blog #335 >> The Adventures of a Macro Box

I will readily confess... I'm not a photographer. I don't know how to use my camera, I can never get decent lighting. And I don't have the patience to arrange or wait for a good composition. Despite all this, I know a good photo when I see one. Which just makes me even more aware of the fact that I'm a terrible photographer.

This week's challenge has been trying to get a photo of these little red owl earrings for etsy. They've proven quite difficult, and in most photos look more like little red blobs than owls. I tried indoor lighting, natural lighting, a spot light, the flash, adjusting the manual exposure, adjusting the levels in Photoshop and a combination of all of the above. At last I tried making a Macro Box. (Thanks Lisa for the link!)


My newly made macro box.

Happily, I had everything I needed to make it on hand, and it came together pretty fast. I used tracing paper to defuse the light, and I put my desk lamp on one side, the bedside lamp on the other side, and my light table on top. (And I tried combinations of one light source and two, as well as with flash and without.) Overall it does a pretty good job for close up images, but it eliminated the shadows on the object, and now they still look like little red blobs. But I think it will work really well for other things. I guess I need to play around with it some more. Or perhaps I'm just being too picky, and in the end I'll probably go back to using plain old natural light.


The owl earrings in the Macro Box.


This is the best picture I took (out of about 1000) it's natural light, with increased light exposure, and adjusted A LOT in Photoshop.

Hopefully, I can finish taking my pictures tonight and get this little guys posted!

T

blog #334 >> Pigs and Pickles

Yesterday I went up to my brother's house and visited their new baby pigs. They're very cute, but still afraid of people.

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And after that my mom helped me can some pickles.



Here are my two recipes for those who are interested.
This dill recipe is my first step closer to Martha Wiztel's pickles. Martha Witzel was a friend of my great-grandparents who lived down the street from us growing up. And I used to clean house for her when I was young. Every week when I was done cleaning we'd open up a jar of her famous homemade pickles and share them. (Basically, I was paid in chocolate cake and pickles... and I had to make the chocolate cake.) And every week I'd ask her for that dill pickle recipe, and every week she said it was a secret. (I think she said that just to vex me.) Anyhow I never did get her recipe, and now I never will, so it's up to me to rediscover her long lost secret dill pickle recipe.
This is my first attempt.

Dill Pickles:

5 large cucumbers sliced into spears
2 cups white vinegar
6 cups water
1/3 cup pickling salt
7 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
14 heads fresh dill weed
1 3/4 tea. mustard seed
1 3/4 tea. peppercorns

1. Wash and sterilize 7 pint jars.
2. In a large pot over medium-high heat, combine the vinegar, water, and pickling salt. Bring the brine to a rapid boil.
3. In each jar, place 1 cloves of garlic, one head of dill, about a 1/4 tea. of mustard seed and 1/4 tea. of peppercorns, then enough cucumbers to fill the jar. Pack them tightly. Fill jars with hot brine. Seal jars, making sure you have cleaned the jar's rims of any residue.
4. Process sealed jars in a boiling water bath. Process pint jars for 10 minutes.
5. Store pickles for a minimum of 8 weeks before eating. Refrigerate after opening. Pickles will keep for up to 2 years if stored in a cool dry place.

Makes about 7 pints



And for those of you sitting near us at Skating with Scissors, here is my grandma's bread & butter pickle recipe.

Bread & Butter Pickles

6 cups cucumbers
2 cups thinly sliced onion

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
1/2 tea. salt
1/2 tea. mustard seed
1/2 tea. celery seed (I usually omit this, but only because I never have any.)
1/2 tea. turmeric

Mix sugar, vinegar, salt, and spices in a large pot and bring to a boil. Pour over onions and cucumbers. Cover and refrigerate for at least one week and up to one month.

Enjoy!
T

blog #333 >> Craft Show

Ahhh!!! It's over and done, and my apartment looks like it's been hit my a train filled with felt, thread, pins, needles, scissors, and other craft supplies. It took me all morning to pick up the mess of the past week. But now I can sit back, enjoy the pot of tea I made this morning, and spend a little quality time with the computer.



