them all, but I have to pass sometimes, or my home would be full of cameras. Polaroid cameras, semi-okay point and shoots, instamatics... I have a modest camera collection and I add new cameras when I find ones that interest me. When I find a Nikon under $5, though, I pretty much know I am going to buy it. This particular one, the Nikon Tele Touch ($4.95), was made in 1986 (how fitting, since I was born in 1986 and my birthday is in five days). I have a similar one made in 1980 but it doesn't do very well with close-up shots. This camera, however, has a macro function. I was so excited when I found it! It came with the original manual, even, AND a roll of used film is inside. That is my favorite thing about buying used cameras...the possibility of used film. Going to develop it this week and see what's on it.

Embroidery hoops. I kind of have a lot of these. Next quarter I am going to be screen printing a lot of my own patterns onto fabrics and I want to display samples of them this way. I think it's going to look aaawesome. These are not really expensive brand new (a few dollars), but at 50 cents each, I couldn't pass them up! They are around 12-15 inches wide.

Then. I. Found. Something. That. Made. My. Jaw. Drop. I was looking at the skirts--buying used skirts is a great thing to do if you want to get into vintage or secondhand clothing, because it's easy to find ones that fit. I actually have quite a few that I really like and wear often. Lately I have been particularly drawn to vintage denim skirts. I was going through the rack, when I found this gem. A 1977 Levi's denim skirt...With. The. Tags. Still. On! You can bet I snatched it right up and headed for the dressing room. It's one size too big but super high waisted so you can't really tell at all. I feel weird about taking the tags off, so I haven't worn it yet...but I plan to soon! Oh, and guess how much I paid for this!? $2.99. That's right. Go ahead and pick your jaw up off the floor!

Check out the awesome hang tag on the far right. I really want to find a pair of jeans like that. I'm not kidding...I would totally wear them! I recently got some "high waisted" skinny pants from the GAP...I like them but they are actually disappointing in the "high waisted" department because they don't come up very high at all...not like these amazing jeans would!

Finally...my 12 Days of Christmas Day 4 Sneak Peek...today I bought Corey's Christmas present (he was there)...a cat! More on that tomorrow...but isn't she beautiful!? Adopted from the Humane Society.

12 days: christmas tv episodes

2011-12-11T21:36:00.006-05:00

The Christmas task for Day 3 should have been eating the cookies I baked on Day 2. haha! Okay, but actually, it didn't require much more effort than that. If you thought all of my 12 days of Christmas were going to be amazing DIY projects, I hope this doesn't sound totally lazy: today I relaxed and watched a few Christmas episodes from shows I really like (while eating cookies).

First up was this week's episode of The Office. In my opinion it hasn't been as funny lately (actually, it hasn't been as funny since Jim and Pam got married....) but I was laughing out loud a lot during this year's Christmas episode, so maybe things are looking up.

The mood hasn't hit me to watch a Christmas movie yet, but that's on the agenda for this week. Some of my favorites are The Grinch (the Jim Carrey version), Elf, Home Alone, and The Santa Clause. What movie would you recommend?

p.s. I made this for you, dear readers:

12 days: writing christmas cards & baking sugar cookies

2011-12-11T09:50:00.005-05:00

Welcome to my 12 days of Christmas series! Here's the scoop: Friday was my last official day of school for the quarter, and on the 21st I'll travel to be with my family for Christmas. There are 12 days in between, so I've decided to do at least one Christmas-y thing each day! Finding that "Christmas spirit" everyone talks about takes a little conscious effort...so here we go.

Pre-12-days activity: decorations! Read all about my decorations here in my guest post on Desirous of Everything. I have since added a few more items. My decor is nothing very fancy or expensive, but I love seeing it every day.

Day 1: The first day was Friday. Originally I wasn't supposed to have to go into school that day, but I ended up having a meeting. I finished writing/addressing my Christmas cards while waiting for my meeting to start (unfortunately I did not have a camera at school with me! oops!).

Day 2: Baking Christmas cookies! I am a really serious cookie baker, you guys. I love baking new types of cookies as well as constantly trying to perfect my secret chocolate chip cookie recipe. For these sugar cookie cut-outs, I used this recipe from Allrecipes (it has 4.5 stars and an astounding 4,600 reviews, wow!). I only make vegan baked goods, so to make these vegan I simply used vegan butter and flax and water for eggs (1 Tbsp. ground flax + 1/4 c water = 1 egg). You can just barely see the flax, but since I used sprinkles, it is not noticeable. You can't taste it, if you're wondering. I used the handy Allrecipes tool to scale down the recipe from 60 cookies to 30.

A few tips for rolling out dough: First of all, it is easiest if you are willing to just do it on your countertop and clean it afterward. This is because the countertop stays in place. I hate rolling out dough on something that is sliding around. Second, put flour down on the counter, as well as on top of your ball of dough before rolling it. You don't want it sticking to your surface or your rolling pin. Third, invest in a rolling pin! Seriously! Fourth, divide up your dough into small balls and keep all except the one you are working with in the fridge or even freezer (I put mine in the freezer since I rolled out all the cookies over the span of about one hour). When the dough gets warmer, it becomes sticky and hard to work with. I roll out each piece, make my cutouts, then collect the scraps and throw them back in the freezer. After working through each big piece of dough, I put all the scraps together and make more cutouts from them.

Corey took a few photos of me with some finished cookies. He didn't want to be in any of the pictures, unfortunately! p.s. New glasses!

I was really excited about my Christmas sprinkles!

I also made chocolate icing to dip some of them in. I made it using confectioner's sugar (which I made by blending sugar + a little corn starch in my Magic Bullet), water, vanilla, and cocoa powder. It adds a lot to the tiny circle cookies I made!

The other shapes I had were dinosaurs, hearts, larger circles, and polar bears. My family has a lot of other shapes but I made do. I think they are pretty great, actually! The other day I saw these nifty camera cookie cutters at my local camera store, but with such a hefty price tag I decided to pass on them (still, adorable).

The dinosaur cookies are probably my favorites. Raaawr!

Bonus: Did some thrifting yesterday as well and scored some awesome cloth Christmas napkins as well as a hand-glazed ceramic Santa from the 1960s. Pictures of my thrift store finds soon!

p.s. Check out this extensive list of holiday cookie recipes from various countries via Food Network. When my sugar cookies are gone I think I'm going to have to make some of these!

What sorts of holiday treats do you buy or make as part of your traditions? Do you have any signature cookie cutters?

special delivery! christmas postcards have arrived

2011-12-08T20:04:00.009-05:00

We've established that I just LOVE getting mail. (Who doesn't!?)

I love all kinds of mail besides bills and junk mail. Have I mentioned that I get a LOT of junk mail? It's not even mine! I get a nice collection of big and tall catalogs, hunting magazines, and cable tv offers, all addressed to long gone tenants of this apartment. That aside, this is a great time of year for mail because of all of the Christmas and birthday cards that find their way to me.

One type of mail that is extra special is orders from my printer! I love seeing what my designs look like in print. There's always that magical moment of opening the box and finding 50 or 100 or 150 copies of my own design...it's so satisfying!

Well, yesterday I received my Christmas postcards. Normally my print orders are for my wedding clients so this one was especially fun since it was a personal order!

I spent my free moments yesterday filling out cards for friends and family. I only have a few more to write before I send them off tomorrow.

This one in particular is to my brother, whom I'll see in two weeks.

Do you send out Christmas cards? Do you make or buy them, and what types of designs do you favor?

p.s. We got our first signs of snow yesterday with some flurries...I learned last year that I really hate snow! I'm not looking forward to that first snowfall at all. Do you love it or hate it? I want to learn to love it...but it's just SO COLD!

diy screen printing, pt. 3 - lessons in problem solving

2011-12-07T07:43:00.005-05:00

I was so on top of everything all quarter. Everything except one thing: making these little zines or artist books that I proposed I would make for a project. At first they went along perfectly with the photographs I was making, but then my work shifted a little and they didn't seem as relevant. Still, I very much wanted to make them. I just kept putting it off. I would work on the stories, and the layout of the books (I was thinking of them as zines but I think now they are more of a little handmade book...the title is irrelevant, I suppose). But I didn't get around to printing them. Screen printing them, to be exact. I LOVE to screen print. I just learned how earlier this year and I am really excited about all of the screen printing possibilities in my future. However, it's kind of a big commitment compared to say, inkjet printing them.

I had it all figured out though. I was completely finished with everything else, so I would simply do all my screen printing this past weekend, just in time for finals week. Then I was sick for a few days. Time was running out! Monday, I got to work. It did not go smoothly. First, the light bulb in my "exposure" lamp burned out...after only about 3 hours of use total since I bought it! It went out Monday night, after I finally had everything ready to go. I went to bed.

Tuesday morning, I woke up and went to the hardware store first thing to replace the bulb. Funny thing: there are only really serious handy people at the hardware store at 8 am on a Tuesday. I was looking pretty girly in a pink jacket and rain boots, and buying a poinsettia plant and light bulbs...at 8 am...got a few strange looks! But I had been meaning to get a poinsettia plant so I took the opportunity when it came to me! haha The new package says the bulbs will last 2,000 hours apiece! Um, what! I was so furious. The previous bulb had come with my lamp and like I said lasted ~3 hours...was it like those batteries that come with stuff and only last 1/4 as long as regular batteries, I wondered? I got home and changed the bulb, only to discover that the one that CAME with my lamp, was the WRONG voltage! Seriously! Super dangerous! It was 130 V while the lamp CLEARLY read in all capital letters, don't use a bulb over 120 V! I got back to work.

I'm not going to lie, my photo emulsion was expired, by 3 weeks. It had been refrigerated the entire time, though, and I thought 3 weeks would not be a big deal...turns out, it was a big deal. If you are reading this because you searched "DIY screen printing, etc., etc." (I know people are searching that and finding me from my stats--that's cool, welcome, maybe I can teach you what not to do today!), do not used expired emulsion. Just don't do it. Okay, I KNOW emulsion is expensive, and I know maybe the nearest place you can buy it is 10 miles away (okay, that was me) and it's raining and you just don't want to drive across town, but you're going to regret it if you use it. What happened, you ask? Well, it just never hardened all the way. When I would wash out my screen, the front would look fine, but the back would look hardened but then become sticky from the wash out water. Maybe if I had increased my exposure time from 25 minutes to 1 hour, it would have worked, but do you have 1 hour to test that out, and then to burn your screen every time? If you do, by all means, try it.

So I finally replaced my emulsion, got home, got back to work, and the rest went pretty well. I did not finish all three of my books. I only finished one, in an edition of 8. But that's okay, I have the pages all ready to go on transparency for the others and maybe I'll get to them next week, or maybe next quarter. I'll be in a studio class devoted to screen printing 6 hours a week next quarter, so I should be able to knock them out no problem.

My home screen printing studio is still pretty sweet, despite its initial hiccups. This was my third time to use it since I got everything set up (almost 5 months ago), I will shamefully admit. I am planning to use it all the time now, though, so get ready! If you've been wondering what sorts of new products will be in my Etsy shop in the next month or so, screen printing might have something to do with it, *hint, hint*! I am working on a small winter collection to start things off, so stay tuned...that's all the spoiler information you get for now.

In my next post, I will show you the actual handmade books I was printing!

Also, coming up this Friday, December 9 to Wednesday, December 20: My 12 days of Christmas! This is the time I have in between school ending and going to visit my family for Christmas, and I'm going to do one Christmas activity per day and post about it. It's going to be amazing! Cookie baking, looking at Christmas lights, making ornaments, and the list goes on...I will be posting lots of photos and DIY tutorials!

turn your handwriting into a font

2011-12-05T09:46:00.005-05:00

I spent the weekend in bed sick, watching episodes of Felicity until I got to the end of the series (does anyone else think the end is strange?). I don't really know what I had, but I am feeling much better today. At first I thought it was the flu, but luckily it was not. It wasn't a cold. I don't have any other guesses. Corey was awesome and made me soup and took care of me. It's finals week but fortunately a lot of my final projects/critiques/whathaveyou were completed last week and I have only a few obligations this week, so I'm not very behind. Today I am resting some more and finishing up one last project that I was supposed to have finished over the weekend: screen printing three zines.

I've had an interest in zines since I was a kid. I was quite the nerdy child, with a love of stationery and all things paper, home printers, writing utensils, stickers, stamps, etc., etc. The creative side of me loved writing stories, and the nerdy side of me loved formatting those stories and making copies of them (yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds!). My dad works with computers, so we always had one around, as far back as I can remember (and even before). For example:

Yep, that would be me. I remember learning to type on a word processor (a few years after this photo was taken...haha), and getting into trouble plenty of times for using up too much of that printer paper that is attached at the ends and has little feeder holes going down the sides. I remember rationing out pieces of colored paper when I got so lucky. I remember the magical day when we got a scanner in our home.

All that to say, I strongly believe my wanting to be an artist comes directly from these creative moments of childhood.

The other day I stumbled across Writing Fonts. It is a website where you can upload your own handwriting and turn it into a font (for $7)! This brought back memories of a time in high school when I attempted to make a font of my handwriting using a free program I downloaded. It was actually really neat, but the spacing was all off so I could only use it in Photoshop where I could control the space between the lines of text. I decided to give it another go with the Writing Fonts website. It took me 3 tries to get all of the text written evenly (it's difficult to eyeball the height of each letter and make it all equal in their template that you must fill out), but I am pleased with the result! Once I decided it was complete, I paid $7 to download it. Not bad at all considering how much time they saved me if I would have tried to do it myself again.

What am I going to use this for, you ask?

Well, I use my handwriting in my custom Etsy designs, but I won't be using it for that. I want those to be without-a-doubt handwritten and I don't want someone to compare the letters and realize it was a font. I am working on some other things that I think it will be useful for, though. For example, those zines I mentioned earlier. I am doing a series of hand-pulled screenprinted zines with autobiographical stories in them. I type out my stories first, then had been writing them out and scanning them in. I sort of hate writing them out and scanning them in, but I also sort of hate the way they look in any normal font. I think this is the perfect solution!

I'm almost done writing and formatting...then on to screen printing...I will share what the zines look like once I have them assembled! For now, here is a sample of what it looks like written in my new handwriting font:

I think it looks a little more child-like than when I actually write things, because the height of the letters is not perfectly even (like I said, the template made that difficult), but I still really like it.

my first ballet performance

2011-12-03T10:42:00.005-05:00

Five months ago, I set foot in my first ballet class! I decided to take ballet because a) I've always wanted to, b) I am a figure skater (fun fact I never talk about here), and c) I needed summer credit hours!

It turns out my school has a really fabulous dance department, so when it came time to register for fall classes, I signed up for ballet again...and I'm already signed up for winter quarter ballet too! It is a really good thing that I am doing this. I find it so much more fulfilling than going to the gym (if you just love going to the gym, that's cool too, but I don't really).

So anyhow, Thursday was my last day of class, and for the past two weeks my instructor had been teaching us two dances (one at the barre and one in the center) that we would perform for any friends we cared to invite for our "final performance." Corey came to watch, which was really sweet. My instructor even video taped it for us, so I am going to share it with all of you!

Just remember when watching, this is the beginning ballet class, so most of us had limited if any previous experience with ballet! So of course it's not perfect. But it was really fun! This starts on our barre dance, but if you want to skip ahead to the center dance, it starts at 4:08! You can see me starting on the far right side for both dances, wearing black pants and a black shirt! Check out the guy wearing a giant, white tutu as well...gotta love the comic relief.

My sponsor Sarah also enjoys ballet and has been posting a lot about dancing this week! Check out this awesome Christmas dance as well as this post!

p.s. I'm having such a busy end-of-the-quarter two weeks but I am ALMOST THERE! I have so many fun posts planned once the madness is over!

what to do with so much leftover pie?

2011-11-28T21:48:00.004-05:00

This week:
1. Leftover PIE! A lot of it!
2. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. With predicted snow on Wednesday.
3. Final crits!

Wish me luck on conquering all of the above...especially all of the leftover pie! Many exciting things will be popping up here once the final crits are over, I promise (probably should be more concerned about that than the pie, actually)!

coffee coffee coffee

2011-11-27T18:08:00.003-05:00

Depressed that my short but sweet Thanksgiving break is now coming to an end, I'm finding that I'm going to be in need of a lot more coffee over the next two weeks as I get ready for final critiques!

"You know what? Three coffees would be great...what do I owe you?"

I say, "Coffee, coffee, coffee!" all the time. I kind of stole it from Gilmore Girls (my favorite show ever). I've recently converted Corey into a coffee drinker...I'd been trying to do so basically since we started dating. I'm still not sure that he loves coffee as much as I do, though...but then again, that's a big coffee mug to fill.

Are you a student? How do you (or did you, if you no longer are) get through the stress of finals weeks?

holiday cards & indecision

2011-11-26T21:18:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I am really indecisive! I like to sit on decisions for awhile. I wish I didn't...but I do. I wish that I always knew exactly what I wanted...but I don't.

So forgive me for promising that my Christmas card design would be available in the One Lonely Apricot shop and not even finalizing my design until today...And considering most people start sending their cards out as soon as the Thanksgiving leftovers are eaten, I'm a little too far behind to offer them for sale this year. I did want to share with you the design I finally settled on, though, because it changed so much from the first one!

I'm happy with how these turned out, and will be sending them as postcards...I'll post a photo once they are printed.

Next year...next year there will be One Lonely Apricot holiday cards. :)

guest post at desirous of everything today!

2011-11-25T11:43:00.002-05:00

Read my guest post at Desirous of Everything here. Thanks to Sarah for the opportunity.

my thanksgiving in pictures (and a fun holiday tradition)

2011-11-24T21:27:00.005-05:00

I baked my first pecan pie. I used my grandmother's recipe but subbed tapioca starch and flax for the eggs (you couldn't tell a difference!).

Homemade bread and my teeny olive tray.

Mashed potatoes by Corey.

Cashew gravy by me (MAKE THIS!).

Lots of pecan pie photos before cutting into it!

And an apple pie for Corey because he doesn't like pecans. I used this apple tart recipe, but simply added a crust on top as well.

Corey carving the Tofurky.

Homemade bread via my go-to recipe (plus I added herbs to it--delicious!). I'm in need of a good wheat bread recipe...suggestions? Looking for something light and fluffy, not super dense.

It's my tradition with my brother to take a picture of our plate at every holiday meal, then label what's on it. My archive goes back at least five years as of now. Since we weren't together on Thanksgiving this year, I asked him to send me a picture of his plate. Here's mine:

And his:

I find both the similarities and differences (when we're together AND when we're apart, actually!) amusing. He had more dishes to sample--the perk of a lot of people being at your Thanksgiving feast (mine was just me and Corey)! We both had Tofurky (my parents are also vegetarian) but he had ham too (funny that they are touching each other). And let's not forget about the olive trays...a tradition in my family that I dutifully observe even when I'm away...I'm not sure if having a serving dish solely devoted to olives is normal for holiday meals (?), so if you are wondering about that, it might just be a family thing!

Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions?

My other one is that I always watch the Gilmore Girls episode "A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving" (season 3, episode 9)! It is my favorite Gilmore Girls episode. Watch this clip if you haven't seen it...you have no idea what you're missing!

Tomorrow I'll be guest posting about decorating for the holidays over at Desirous of Everything! Pencil it in to your Black Friday schedule so you can be sure to read it!

thrift store finds: new cameras

2011-11-21T08:37:00.003-05:00

On Friday I scored these two cameras from my favorite thrift store while looking for Christmas decorations! Other photographers who are reading: do you find that you simply have to look at the cameras for sale at any secondhand shop you set foot in!? Sometimes I find this to be a curse, but I love old cameras!

But, I don't buy every camera I find (that would be a lot), only the ones that stick out to me for one reason another (after aquiring three Instamatics last year I made myself get more choosy!). If the film type is still readily available, then that's a definite plus. Unfortunately, it's not for these two cameras, but in this case, their stylish looks and amazing prices got me.

The tiny one (probably the cutest camera I have ever seen) is a Kodak Brownie Chiquita! It was sold in Brazil from 1957 to 1964, and takes 127 film (45mm--available but for a hefty price). The writing on the front is in Portuguese! It's in mint condition and cost me $1.91.

The larger one is an Argus Seventy-five, made in 1949! It is in really good condition as well, came in the original case, and was $2.92. It's a twin lens camera with a waist level viewfinder, which I've had lots of fun playing around with since my Bronica's viewfinder isn't waist level. It's not as sophisticated as my Bronica though, since it has a fixed focus and only one aperture and shutter speed. It takes 620 film, which is about the same size as 120 but is on different sized spools. So I'm planning to rig up a roll of 120 film as soon as I can get a second 620 spool, and see what kind of pictures it can make.

If I'm able to make any photos with these, I'll do another post! Do you make pictures with any vintage toy cameras? What are your favorites?

my daily coffee

2011-11-19T09:37:00.003-05:00

My friend Jessica is doing a project about coffee and requested that I send her a photo of my daily cup of joe. I ended up with these two.

In the first picture, I set my cup on the windowsill because I wanted to show off how beautiful it is. I have a small collection of coffee mugs. Some were given to me by other people and some I purchased for myself, usually secondhand. I love collecting strawberry things for my kitchen so when I found this one last year I knew I had to have it.

In the second picture, I am working on yesterday's dishes. I don't have a dishwasher and I have found the best way to stay on top of dishes is to do them first thing when I wake up in the morning. It sometimes feels meditative even. I love starting the day off with a clean kitchen!