Well, I can't say it was a profitable craft show. After all profits are an ambiguous thing, which in the end, is really quite meaningless since it's all for fun. But if I added together everything I bought or traded for and my half of the booth, I just broke even. So it wasn't so bad either. And even if we didn't get rich, we still had a lot of fun. I think my favorite thing about craft fairs is hanging out for a day with other crafty people. They're all so friendly! And we got a lot made during this show for our next show, which made it a very successful craft day. And I'm now inspired to embroider a sign that says, "We accept cash, checks, haggling, bartering, and bribes." I have to admit, I love bartering!








This is the vintage dress I bought while I was there from Giddy. They were sitting across from us, and all day I watched people come by and try it on, and nobody took it. At last I couldn't take it anymore and I had to go over and buy it. It's slightly too big for me, but it will be easy to alter. I feel really bad about cutting the tags off of it though. It's still got the original tags, and that's so rare.






And here is the ring I traded for from Elle Paisley. I was eying it all day, but after the dress I really didn't want to buy anything else. So when they came over to ask if I wanted to trade I was really, really excited.

There were so many great booths there. It was a really nice craft show, even though it was really more of a craft swap.

T

blog #332 >> Buy our stuff, get a FREE bag!

We have a new deal going on right now at Door Mouse Designs. Buy our stuff, get a FREE bag. Are you tired of stuffing your newly purchased craft goods into your purse. Well worry no more. Now we will give you a cute little Door Mouse Designs bag to carry your purchases in for FREE with any purchase. Limited to however many people get one until we run out or make more.

As if I didn't have enough to do to get ready for Saturday, I decided to make bags for our craft show last night. I love how they turned out, but now I need to focus on the important points of getting ready... like picking up the table and chairs.
Once again come and visit us at Skating with Scissors, Saturday 19th, 11am - 7pm at the Oaks Park Hanger.
I'll see you there!
T

blog #331 >> I wish these were real...

If modern classic movies were made in the past, would they still be classics?
T

blog #330 >> Another Post about Chutney

I panicked this morning. I thought one of my chutneys had mold in it. This was very puzzling since I had boiled them for nearly two hours and that is really quick for mold to grow. But when I opened it to investigate, it was only a flaw in the glass that looked exactly like mold. It kinda reminded me of these. I'll have to be sure to throw that jar away. I am also happy to report that the thickness was perfect. I had some for breakfast on toast with happy cow cheese and it was delicious!





T

blog #329 >> Plum Chutney

I actually made up my own recipe for this one. The only plum chutney recipes I found had pretty terrible reviews, but I found one mango chutney recipe with really good reviews. So I ended up combining them. I used the spices from the mango chutney and the ratios from the plum chutney. Only it was still too bitter, so I added more sugar in the end. I also added about a half of a box of pectin. It was suppose to "jell" but even after boiling for two hours it never really did. At last I gave up and added the pectin. Only now I'm worried that I made it too thick. The jars seem fine right now, but the tiny bit I put in the frig to taste turned really "sticky." Perhaps that is just because it was refrigerated, or because it was such a small amount. I don't know. But I can't wait to open a jar. They all sealed and I only had a tiny bit left over to taste. If anything I got the flavor down, it tastes delicious!

Here's my recipe, it's basically my chai tea recipe with garlic, onions, vinegar, currents, and plums.

The spices:
10 whole allspice or 1/4 tea. ground
8 whole peppercorns or 1/8 tea. ground
3 whole cloves or 1/8 tea. ground
1/4 tea. crushed cinnamon stick or 1/4 tea. ground
1/8 tea. nutmeg
a pinch of chili pepper
(crush together in a mortar and pedestal or in a coffee grinder, unless you're using regular spices.)
1 T. grated ginger (freezing it first is the trick.)
1/2 a clove of garlic

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1/4 cup golden raisins, regular raisins, or currants, or a mix or all three. I used currants.
1/2 cup minced red onion (or any color really)
6 cups chopped plums
3 cups brown sugar
3 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar (5% acid)
1 1/2 cups red wine vinegar (5% acid)
(In hindsight, I think I would have preferred all cider vinegar, but I suppose it depends on your taste, you can also use plain white distilled.)

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Mix everything in a big pot and boil it for a really, really, really long time. I ended up boiling mine for somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours. And you're going to need to stir that almost continuously. Now hopefully yours will "jell" mind didn't and I added a half a box of pectin. Now I'm thinking that was the wrong thing to do, and it would have jelled when it cooled down. I'll update this when I open a jar and find out for sure.

Process in a hot water bath canner for 10 minutes.
Yields 6 half-pint jars

Let me know if you decide to try it!
T