Do you have a morning coffee (or tea? or something else?) ritual? What elements are essential for you?

meet my bronica

2011-11-18T08:27:00.008-05:00

This is my Bronica SQ, manufactured in 1980. I bought it in February. It is completely manual and uses 120 medium format film which, if you are not familiar, produces negatives which are 2 1/4 inches tall, and in this case, also 2 1/4 inches wide, since this camera makes square images. Here are a few I took several weeks ago:

These are scans of the film, but I am in the process of c-printing all of the good ones. That means enlarging them in a color darkroom! It is THE most fun photographic process I have ever learned. I love it.

I also developed this film myself! Developing color film is different than b&w and I've just recently learned.

Do you still shoot film? What's your film camera of choice?

expanding one lonely apricot: part 1

2011-11-17T12:10:00.004-05:00

One thing we do not discuss often while studying to be artists is....dun dun dun....I am just going to say it...making a living once we graduate! It's kind of a taboo subject.

We all want to keep our reputations up by putting off this attitude of, "Well, I'm going to make a living off of my art, of course!" And many (most) of us are interested in teaching at the college level. Don't look at the statistics if you want to keep on hoping these are viable options for those who have just recently graduated with their MFAs! But rather than drown in a pool of self-pity while I wait for a tenure-track job to magically fall in my lap, I am simply putting my efforts into planning for the inevitable period of transition that I'll be entering come June of next year. Are you in a similar boat? Well, let me share my thoughts with you.

I teach one photography class per quarter as part of my MFA program. I love being a teacher! I always thought that I would, and I'm happy that I was right. Every quarter, I have around 25-30 students in my class, which is a lot! Facing the challenges that come with teaching have given me more confidence as an artist and just in general. Of course, I would love to be a full time college art teacher in the near future, but I understand that normally takes a few years of part time adjunct work followed by lots and lots and lots of applying to find.

So I have been asking myself, "What else can I do?" in the meantime. If I find myself teaching one class next fall, I will count myself lucky--but I can't live off of that. So, what else can I do? A few thoughts have entered my mind on this subject. Retail is always at the back of my mind, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat to make ends meet...but is that really what I want? Short answer: no. There are probably other part-time jobs available here that did not exist in my college town because this is a bigger city and has more of an art scene. I'd be okay with that. But lately I've been thinking about the bigger picture and instead of asking myself, "What else can I do?" I have rephrased that question as, "What else do I want to do?"

Working for myself has entered my mind more than a few times. I've been doing lots of research, reading, planning, and thinking, and I've come to the conclusion that if I start pushing for it right now, expanding One Lonely Apricot is a perfectly reasonable goal, and really not very far-fetched. Planning for expansion has made me realize that my already-established shop has way more potential than I've been tapping into. I've set a few reasonable goals for the next few months and I have big dreams of taking it to the next level by summer 2012.

Here are my first three steps, which I would like to complete by January:

- Develop a few more products at varying price points since my shop is now almost entirely custom illustrative work. I already know what I want to add and I just need to get to work making it! I am most excited about this. I think being excited to make the products is my first good sign. I bet you are wondering what the new items are going to be....for now it's a secret!

- Increase exposure to my blog and shop. I am making every effort to make this happen!

- Launch onelonelyapricot.com...A couple of months ago I purchased this domain and all the webspace I need! What am I waiting for!? I don't know. I have just been procrastinating.

More is in the works. I am excited to turn this part-time-project into something bigger. Do you have similar goals for your creative projects or online shop? Share them! Maybe we can work on this together.

new work & creating creative cycles

2011-11-17T08:34:00.005-05:00

This is one of my new photographs. I haven't been posting many of them here, sorry! I have plans of sharing more...

Lately I have been achieving this perfect balance of making new work and being inspired to make more new work. I don't always magically feel this way, and in fact, when I don't, I often beat myself up about it. After so many years of studying art making, you would think that staying in a cycle of creating things all the time would be easy...right? Maybe it is for some people, but I think for most of us it takes a little conscious effort to keep it up.

What do you do to keep up your momentum and find inspiration? Here's what I have been doing lately:

- I write down EVERY single idea I have that could potentially relate to my art. The ideas I later find unworthy still usually manage to evolve into something else that I can use. I have a composition book and a sketchbook and I try to keep at least one of them with me at all times. Ideas often come to me suddenly, and I dare say many of them would leave just as suddenly if I didn't write them down!

- I look at other art, but not too much. I look at just enough, until I feel this impulse to create, but not so much that I feel an impulse to imitate. Leave room for your own ideas to develop! But don't try to create in a vacuum where you never ever look at the work of others. I also try to look at a mix of emerging and established artists. It can be daunting to only look at well-known people in your creative field.

- I make something every day (it can be something really small, like a half hour drawing, or documentary photographs of my garden) and I make something towards my serious body of work every week*--even if I don't know where it's going, or I have a million excuses, or I think it's going to turn out badly. It can be tempting to keep on planning, or make just one more trip to the store to get supplies, or do more research, but the bottom line is that you just need to get in there and create something! Making small things every day even on days when I am not shooting my serious work helps me keep up the motion of creating. It is also a good exercise that helps me remember how fun making art is. I would recommend that no one limit themselves only to serious work. You also never know what will become of your side projects.

*I'm always envious of my artist friends who have processes that allow them to be in their studios every day creating work piece by piece! As a photographer, I feel my process is a little different. I do assemble my photographs piece by piece but personally I don't feel I have "created" anything until I press the shutter release button! Others may feel differently, but with this sentence what I meant was actually getting to that final point of shooting a photograph.

How do you keep your cycle of creativity going? Does it come naturally for you or do you find it to be a bit of work?

Next time I will share what things I find distract me from my work and how I am aiming to limit those!

thrift store finds

2011-11-14T09:24:00.003-05:00

A few more thrift store finds from this weekend...A recipe card box that says "dinner is served" on it, so adorable ($.50)! I have actually been looking for a recipe card box. Right now my favorite recipes are scribbled on random sheets of paper and stuck to my fridge with weak magnets (they fall off a lot...). I am planning to put some magnets on the back of this recipe card box, write the recipes out on smaller, more organized pieces of paper, and stick the whole box to the fridge. Voila, storage solutions for the girl with too few kitchen cabinets.

And three new milk glass planters...how could I resist buying all three at $.90 apiece! I have some cuttings that will be ready to plant soon so these are perfect.

That's all for now...have you found anything good lately?

holiday decorations in the works

2011-11-12T17:12:00.005-05:00

This month I am a sponsor for one of my favorite blogs, Desirous of Everything! If you are not familiar, check it out now...what are you waiting for! Being a sponsor comes with the privilege of writing a guest post. I've been piecing one together on decorating your mantle (or a similar area) for the holidays on a small budget (I'm aiming for $5 or less)! In my mind, "small budget" signals "creative challenge," which I am always up for. I have an idea that it might be kind of boring if I could simply go to any store and choose whatever I wanted. Instead I am looking for adorable secondhand treasures and making some things. My post will be up sometime after Thanksgiving...I'll let you know when! Until then, I'll leave you with this picture of my inspiration...this vintage, musical Santa Claus. I found him at my favorite thrift store today for $.90. He turns at an adorably slow pace and chimes Christmas carols when you wind him up.

apartment therapy 20/20 cure update 2

2011-11-08T08:08:00.003-05:00

Well, I think I may just keep writing about this 20/20 home cure for all my posts this week. Is anyone else getting inspired? I am! I feel that my apartment has a lot of energy now...something the cure promised! I'll show you some in-progress photos...I'll begin with a finished area...my nightstand:

I had a pile of books a mile high on top of that notebook, and a few other items. I got some beautiful miniature carnations for my vase (and they are spread throughout the apartment too!) and purchased a cute vintage alarm clock ($.90) to go here because usually I just check my phone to see what time it is. However, I realized that the previous owner of this clock got rid of it because of the awful ticking noise it makes every single second. So for now it is just decoration...that's probably not supposed to be part of the cure, ha! But I just think it's so adorable. I hung two prints on the wall (bottom print by Matt Cipov, top print from a classmate, Anne, in a print exchange last school year) one on top of the other (sorry, couldn't get a good picture with both in there). I love vintage office supplies and school-related items so the clipboard seemed like a fun way to hang this print (for now--I realize it's not archival).

I moved my desk from a cramped corner in another room to here. So far I like it a lot better! I still have to move and arrange the rest of the things that need to be on/near it, so this is really in progress.

These are my floors that I was talking about. They are in every room of the apartment except the bathroom and kitchen, which have oh-so-lovely vinyl "tile." This floor that you see here...why did I not clean it for the photo, you ask? That IS clean! Those little specks are just part of it. So my floor looks perpetually dirty, which really gets on my nerves. It also might be the worst shade of brown ever.

Another little work in progress. This is where a lot of things I want to rearrange have ended up. I might hang that chalkboard above my desk...do you like it? I actually won it in a giveaway recently! I kind of love it. You can check those out here at Revived Vintage if you want one for yourself.

Finally, I will end with my children...my plants. haha. This is almost the rest of my plant collection (I might be nearing plant lady status, huh?). All of these are "clearance plant" rescues. I bought them on clearance and nursed them back to health by this super sunny window. Most of them are at least a year old and have grown a lot! The one in the yellow planter was my very first houseplant, a devil's ivy. I bought it on clearance in that cute planter for $2.50 and it had only four leaves. I am so proud of how far it's come and I have gotten three cuttings out of it too.

That's it for today...if you are feeling inspired, I challenge you to:
- Get some fresh flowers for your home! You will love having them, I promise.
- Rearrange a few pieces of art/objects.
- Clear the clutter from one surface.

If you're like me, once you do this much, there will be nothing stopping you!

apartment therapy 20/20 cure update

2011-11-06T15:03:00.003-05:00

Since starting Apartment Therapy's 20/20 Cure, I have gotten so much work done on my home! I don't know that most of it was even through following the cure steps directly, but was simply the result of getting inspired by the 20/20 Cure to do some serious cleaning/changing.

What you see in the above picture is my dining room window. Those are about half of my houseplants, many of them recently brought indoors when the frost came. I keep a grow light on them for several hours a day because only two windows in my apartment let in enough light for plants during non-summer seasons here. Since starting the 20/20 Cure, I bought a rod for and hung those cafe curtains, a thrift-store find from earlier this year ($3 and they appear to be handmade!). I rearranged these plants and cleaned the surfaces they are on.

I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen from top to bottom, reorganized the cabinet under the kitchen sink, did a bunch of laundry, dusted every surface in the apartment, caulked a bunch of drafty gaps around door and window moldings, and put away little piles of clutter here and there. I've also done other things that I just can't think of off the top of my head. But the apartment is looking so good! I surface clean weekly, but you know there are always those detailed things that you want to do but put off. It feels good to get around to them. I have also been rearranging little items here and there, which makes things feel fresh. In some areas I even removed items without adding anything back, something the cure recommends. I agree that negative space is good!

One part of the 20/20 Cure I have not done yet but would like to do, is to buy some fresh flowers for my apartment. I am about to have a cup of coffee, and then I might just go do that!

apartment therapy: mine could use some, how about yours?

2011-11-04T08:57:00.006-04:00

Do any of you ever read Apartment Therapy? I love it. I never knew the story behind it, however, until I starting reading some excerpts from its founder's book The Eight-Step Home Cure. To go along with the book, the Apartment Therapy website is having its second annual 20/20 Cure, which promises to make your home a better place to live by spending just 20 minutes a day on this for 20 days.

I have decided to do this challenge because, as winter sets in, I find myself spending more and more time in my apartment, which makes everything that could be improved stand out even more to me. Let me tell you about my place, what I like and dislike about it.

As far as living spaces go, I love arranging them, decorating with little bits and pieces of things I buy, make, or find second-hand. I love experimenting with colors and patterns, adding plants by windows, and framing art by myself or friends to add a personal touch.

Of course there are always things you have to work with. As a grad student, the two that hold me back the most are: low budget, and the consideration of how soon I might move again. These two things keep me from affording an apartment that is awesome at its core before I put any of my stuff in it, and from getting "real" furniture, for the most part (most of my furniture is particle board, save for a couple of pieces--and I even still have a futon as a couch, probably my least favorite piece of home decor at the moment).

My apartment is old and has a lot of..."character." The worst part is probably the floors...no, definitely the floors. They are old wooden floors that have been painted over in the shade of chocolate brown. Some of the molding and doors are painted this color too. The color is too dark (and shows dust like crazy)...but the worst part? The paint chips away easily. I got some touch up paint and sometimes go around and paint over the spots, but the paint store couldn't match the color or finish exactly for some reason (I took in a chipped away piece and had them match it). Other things I dislike are uneven walls in some areas, lots of cracks around moldings and such, lack of storage space, and it is not well-insulated (costly in winter). I chose the apartment online before moving here, and even though I don't love it, decided to extend my lease for my last year of grad school because moving--even just across town or a few streets over--is so expensive and time-consuming.

As for things I like about it, it gets plenty of natural light, having big windows in every room. The living room is the only room that is too dark, because the window goes out onto the shady front porch. I think the living room could benefit from more lamps. If I ignore all of the unevenness, cracks, and imperfections, I really do like the style of the place, and the kind of charm that it has as an old building. I like that I have a small backyard for keeping a garden. Aside from the structure of the apartment itself, I like my decorations for the most part, aside from some of the furniture, although besides the futon, I can live with the particle board stuff, I just find it kind of boring. I think my style comes through in the way I decorate, and to me that's a good thing.

Through this project, the things I would like to accomplish are: organize areas that have gotten a little messy and rethink certain storage solutions, re-evaluate my art-making/working spaces and figure out how they can serve me better, rearrange some of the art and other decor that has been in the same place since I moved in, fill in cracks near windows and otherwise make things more insulated for winter, and obtain curtains/rugs for a few areas that I have been neglecting since moving in.

I am currently on day 3 of the 20/20 cure! Today's task was to look for images of inspiration. I happen to keep a folder titled "inspiration" on my computer where I save things I find online, including interior design, illustrations, art, etc. I went through all 800 images in my folder and pulled out the ones that I related to most in regards to my own apartment and how I want it to look. Here they are...unfortunately I don't save sources most of the time for interior design images (many are from tumblr and other sites that make sourcing difficult)...so if you see one and know where it's from, let me know and I will give proper credit.

I love the couch...wouldn't this be an amazing replacement for my futon!? In my dreams, I know...

I like the way this looks organized without being too clinical. I have a white desk that looks similar.

Plants, plants, plants. Plants, white walls, and beautiful wooden furniture. I'm missing the last part.

I love using bunting to decorate, and I really love this quilt. I have been wanting to make a quilt for quite some time.

I like the inclusion of pattern...and the idea that a bookshelf doesn't have to be full.

I like the color of the walls. I'd really like to paint a few rooms in my apartment different colors. The bedroom is white, living room and kitchen are taupe, dining room is butter yellow, and the bathroom is off-white. I'd most like to paint the bathroom and taupe rooms. I like that chevron rug too...really wanting one.

I like the use of pattern and patches of bright color next to white.

White plus color is a really good mix I think...

I love hanging tiny prints and postcards on string with clothespins, and I also have two globes...if only I had some amazing flat files like this.

from Darling Dexter. Neutrals + color + light. Perfect.

from Thompson Family Life. I love collecting vintage things. That pattern is fabulous...this also makes me want to paint the rest of my non-functioning fireplace white. It looks nothing like this one, however.

I'd like a workspace like this. I've been wanting to incorporate the use of pegboard for awhile now.

What inspires your home? Any tips for me?

new work: give and take

2011-10-31T21:53:00.005-04:00

This is from a new narrative-type piece I have been working on, Give and Take. I have actually been making a lot of new work lately and am really thrilled about all of it. I had a good critique tonight which is always nice. I've been reading The Artist's Way (cheating...it's a 12-week book but I am taking it at my own, much slower pace) at the suggestion of Erika who writes the blog A Tiny Rocket. Reading this book and doing some of the activities in it have been helping with my "artist's block" which I definitely felt all summer. I don't want to jinx it by saying too much, but right now I have more ideas than I have time to make! Definitely a good thing. More updates on the new work soon...this is just one of many.

super secret salsa recipe

2011-10-30T16:36:00.004-04:00

After buying cilantro at the last farmers' market the other day (another reminder that winter is coming...), I decided to whip up some of my "secret salsa." While not actually a secret, I just like to call all of the recipes I write myself my "secret recipes" to make them sound more official. This salsa can be made without cilantro, but it adds a flavor I really love. As an alternative when it's not available, try 1-2 tsp. of ground coriander (cilantro seeds).

1 can fire roasted tomatoes, or 2-3 ripe tomatoes, roasted in the oven
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (if you want a mild salsa, try 1/2 pepper)*
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sugar or brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder or 1/2 tsp minced fresh garlic
1 tsp lime juice
small handful cilantro leaves (about 1/4 cup or a little less)
dash of salt only if your tomatoes had no salt added

Put all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor, and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust the spices to your preference.

*if you're looking for chipotle peppers in adobo sauce at the supermarket, check the Mexican food aisle and look for a small can--I transfer these to a resealable container and keep them refrigerated since I only use them one at a time

This is my base recipe. Sometimes I play with add-ins, such as:
- peaches or pineapple
- black beans
- corn
- avocado
- onion (use less than you think you need--the onion flavor gets really potent)

The chipotle pepper and roasted tomatoes give this salsa a rich, smokey flavor, and the cilantro adds a fresh aftertaste. If you've never had chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, I highly recommend them! They taste sort of like what you might imagine a spicy, Mexican barbecue sauce to be.

it's getting cold(er)

2011-10-28T10:50:00.002-04:00

The swiss chard is still thriving...

...while the tomatoes are slowly dying. 36 degrees this morning. Cold.

the vicious squirrel strikes again

2011-10-27T12:30:00.002-04:00

The squirrel strikes again...stealing a ripe tomato, taking a bite, and displaying it on a fence post for me to see.

The damage was kind of gross. (It's rainy today, by the way, so that's not all squirrel slobber.)

I also heard a loud noise on the back steps and looked out to see this...the last of my giant zinnias toppled over. Although it's rainy today, it's certainly not very windy or stormy...I think the squirrel did it under the guise of bad weather. At any rate, they are completely severed, so that's the last of them.

I still have my thumbelina zinnias although as you can see they have almost run their course.

I'm really sad that winter is almost here, and that this squirrel is ruining my last precious few moments in the garden.

mail from me, mail from you

2011-10-25T21:20:00.004-04:00

I love sending and receiving snail mail! I have not been so good about sending it over the past year for some reason, but I would really like to start back up again. I especially love sending holiday cards to my relatives as a way to stay in touch. A few days ago, I received these goodies in the mail from my friend Elizabeth who guest posted here last week!

It included three collage drawings, a Holga photograph, stickers (I love stickers!), and a note. I am still putting together a few things to send to her in return...I want my package to be as exciting!
Corey also received mail from Elizabeth on the same day...he ordered her chapbook! It is excellent and comes with some goodies inside, like the little sea drawings you see here. Get yours today, she is almost out!

saying goodbye to the tomatoes

2011-10-25T09:04:00.004-04:00

Today I made this picture for a local autumn-leaf themed photo contest. My arrangement of the leaves was inspired by an "art experiment" I recently took part in for one of my fellow grad students. I decided to do tomato leaves because I figured that everyone else in the contest would send in pretty pictures of orange and red and yellow leaves (and I also figured there would not be many staged photos like this). This fall for me has been much more centered around my garden (although I appreciate the changing leaves too). Last year I did not get to enjoy my garden in fall, because I moved away from it at the beginning of September. This is my first time to have fall tomatoes, and I wanted to show the transformation of the tomato leaves. I am feeling a resistance to let the garden die, as that means winter is on its way, and I just don't feel quite ready for snow and cold yet.

one year later

2011-10-24T07:58:00.003-04:00

This weekend, I went to the Circleville Pumpkin Show with Corey and Brittney. We had fun reliving last year's visit, when grad school had just started. All of the vendors looked exactly the same, and were in exactly the same places at the fair, so going back felt like revisiting a memory from last year...but it was different at the same time. Isn't it that way with a lot of things? One year later, so much is the same, and so much is different.

I took all of my Pumpkin Show pictures with my trusty 35 mm Canon, so you'll have to wait until I pick them up at the lab to see them (probably Wednesday--I have night classes today and tomorrow)...so for today I'll leave you with a few fall pictures I took with my Holga last year.

ohio's oldest festival...the circleville pumpkin show

2011-10-22T10:33:00.003-04:00

In a town about half an hour away, the oldest festival in Ohio takes place...The Circleville Pumpkin Show! It's like a fair that is completely pumpkin-themed. Pumpkin pie eating contests, a prize for the largest pumpkin, a Miss Pumpkin Show, a parade full of dogs and people dressed as pumpkins (among other things), and every pumpkin-flavored food you can think of...even some things you wouldn't be able to dream up on your own, like pumpkin sloppy joes and pumpkin tacos.

These pictures are from last year's Pumpkin Show, but we're going back today to check out this year's festival!

Did I mention the official mascot is a Pumpkin Man who goes around the fair on roller blades?

And school is canceled for all of the local children for days due to the Pumpkin Show!

The largest pumpkin pie in the world was in that bakery! There was a pretty long wait to see it though, so we didn't go in.

I only wish I had a photo of the town's water tower...which is shaped like a pumpkin!

More photos after today's adventure...

baking vegan brownies

2011-10-21T07:47:00.005-04:00

I love baking, but when I get busy, I always revert to my standby recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I have it memorized and I always keep the ingredients on hand, so it's easy to whip up in a hurry...it actually only takes me about 10 minutes from the time I start to the minute they go in the oven!

But this week I wanted to make something sweet and was tired of cookies. I was going to make this brownie recipe which is my go-to vegan brownie recipe. I don't have it memorized like the cookies but I've made it a number of times. If you make this recipe, you won't be disappointed. It's very good.

However, as much as I like making something delicious quickly with a recipe I trust, I also like stepping out on a limb and trying new ones. So I looked up "vegan brownies" on Pinterest (which I love for finding recipes!) and found this recipe: Gooey Vegan Brownies.

I can appreciate a recipe with the word "gooey" in the title. When I was in elementary school, every year we had a back-to-school picnic at a local park, and one game that was always there was the cake walk. I played it every year and only won once! But I still remember the dessert I won: ooey gooey butter bars. Sounds like a heart attack, doesn't it? The bars came with a recipe card, which my mom let me recreate once before declaring there was simply too much butter in them to make again! Googling that exact recipe title now confirms that what my mom told me was true.

But gooey vegan brownies have no butter in them. They are not the most wholesome thing you will ever eat--as most brownies are not--but I believe in having a few sweet treats here and there. They turned out amazing and as you can see I didn't even get a proper picture of them but instead had to photograph the last one left in the pan! Oops. I have a tip if you want your brownies to be soft and fudgey: don't wait until the middle is done. The recipe says a toothpick will come out clean in the middle but for me they never do. I just take them out of the oven at the time the recipe says they will be done, and let them set up for at least an hour. There are no eggs since these are vegan, so you don't have to worry about that. I added 1 Tbsp ground flax to the recipe to ensure that they wouldn't fall apart, but I don't know if that was necessary. However, they held up well.

These are the best vegan brownies I've made. I would dare say you would not even realize they were vegan if I didn't tell you!

custom keepsake garden art

2011-10-20T08:34:00.002-04:00

I've been working on several of these custom garden illustrations as of late! They are so fun to make. I love doodling food, so it's definitely right up my alley. If you're reading and see yours, it should be arriving in your mailbox any day now! If you're reading and wish you saw yours, it's the perfect thing to get yourself as a little pick-me-up for when the first frost arrives soon (or has already arrived? you poor thing!) or for a holiday gift for that special gardener or vegetable-lover in your life. You can do so here.

the meditative qualities of film processing

2011-10-18T08:25:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite methods of relaxation...or maybe I should say meditation...is film processing. You have to slow down for it, and really pay attention to the materials and the clock, or you'll mess up your film. It's also gratifying to get all the way from shooting the photograph to having the negatives in your hands without going to a professional lab. This weekend I spent some time processing film and making black and white enlargements. I know a lot of people see it as outdated these days, but I wouldn't recommend any other way of learning photography.

p.s. Check out that hazardous material...an old crossword puzzle and lots of film backing paper (found in medium format film). Looks super hazardous to me!

new studio space

2011-10-17T21:57:00.002-04:00

Tiny peeks into my new studio space. More to come... Loving the big windows, bright white walls, white furniture, and colorful, mostly vintage decorations, supplies, and props! I just got some clothes hangers for my rack of backdrops and costumes, so that will be better organized soon.

guest post: make a stop action video using collage

2011-10-11T09:39:00.004-04:00

photo by elizabeth ashley arnold

Today I have a special guest post by an artist I went to undergraduate school with, Elizabeth Arnold, aka NEon Glittery! You can check out her website here, and even purchase her chapbook nEonsense here. In this post she is going to teach you how to make a stop motion video using the art of collage:

How to make a stop motion movie documenting the process of making a mosaic paper collage. This can be however short or long you want it to be. This is an investment of time.

1. Find a picture you would like to work from. I created my own from my film pictures. Here: ( fish / lights )

2. Gather magazines, a glue stick, scissors, and a square piece of cardboard, matteboard or cardstock or anything you have that will suffice. You will also need a digital camera and a computer to upload it to.

3. Cut shapes out according to color from your picture. Arrange the shapes where you want them to resemble your picture.

4. Set up and mark a specific spot where you will place and photograph your collage each time you add a new piece. You must put it in the exact spot every time for this to work. Set up your camera to where the view of your collage in its marked off spot is in the frame. Your camera must remain stationary so that all you have to do is press the button. This will keep your photograph placement of your collage process consistent.

5. Set your blank collage in its marked off spot take a photograph of it. Glue your first piece on. As you glue each piece at a time, set your collage in your marked off spot, photograph it. You will do this as many times as you have pieces. I probably did mine 50 times at least, but it's worth it I promise. So to reiterate, you glue a piece of magazine clipping to your collage, set it in your marked off spot, photograph it and repeat. You can also just leave it in the spot without moving it and photograph it that way. I had my camera on my work desk facing my collage spot on the piano.

6th: After you have completed your collage (and photographed it each time) upload your photos to your computer in one album in the order you took them. You can scan through them so see how it will look. Make them into a video and watch as your collage builds itself through stop motion magic.

This is my first attempt at a stop motion collage. I used iMovie, but you could use any video editing software. I was commissioned to create a choice video for the New Zealand band Wet Wings. I would suggest using a 1-1.5 second gap between photos.

Wet Wings - Stockholm from elizabeth ashley arnold on Vimeo.

Thank you so much for sharing your process, Elizabeth! I am going to work on my own stop action collage and post it later this week, so stay tuned. Try it yourself and/or check out Elizabeth's other videos, website, and chapbook!

the vicious squirrel returns & fall tomatoes

2011-10-02T17:35:00.002-04:00

The wrath of the vicious squirrel continues...this weekend he took out his anger on my little Travelocity garden gnome. The chard and lettuce seeds took a hit as well.

On the bright side, look at these beautiful fall tomatoes! Okay, I posed them outside in the grass for good light and color, but let me tell you a secret...I picked them when they were still green and ripened them in a brown paper grocery sack to keep them safe from the squirrels! Tomatoes ripened on the vine have a slightly better flavor but these are still delicious, and by the sad remains of a few I let turn red on the vine, I did the right thing. I have another bag ripening now and should have a few more before the frost hits.

I am sad to see a cold but relaxing weekend end. A few things I did:

- Indian food
- Catch Me if You Can
- art openings
- tomato sandwiches
- lots of coffee (to stay warm!)
- and chili (for the same reason!)

a peek at my fall garden

2011-09-30T08:04:00.004-04:00

Welcome, fall. Ohio has a beautiful autumn season, the only downfall being that it gets cold much too early for me (For example, today's high is 54 degrees, and it's still September! This is unheard of in the South, where I heard rumors of highs in the 90s this week.). My fall garden is not so impressive, but rather is primarily only an extension of the spring/summer garden. However, being that last year at this time I had just moved here and had no fall garden at all, I'm going to call this one a success.

First of all, the swiss chard has not stopped growing since May! It doubles and triples overnight, it seems. I haven't been cooking with it as much as I'd like to. I'm still acquiring the taste for it. As a general rule, I like almost all vegetables (except beets--I'm still steadily trying to work up to the day when I can say I tasted a beet and liked it!), but chard is still growing on me.

As you can see, there is a lot that needs to be harvested (of course I would like it better if I wouldn't let it grow so large and use the baby leaves instead). Next to that you'll see the cabbage, which I never picked. I kind of left it there for the caterpillars. Sigh. It's just that after fighting with them over whose property these heads of cabbage were day after day for so long, I finally surrendered it to the squishy green beasts. It's riddled with holes and doesn't look appetizing, so I think I'll just let it be this year.

The tomatoes are still flowering! When I first heard of fall tomatoes (last year), I was taken back because in Arkansas, the tomato plants more or less shrivel up and die by the middle of August! Although the harvests haven't been as large as they were in September, between the 10 tomato plants, there are around 40-50 large green tomatoes present at any given time, and lots of tiny cherry and pear tomatoes. I've been picking the green ones as soon as they show a hint of pink and ripening them in brown paper sacks so that the squirrels can't get them. The vicious, conniving squirrels.

The fall lettuce has been pounced on and dug up a few times by those squirrels, but a few seedlings have managed to make it this far. I'm hoping for a nice lettuce crop soon, but we'll see. I'll probably cover this bed with plastic when it gets colder. We still have a few weeks until the first frost.

The fall cilantro crop is doing well. I love having fresh cilantro in my backyard...it's probably my favorite herb!

The fall peas are making their way up the trellis slowly but surely. My zone was just out of the range for growing fall peas, so I'll try covering them when it gets colder...I already had seeds and I just love peas so much that I had to try.

The zinnias are still going strong, although next year I think I'll plant ten times as many! I'm also planning to put some tulip bulbs in the ground this weekend for a fun surprise next spring.

I forgot to take pictures of the eggplants, but they are doing really well. I just harvested a big black beauty one a few days ago and five more are on the plant! It's actually leaning over from all the weight. The gretel eggplant has several small white ones as long as the squirrels stay away.

p.s. Don't forget that today is the last day to enter my custom garden keepsake illustration giveaway via Desirous of Everything!

the unstoppable forces of a vicious squirrel

2011-09-28T08:53:00.006-04:00

I think most wild rodents can be considered cute/adorable/lovable/etc. in certain situations, and pests in others. Squirrels, mice, rats, etc. I never want to mean ill will or harm toward any animal, but sometimes, as a gardener, you just reach a breaking point when there is a pest in your garden. Well, for the past few months, I have been dealing with a ruthless garden intruder...the unstoppable forces of...a vicious squirrel!

Squirrels in Columbus seem to be particularly rough around the edges compared to squirrels in other regions. I guess they have adjusted to living in the city, you could say. Since moving here, I have always thought the squirrels were a little on the vicious side, and since encountering this particular squirrel, my theories have been validated.

But, in the squirrel's defense, I don't know if he is the only one at fault here. This particular squirrel was consistently stealing cherry tomatoes, so one day, to ward it off, Corey threw a miniature gardening shovel in its direction, simply meaning to scare it. Apparently the shovel brushed against the squirrel's paw, and ever since, it has been exacting its revenge on my yard.

Exhibit A: My back steps. I keep a lot of potted plants here so that I don't have to move them when my landlord comes to do yard work. The squirrel chooses to knock one over about two times per week, leaving a huge mess and usually injuring the plant. One of the plants I found face down in the yard, and others strewn about the steps. I also have a potted strawberry root ball that I have been waiting to see signs of life from, and every time it grows a leaf or two, the squirrel is sure to come by and rip them off (he follows this up by using the strawberry container as his personal litterbox). The squirrel also knows that if I've done any work back there, i.e. cleaned up last week's mess, it's prime time to come mess something up.

This poor succulent will recover, I hope, but I found it one day in pieces all over the grass below the steps, with squirrel teeth marks in many of the leaves. Luckily succulents can grow new roots from cuttings, but let's just say that I had one succulent in this planter before and now I have about seven.

Exhibit B: The fall peas and lettuce. The squirrel loves to dig these up, ensuring that I will not have good crops of either this season. I don't have the time to replant the seeds, since the frost will be here soon. The lettuce has taken it especially hard. I did three lettuce plantings, sowing more seeds each time the squirrel paid a visit, but he's still coming back to dig up the now-tiny seedlings.

Exhibit C: He takes a few bites of an eggplant (shown here: gretel eggplant) or tomato, then leaves the rest to rot where I can see it. The gnome is not such a good garden guard, as you can see.

If you have any hints--other than throwing a shovel his direction--for getting this little guy to leave my poor yard alone, I am taking all the advice I can get!

it ranked somewhere just below the worst gas station coffee you've ever had

2011-09-27T08:29:00.004-04:00

My apologies for taking a week off from posting! It was my first week back at school and quite busy. I'll still be posting regularly this school year though, not to worry! My new weekly features will resume shortly, but this morning I'd like to share another story from Italy, as it relates to something I encountered last week.

In Italy, these little espresso machines are everywhere. You drop in some change, make a selection, and a disposable cup drops down followed by sugar, milk, and coffee! It sounds too good to be true, but actually the quality of the espresso from these machines is very good. Since traveling requires so much energy, and I was on a small budget, I would happily buy a tiny cappuccino for 40-50 cents from these machines whenever I would come across one (train stations, hostels, you name it...even my language school had one!). A cappuccino from most bars would be around 1-2 euros, so this amounted to some good savings over the course of several weeks.

Last week--and I didn't have a camera with me, sorry!--I was running errands around campus and came across a similar machine amongst an array of typical American vending machines. I was desperate for a cup of coffee but didn't have time to go to a real coffee shop. The list of selections was amusing. I can't remember them all, but I do recall one being simply labeled, "French Vanilla," making no mention of what type of coffee was inside (maybe none?). I decided to go for the plain cappuccino so I could compare it to my Italian experience.

The price was $1, however, and I only had 50 cents in my wallet. I was about to leave when I noticed that as an alternative, I could swipe my student ID to pay. Luckily I had $1.45 left on my card from when I loaded it to make photocopies last year. I saw this as a sign of serendipity, but perhaps I was getting ahead of myself.

While waiting for the machine to finish making my drink, the first thing I noticed was the size of the cup. The machine boasted that each cappuccino was 14 ounces! I know everything in the U.S. is seen as better if it's bigger, but I was just not sold on this concept as I tried to imagine a traditional cappuccino that large. I knew that somehow it was going to be compromised, kind of like those gigantic, XL flavorless apples we have come to see as normal from the supermarket. The second thing that alarmed me was that the machine had a label on it saying to press "#" after your selection number if you would like more "lightener" in your coffee. Is lightener the same as milk, I wondered? I decided that for just this once, I didn't especially care, because I was exhausted and just really wanted some coffee!

When my coffee was done, I carefully took the cup out of the machine and gave it a taste test. First impression: yuck! It had very little flavor and did not taste anything like a cappuccino, but was more like a very watered down cup of stale hot cocoa. I considered throwing it away, but didn't see a trash can. Instead, I made my way out of the building. Still no trash can. I kept sipping on it, and the flavor improved slightly for a short period. By the time I had made it to my next destination, I had somehow managed to drink 1/3 of it. The flavor had started to worsen, though, and I was a little disgusted--it ranked somewhere just below the worst gas station coffee you've ever had. Seeing a trash can near the door, I quickly tossed it in before making my way inside and vowing to leave coffee-on-the go to the Italians from now on.

giveaway at desirous of everything

2011-09-20T20:12:00.002-04:00

I'm sponsoring a giveaway over at Sarah's awesome blog Desirous of Everything!

You can enter until September 30th!

Check it out!

new work: my mother's apron

2011-09-20T08:54:00.005-04:00

I'm not ready to reveal all of the pieces of this yet, but here is one photograph I took last week and the rough draft of the story that goes with it...more to come...

My mother has an apron. Its fabric is a rosy shade of pink, printed with tiny, red flowers, and trimmed in a matching red bias tape. The tiny stitches are impeccable, made with a sewing machine but without question, guided by a steady, skilled hand. My mother wears this apron while she cooks.

When it’s not being worn, the apron is folded neatly and laid to rest in the kitchen drawer which is home also to potholders and trivets, birthday candles and batteries--kitchen drawers tend contain the oddest of collections.

She made the apron herself, my mother did. She made it in her high school home economics class. Forty-six years old my mother is and the only apron she owns and uses is the one she made thirty years ago which, aside from a few minor stains, is still in perfect condition, and could not display better craftsmanship even after all of these years of sewing experience.

When I was fifteen, my mother and grandmother taught me to sew. I see it as a rite of passage in my family. I want to be as skilled of a seamstress as they are, but even after ten years of experience and a few formal sewing classes, I fear I can never be their equal with a needle and thread. I haven’t an apron of my own perfect craftsmanship. I haven’t an apron of my own craftsmanship at all.

Today I will bring out my sewing machine. Today I will sew my first apron.

And some informal thoughts about the objects in this series:

Why do the people in my photographs wear flower masks? Why do I use floral print?

I think faux flowers and printed images of flowers are the perfect representation of decoration. If you take them away, everything still functions, but still, something is lost. We don’t need floral wallpaper or floral sheets in our homes, we can have the plainest walls and the plainest sheets and the plainest things, and their function remains the same. The flowers are just decorations. I think that’s the way some people feel about many of the skills people use in the home. Specifically, I’m referring to women, because as a woman those are the skills that were passed down to me and what I know best. Surely there’s a different but similar set of skills that have been nearly lost among men. Maybe I’ll get into that in the future. But for now this is about me, and I’m a woman. We no longer really need to sew our own clothes. It takes ages to sew clothing and doesn’t really save money most of the time. We don’t need to mend things, because buying a brand new replacement doesn’t cost us much. We don’t need to cook. We could go out to eat, or buy prepared meals at the supermarket. We don’t need to knit or grow a garden or so many other things. Yet many people today are learning these skills and putting them to use, including myself. I find this fascinating, why we would want so badly to be able to create all of these things by hand when we could so easily buy them. We could spend all of the time we save not making things and put it to good use doing something exciting. I guess I just don’t see most people around me doing many exciting things with all of that free time. For me making these things is about preserving something which I feel is vital. I feel that if people stopped making things by hand altogether, as a culture we would lose something great and important. So that’s what I mean by decoration. It’s not out of necessity that I like to sew or cook or all of those other things I mentioned. Some would say it’s just a hobby. For fun. Playing house. It’s decoration. Not important. Dispensable. Those are their opinions. But I would tend to disagree. The masks talk about women’s work in the home being undervalued, as if it’s just decoration. But I think there’s something to this work that we don’t give enough attention.

what to do when you've got a weekend of potlucks

2011-09-16T12:03:00.007-04:00

This weekend I've been invited to three potlucks! All are school-related, as the new school year starts next week. Whenever I have to take food to a party, I don't stress over making something elaborate, but instead choose from the most foolproof recipes I know! It's a good sign if I've made the recipe so many times that I have it memorized. My top choices are chocolate chip cookies, salsa, or hummus.

I've been in the kitchen whipping up dozens of cookies this morning. I put this recipe together by taking bits and pieces of other chocolate chip cookie recipes I liked. I've been perfecting it for almost two years now. I typed the current version out for you on my new typewriter while waiting for a batch to bake.

When you have a lot of parties to go to and must take a dish to each one, choose something that you know others will enjoy but that isn't stressful for you to make. After all, there's going to be a table full of food for everyone to choose from. These cookies are easy, delicious, and affordable to make in a big batch. If the parties were spread out over the course of a week or two, I could freeze the dough and bake them right before each gathering. They tend to go fast, so I made a few extra to leave at home!

Edit! It appears I left off 2 things on my cute little typed up recipe (oops!). That would be 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, and 1/4 cup water + 1 Tbsp. ground flax (the water + flax is equivalent to one egg, if you prefer to use eggs).

studio visit with ceramicist carolyn baginski

2011-09-15T08:28:00.007-04:00

I'm excited to introduce this new weekly feature! I am going to be visiting the studios of my artist friends and sharing them with you. I personally love getting a peek into other artists' studios, so I think this is going to be fun. Yesterday I met up with my friend Carolyn Baginski, who is a ceramicist in my MFA program. I had been to her studio dozens of times, but taking the time to photograph everything and interview her revealed things I had not noticed before. Let me share what I learned with you.

(Fun fact: I typed the interview questions out on notebook paper with my new typewriter!) Meet Carolyn! She was raised in Ohio, and holds a BFA in ceramics and art history from Ohio University. She then interned at the Women's Studio Workshop in New York, and had residencies at Watershed in Maine and Red Lodge in Montana. Now she resides in Columbus where she is working on her MFA in ceramics at the Ohio State University.

In Carolyn's work you will notice recurring themes of pattern, animals, and florals. She says that she gets inspired by traveling and seeing new places, especially when those trips mean time spent in the country. She pays special attention to comparing what she thinks the experience will be like beforehand to how it actually feels, and incorporates those ideas into her work.

Before her residency at Red Lodge, she included animals in her work like chipmunks and deer, which she thought of as the universal, generic animals to insert in an idyllic, fairytale-like scene. However, upon spending time outdoors in Montana, she realized that the animals she used were specific to the environment she grew up in. As a result, she says she hopes that her work makes people more observant in their environments, and helps them notice a designation of certain environments. She gives examples like a true wilderness area versus a national park versus your front yard. She says being in your front yard is "just like being inside...you planned the whole thing!" This is where her use of pattern comes in. By using patterns like florals, she makes a play on inside versus outside, planned out versus naturally occurring.

When asked what materials she likes to use besides those typically found in a ceramics studio, Carolyn replied, "Well, I like to screen print. I like to use ribbons, lace, and glitter. Model train grass, flocking...house paint, epoxy!" Upon asking for a description of flocking, she fetched some from a tall shelf to show me. Tiny pieces of fluffy, polyester fibers, flocking is applied like glitter, she explained. She motioned over to a piece of her latest project, Bunny Island, and said she was thinking of adding some flocking to it to resemble grass.

I then asked her to describe the most bizarre thing she had ever made, which she decided was a toss up between the recently completed Bunny Island, an imaginative fifteen foot long wall installation comprised of floating pieces of land covered in flowers and rabbits, and a closet installation complete with birds and a cuckoo clock, made during her time in New York. She said Bunny Island is meant to come across as dystopic, "like Jurassic Park."

I asked Carolyn what she felt was the most rewarding part of being an artist. She said, "The best part is that I get to do what I want, every single day, all day." I followed that up by asking what the most difficult part of being an artist is. She said, "Having confidence in your ideas. Knowing when to say, 'Yeah, I should make that!' Also, you don't have anyone telling you what to do." I have to agree, being your own boss is simultaneously the best yet most challenging part of creative work.

I also have to mention Carolyn's awesome apron collection, which is both fashionable and practical for someone who works with clay all day. She described this particular one as the "Rastafarian grandmother apron."

We concluded the interview with a sweet treat from Buckeye Donuts.

weekly thrift store finds

2011-09-14T12:03:00.004-04:00

Remember when I said I was going to post my thrift store finds weekly? I apologize for taking a month to get started.

As I mentioned before, there's one thrift store close to my home here that I favor. I find most of my photo props there as well as other things (sometimes too many other things). I've been a little disappointed with other thrift stores I've tried in the city, so I usually just stick to this one and go about once a week. I don't know that most of my photo props are very interesting in and of themselves so in this feature I am just going to focus on those "other things."

Today I had some great finds! First I got these tall glass jars. I'd been wanting to find some large, lidded jars for terrariums to grow herbs in this winter (indoors), and I think these will be perfect. The herbs will have a lot of growing room to go up, but the jar's still wide enough for my hand to fit, which is good for maintaining terrariums. The tall one was $1.91 and the small one was $.90.

I don't really need any more coffee mugs, but I have this tiny mug from Italy that says "caffe" on it. It's about the size of a shot of espresso (see the picture for scale). Well, today, I came across this huge coffee mug in exactly the same style, which says "cappuccino." I thought it was too hilarious to pass up. I can't imagine having a cappuccino that large! $.90.

I also found this empty camera case. It's in great condition. I am a small purse kind of girl these days, so if I want to take a camera with me I have to grab an additional bag. This case is too small for an SLR but would be great for my 35mm point and shoot or any of my plastic cameras. Plus it's just pretty hip. I mean, who wouldn't want to be seen pulling a Holga out of something so legit? $.90.
And then...I found the Best Thing Ever. Okay. Back story. When I was younger, my family had a typewriter, and I would use it in collaboration with my mom to write little stories, which we would then illustrate. I still have a few of these! I don't know what happened to that typewriter, only that it's no longer around. For the past few years I have really wanted one, but being that I have a more modernized way of writing neatly--a computer and printer, it's hard to justify paying a lot (but there are some especially beautiful ones out there!). I'm always on the lookout for one at a thrift store, but most of the ones I have found have keys that stick. Today I found this one for $3.95 and all of the keys work except the little "o" key which sticks only about one out of every three times. So I got it and I could not be happier! I want to write everything on it. I might keep it in my studio at school. It will depend on how much my schedule overlaps with my studiomate Steve...he might not appreciate the noise the keys make!

identifying your creative process

2011-09-14T08:21:00.004-04:00

Yesterday went so well! I stayed on my schedule all day and it felt so good at the end to have accomplished so much work. I am itching to post the photos I made but I'm making myself wait! I realized that when I share them right after making them, I feel this urgency to hurry up and make something else since I've just revealed my new material. But making creative work takes just a little more time than that and I don't really like to hurry through it (who does?).

I realized a few other things as well. I don't think I can do photo shoots five days a week. I hate admitting that because I love the idea of the 30 day challenge, but I just don't know if I can make it work for me. When I have a really good idea, I just want to keep working on it all day until I finish, and when I don't have a good idea yet, I think I should spend the time brainstorming, sketching, reading, etc. until I do have the idea, instead of forcing it. There is a lot more to my work flow than just shooting, and I need to make time for that.

I've learned a lot about my process through all of this and I am excited to keep going. Even if I'm not shooting every day, thinking about, researching, planning for, writing about, etc. my creative work five days a week is going to be a big improvement. I tend to put those things off in order to do my everyday responsibilities like lesson planning and grading, assignments from classes I am taking, etc. But really it's just as important as those other things which have clear deadlines. Also, not photographing every day will give me a chance to work on other creative endeavors, such as screen printing, drawing, and sewing, because being an interdisciplinary artist is important to me.

In the writing seminar I took this summer, we spent some time talking about our creative processes and work flows. We had about fifteen minutes or so to make a drawing of our creative process! This was mine. I enjoyed this exercise because I think it's beneficial to try to identify the cycle of your work. Ask yourself a few questions:

1. What inspires your creative work? Personal experiences, nature, society/media, other art?
2. From that source of inspiration, where are most of your ideas coming from?
3. What can do you to encourage more ideas? Writing, sketching, reading, conversing, exploring?
4. What keeps you from producing as much finished art as you would like? Lack of time, a mental block or fear, lack of ideas?

For me, answering these questions helps me pinpoint areas of success as well as weakness:
1. I'm inspired by my own experiences, objects of significance, and the way we live our everyday lives.
2. My ideas usually start with a personal story and from there I relate them to my feelings about the culture I live in.
3. I get a lot of ideas from reading, brainstorming in my sketchbook, and writing down personal anecdotes. I also find that having good conversations with certain people helps me develop my ideas further.
4. Usually I put too much pressure on myself to come up with a good idea right away, which gives me that sort of "writer's block" feeling. If I start brainstorming while I'm in the middle of another project, I feel more relaxed because I have more time to come up with something to work on next before I find myself in between projects.

Tell me about your creative work flow!

getting the inside scoop on Spain's love of garlic

2011-09-13T19:50:00.006-04:00

This evening I am thrilled to introduce my first guest post! This comes to you all the way from Spain and was written by one of my best friends, Casey. Casey and I lived together for three years in college and even studied abroad together in Italy in 2008 (yes, she witnessed some of those language mishaps firsthand!). A lover of languages, Casey has been teaching English as a second language in Madrid for the past year as a Fulbright scholar! She'll be in Spain for at least one more year, and you can follow her adventures on her witty, informative, and photo-filled blog Gee, Cassandra. And now I'll hand this over to Casey:

When Victoria Beckham relocated to Spain, she supposedly made a crack about how the place smelled of garlic. This did not sit kindly with Spaniards, who take their garlic seriously. Whether cropping up next to vegetables, seafood, or bread, it is a pervasive ingredient in countless Spanish dishes.
One day, at a restaurant going over English verbs with a Madrid native, my student said the unthinkable. “I don’t like garlic,” she divulged, glancing at the menu. She pushed la carta over to me, but the page blurred as I began daydreaming of what life would be like as a Spaniard who disliked garlic. “You pick,” I exclaimed, and those infamous last words became my introduction to callos, or tripe.
I personally enjoy the piquant flavor that garlic provides, and add a liberal crush of the stuff to many a recipe. One of those dishes is salmorejo, a cold soup often served as a first course. It can be found pre-packaged in the grocery store next to its more-famous cousin, gazpacho. While they both originate from southern Spain, this variety of tomato soup is different in that it is flavored with olive oil and thickened with breadcrumbs. It's served scattered with any number of toppings such as raw onion, green pepper, cured ham, or hard-boiled egg.

Many restaurants will offer salmorejo as a dip--my favorite was trying it with rounds of fried eggplant. If you don’t mind garlic breath for the rest of the day, you can even have it for breakfast, as a spread on toast. Whether eaten with a spoon or on a baguette, you should always have some on hand, just in case someone posh happens to drop by.

*Bonus garlic knowledge: in Spanish, a clove of garlic is known as a “diente,” or “tooth”!

Salmorejo

Ingredients for 2-3 servings

4 ripe tomatoes
1 green pepper
1-2 cloves of garlic (or more!)
1 slice of slightly stale or toasted bread
¼ cup olive oil (you may not use it all)
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon white wine vinegarSalt and pepper to taste

For toppings: slices of hard-boiled egg, ham, diced onion, and/or the rest of the green pepper

Chop the tomatoes, half of the green pepper, and garlic and put into a blender. Add the bread, half of the olive oil, and a dash of salt. Mix together, and add a splash of water to make the texture creamier. Blend again, this time adding the white wine vinegar. Check the seasonings and add more salt, vinegar, and oil if necessary.

Once in the serving dish, swirl a bit of olive oil on top, add the toppings, and sprinkle with black pepper.

- Casey

the pros and cons of predetermined structure and how to find your own balance

2011-09-13T08:22:00.005-04:00

I've noticed that structure increases productivity for some artists, but hinders creativity for others. I believe that's why when it comes to making art independently (on one's own time and without a particular deadline), some artists are golden and others struggle. The way to deal with this seems to be identifying which category you fall under and finding ways to balance it. I know for a fact I do better with a predetermined structure, but as I talked about yesterday, I think I can learn to work around this weakness and become more productive without someone or some calendar telling me what needs to be done.

This upcoming quarter, I'll have fewer classes but more independent study hours. Monday through Thursday I won't have any commitments until 11:30 am, so I've decided that I'll wake up early and get to school by 9:00 am each day and use those first few hours to be productive. I am totally a morning person and would aim for earlier, but I have night classes several days a week. I don't have classes on Fridays and I haven't decided if I'll work from home or my studio at school, but either way, I'll stick to a similar schedule. I'd like to be seriously productive five days a week, and give myself a break the other two. Quarters where I've been at school six to seven days per week were not worth the stress in my opinion.

I can't move into my new studio just yet, so this week I'm working from home and changing some of my bad habits! I think everyone deals with getting into routines that don't really work for them, so I'm okay with sharing. This is what I'm making myself do this week to reset my working habits:

- Wake up by 7:30 am and get ready first thing. I put off getting ready when I know I don't have to be anywhere, and I'd like to change that.
- After I get ready, I start my coffee and while it's brewing, I do last night's dishes. I made this rule for myself in January and it actually works perfectly. If you have no dishwasher and a slow coffee pot, I highly recommend it. Doing the dishes makes my home feel so much cleaner! I try to remember to put a load of laundry in at this point as well so I can stay on top of that, even though during the rest of my working time I am trying to avoid cleaning anything!
- While I drink my coffee (at my desk! not from the bed or couch or kitchen table), I read the blogs I'm subscribed to and write a new entry--which is what I'm doing now. I think blogging is a productive activity for creative types and a good form of self-promotion and self-reflection so I'm definitely willing to make time for it.
- After blogging, I respond to pressing e-mails and make a to-do list for the day if I don't already have one (unlike other to-do lists I've made this summer, however, it cannot include anything except art and school related tasks! anything to do with cooking, cleaning, gardening, non-art errands, etc. has to go on a separate list). Then I number the things on my list and get to work! I'll take a break for lunch in the afternoon, and try to wrap up around 4:00, at which point I can pull out that other to do list, hang out with Corey, cook an amazing dinner, or simply relax.

While I work, I can listen to music, but not watch/listen to tv. I've been watching Friends all summer and I have a tendency to want to start my day off by watching "just one episode," but it becomes a distraction. This is just a personal choice. I know lots of people who draw and paint while they watch tv or movies.

What guidelines help you stay productive when working on creative projects from home or without an enforced structure?

p.s. I have some new blog features planned out! This afternoon, stay tuned for my first ever guest post! Tomorrow, I'll be starting a new feature highlighting artists I know which will include a Q&A session and photos of them working in their studios. And Thursday, I'm bringing back the thrift store finds feature. It's a week of new beginnings for the One Lonely Apricot blog.

revamping my 30 day challenge

2011-09-12T11:22:00.003-04:00

My desk in my studio last year...can't wait to move into my new studio soon!

Hello, readers! It's been awhile...my apologies! I am getting ready to go back to school over here (a week from Wednesday--we start late on the quarter system) and checking things off my to-do lists.

I'm still working on my 30-day-challenge but I'm not going to post about it every day, and I'm actually rewriting some of my rules. It was stressing me out too much to do a blog post on it every day and was limiting my creativity. It might be good for some people but for my way of working it was just too much. So, instead I'm going to make a post about it once a week, highlighting what I did the previous week. These posts will appear on Mondays starting next Monday.

I will go ahead and be honest and admit that I took one week off from my challenge. In some ways I guess that's failing the challenge, but the whole thing has been good for me and a learning experience. I think the challenge actually made me see all the ways I hinder my productivity when I'm in charge of all of my time! Ouch. But that's a good thing. During my week off, I wasn't taking a break completely, however, but working on fine details rather than making finished photographs. This included gathering new props, sewing new flower masks, brainstorming, and writing about my ideas. Totally necessary stuff! I'm getting back into shooting daily but I'm only going to shoot 5 days a week. I'll use the other 2 days a week to do all of those other important things that I just mentioned. I'm going to start at square one and do this for 6 weeks, so that equals 30 days of shooting. After that I would like to keep shooting at least 3 days a week.

I have also given my content serious thought and have narrowed it down more than before. I'll be talking about that next Monday. But, the biggest change is that I'm going to be bringing in more personal anecdotes, and pairing them with the work. I mentioned before that I took a creative writing for visual artists workshop this summer. In the workshop, the thing I was inspire to write most was short, autobiographical stories. I actually have a lot of stories that fit in with the topics I'm dealing with in my art! So I just needed to realize that and put it together. My plan is to work on 1-2 stories per week, so I'll spend a few days figuring out how to illustrate each story.

I have also been inspired by Elise of Argyle Whale to restructure the way I work from home or from my school studio, when it's ready, when I'm on my own time. It's easy to make blog posts and do other work while sitting on my bed in my pj's but this morning I started off my day by getting ready and am doing my work from my desk all day! It's definitely an obvious solution to increasing my productivity but hey, being your own boss is hard. So, no more tv in the background for me on my work days, no more cleaning my home for half the day as a means of procrastinating my creative work. I'm going to have a lot more independent working time this quarter (versus taking a lot of classes) and I am going to make the most of it.

How do you stay inspired to get work done without getting distracted?

christmas cards, draft 2

2011-09-06T10:59:00.005-04:00

I played around with the colors of the Christmas card designs some more. The first draft's colors were too dull for me. These look really bright on the screen but in print they will be perfect. Sometimes it can be hard imagining your work going from the screen, which is illuminated from within, to print, which is illuminated only by available light. After awhile you get used to it, but sometimes when choosing the colors for my illustrations I still feel torn.

I tried a version where I added texture with watercolors and snippets of photographs, but decided that I like the simpler look better. Corey thinks I should remove one of the trees and the stocking and take a picture of us to put in the middle. I might do that but I still want to offer some of these in the shop. I may go with this design, or do something completely different, or offer more than one! I'll decide by Friday. In the meantime, feel free to leave your opinion.

I'll be back to posting my 30-day-challenge this afternoon. Some things came up and I took a few days off from it. I'm okay with that, because it gave me a chance to think about my content and come up with some new ideas. I'm just going to add a few days on the end of my challenge or double up a few days this week to make up for it. I'll still reach 30 days of photo shoots by the end of September! Hurray.

designing my Christmas cards...

2011-09-05T10:20:00.005-04:00

Today I am working on designing my Christmas cards for this year! Don't think I'm crazy. I just know I'll be busy with school in November so I decided to do it now. Sending Christmas cards is one of my favorite things to do, and last year I completely let it get away from me with school as my excuse. Not this year!

Here is design option number one. The recipient's name would be written with dotted lines on the white part of the stocking, as if sewn on by that thread. I think they would be sent as postcards, so I'd need to design the back as well.

I digitally colored this scan of the original drawing, but I'm going to try watercoloring the original and scanning that in to see what it looks like as well.

I'm going to work on a few additional designs and choose one to have printed by the end of the week! So stay tuned and feel free to give your opinion.

today's adventure to moonville, ohio

2011-09-02T20:51:00.004-04:00

Today my friend Carolyn and I took a little road trip down to southern Ohio where we went on a hike to find the Moonville tunnel, which was built in the 1800s and used to have a railroad running through it. The town of Moonville no longer exists, but the tunnel is still in tact. We were misguided by some ambiguous directions, however, and what should have been a 30 minute hike ended up taking 3 hours round trip, and that was without even finding the tunnel! We got a little help from a local and a better map and found it the second time with only about 15 minutes of walking. Even though we got lost, it was a fun day and I enjoyed getting out of the city and seeing nature that reminded me of home.

30 day challenge: day 8

2011-09-01T13:12:00.005-04:00

Branching out. Florals, solids, furniture! This chair is amazing. I got it with this series in mind, but I keep it in a nook in my dining room. It was $6 and besides being a little dusty, which some soap and water easily fixed, it's in excellent condition.

I am thinking of playing more with different arrangements, waist up was getting too predictable. It's tough with limited space. I think I'll add some shots outdoors too. I just need to find the right locations. I am also enjoying being expressive with my gestures since my face is not visible.

Now I'm off to find some new fake flowers that I can use to devise new types of flower masks. You'll be seeing those starting tomorrow.

breakfast at tiffany's

2011-09-01T11:31:00.001-04:00

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

One afternoon while traipsing around Florence, my roommate and I came across a Tiffany’s jewelry store. I remarked that although it had nothing at all to do with Italy, we should get up early one morning before class, grab a pastry, and walk over to Tiffany’s—an homage to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, of course. I don’t know where this idea came from, but it just seemed like a glamorous and snapshot-worthy thing to do, and being that we did not have class until nine in the morning, we agreed that it was completely feasible.

A few days later, we set out at seven on our little adventure. We stopped at a pastry shop near Tiffany’s, across the street from one of the more notable churches, Santa Croce. There was a long line that moved at a frantic pace while those who had just made it through gulped down tiny cappucini and pastries at nearby tall tables without chairs (because who has time to sit while they eat breakfast?).

While waiting in line, we eyed the plethora of pastries behind the glass counter and debated on what to get. When Casey, my roommate, made it to the front of the line, she described in perfect Italian the pastry she had her eye on, to the man working the counter. Casey, being fluent in Spanish already upon arriving in Italy and adept at picking up new languages quickly, was miles ahead of me when it came to speaking Italian. I stepped up next and did the best I could. I had just learned the Italian word for “same” so I thought I would just say that I would like to have the same thing she had ordered. In English, I would have just said, “I’ll have the same,” and while in hindsight I’m still not sure if that direct translation works in Italian, that is what I attempted to do. “Vorrei il sesso,” I said. He handed me the same pastry variety that Casey had gotten and rung it up on the register. For a moment I felt satisfied that the transaction had gone smoothly.

We bypassed the tall, chairless tables and started walking toward Tiffany’s. I replayed the situation over in my head, thinking about language school lessons about articles, such as the word the. In Italian, it’s not so simple. It can be la, il, or lo, and those are just the options for describing singular words. Il sesso. I thought it over. Yes, that was the right article. Then something dawned on me: lo stesso. Stesso is the word for same! I remembered suddenly. Then what is sesso? Have I heard that before?

I started talking it over with Casey. “Does stesso mean same in Italian?” She confirmed that it did. “Did you hear me order my pastry?” She had, and she didn’t want to tell me what I had said. “I think I said il sesso instead of lo stesso while trying to say I wanted the same pastry you had.” She confirmed that as well. I pulled out my dictionary and looked up sesso. “Casey!” I exclaimed, “Sesso means sex! I ordered the sex for breakfast!” I was mortified. I wished at the moment that I could have go back and repeat the whole thing, either correctly remembering the word for same or at least keeping my mouth shut and just gesturing toward the pastry I wanted. At least it will make for a good story later, I consoled myself. I tried to see the humor in the situation while eating my breakfast at Tiffany’s.

on exhibiting

2011-09-01T08:45:00.005-04:00

I love waking up to e-mails telling me that my work was accepted to an exhibit I applied to be in! I'm so excited to have two photographs in the upcoming show Yummy at Brothers Drake Meadery here in Columbus. The opening is during the October gallery hop!

This has turned out to be a great year for exhibiting for me. To anyone reading who would like to exhibit your work more, I have a few suggestions. I would probably call this: Exhibiting Your Work When You're Just Starting Out: Gaining Exposure without Going Broke. I'm still finding my way in this aspect of being an artist, but I've learned a lot over the past few years.

- Check postings weekly for calls for entries. Two I check every week are College Art Association and Society for Photographic Education. I keep a running list of calls for entries that pique my interest and when they are due.
- Subscribe to local art scene postings through e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. This is typically how I find out about local shows. I found out about Yummy through a curator who had chosen my work previously for another food-themed exhibit.
- Don't spend a lot in entry fees unless being in that exhibit will boost your resume in some way. For example, if the gallery or juror/curator is noteworthy, or if the theme is particularly pertinent to your work so you feel you will gain exposure by being in it. You will find many other reputable shows that do not cost $35-$40 to enter. When you do pay that much, it should be worth it.
- An exception to this is when the entry fee doubles as a membership fee to an organization you would really like to be a part of. That $40 would benefit you later, a big plus.

When you have been accepted to an exhibit (hurray!), here are some tips:
- Mail out your work as early as you can so you don't have to pay extra postage fees! I learned this the hard way.
- I support USPS when I can, but sometimes when I need to mail large framed work and don't want to spend a fortune in oversize fees, I go to FedEx. This also allows me to easily send return postage, which is usually required if you want your work back. I even signed up for a FedEx account, which was free, and now I get a discount of around 30% on postage, which really adds up. The difference with one particular package was that it would have been $55 to mail through USPS and was $14 through FedEx after my discount. Do your homework!
- Price your work accurately if it's for sale while on exhibit. After the cost of materials, including the frame if it's a 2D work, plus shipping, plus the gallery's percentage of the sale, how much money will you actually be getting if your art sells? I learned this the hard way too. You want to do more than break even! Don't undersell yourself just because you aren't a famous artist yet!

Do you have any other tips for improving this very important section of an artist's resume? I'd love to know!

30 day challenge: days 6-7

2011-08-31T19:46:00.002-04:00

My 30 day challenge is going really well. I got some new floral stuff, and tomorrow I am going to be working on designing new flower masks so I can really start to branch out. I am starting to itch for bigger set-ups, but I just don't have the room until my school's lighting studio re-opens. I think it's okay though. My friend and fellow grad student Carolyn and I had some discussions about our art over a cup of coffee yesterday and it was really good for me. I told her I am worried about not having produced what I want for the beginnings of my thesis work by the time fall quarter starts, and she encouraged me to just keep plugging away at this and that it's like a rough draft for the thesis work. She's right. It's not that far off from what I hope to show, except that I really have loved my 2-3 person set-ups (like the one in the right sidebar) and wanted to expand on that even more perhaps to some 4-5 person shoots in all floral. But like I said, I just don't have the room right now. But I'm telling myself that it's not a big deal, that this work is worth something and that it is a great starting off point for the other shoots I want to do. Plus there is also something I like about the 1-person photos too (it's just that after awhile they feel limiting), so it's not as if they are worth nothing. Sometimes it is just hard being an artist and realizing your limitations! But the best thing to do is make something amazing despite those limitations.