Under a Blue Moon

More books

It’s very revealing, don’t you think, to see someone’s bookshelf?

Thanks to Alexis from Knot Sew Crafty I am now a card carrying member of PaperBack Swap. It is a book exchange group. It’s very simple – you sign up, you list the books you want to swap away, and then you wait for someone to want one of your books. When they do you mail it to them, they mark that they received it and then you have one book credit. When you join up and put up 10 books for trade you automatically get 2 credits to start with.

It’s called PaperBack Swap but you can also list hardback and audio books.

I tend to want to hang on to my hardbacks but the paperbacks are just hanging around, using up valuable shelf space. I listed about 28 books so far. I have another box of books still to go through. They do have to be in decent condition. No water damaged books, no books missing their front covers. I hope they accept dusty, spiderwebby books because I have lots of those out on the shelves in the garage.

It was rather alarming to see what I use for bookmarks. I found a checkbook that is at least 8 years old because it has our old address on it. A $10 American Express traveler’s check. A boarding pass (actually a couple of them). I bet you anything most of my pile of books was purchased at an airport newstand.

The best part is getting to package up and ship off a book. I love sending packages to people ~ even people I don’t know. And it’s RECYCLING! Whoot!

Almost as good as being there

Yesterday I went out for an errand and when I got back my Dad said that I had just missed Sara. She stopped by, bestowing gifts from her recent travels to France on us. My dad offered me one of his macarons and said that she left something for me too.

I casually wandered into the living room (okay I may have dashed, pell mell) and spied a stack of stuff. Not wanting to be presumptuous I asked him what, exactly, she had left. He shrugged and said he wasn’t sure. I wanted to just stuff it all into my arms but thought I better check first. To avoid having that embarrassing conversation where Sara has to call me and ask that I bring back all the treasures that she brought for her mother.

Turns out the stack was all mine. French magazines, a pretty tin, a mysterious bottle of something raspberry (I wasn’t sure at first if they were candied bits of raspberries or raspberry bath salts and could just imagine sprinkling skincare products on my cupcakes) and a little recipe book of Confitures et Chutneys.

I think I am the most over the moon about the Marie Claire Idees magazine. I have wanted to get my hands on one for ages now but the subscription price to the US is so prohibitive.

I’ve only had the briefest look through it. I want to save if for when I can sit, uninterrupted, and just pour over it. What I have seen is bright, Summery colors, arm loads of flowers, gorgeous embroidery and fun collectibles.

I think I need to learn French.

Merci, ma belle nièce.

In other news – if everyone could throw some healing, healthy elbow vibes in the direction of California I sure would appreciate it. Rick is in surgery, right this very minute, having his elbow operated on.

Nothing too serious – and I’ll pamper him lots when I get him home. I also plan to thoroughly exploit his hopped up on pain killers state and ask him if I can plant a perennial morning glory on our pergola. He has an unusual hatred of vines and I really, really want something to cover that pergola. I mean what is the point of a pergola if you don’t have something growing on it?

Book Report

I have been on a book reading jag lately so I figured it was time for another book report. I have found one of the best places for book reviews are other blogs. All the blogs I visit are people with similar interests (crafting, cooking, home making) so it stands to reason I would also like the books they are reading.

Every book reviewed here was discovered on someone elses blog.

I love books with a food theme. At first I thought World of Pies was a young adult book because the protagonist is a young pre-teen girl. But then she grows up and has some very grown-up experiences so definitely not a young adult book. It is the story of a tomboy who grows up in a small town in the 60’s. The book starts out with a pie baking contest and includes recipes (bonus!). Quick, enjoyable read.

I struggled a bit with The Country Life because the author uses 89 words in a sentence when 6 or 7 would do but after I got used to her writing style I really, really liked this book. Probably the best of the four I’m reviewing today.

A young English woman basically quits her life in London, packs up a few meager possessions and takes a position in the country as the caregiver for a young disabled man. She is so ill-equiped for living in the country and the family she is working for is wackadoodle. The messes she gets into are hilarious.

Mary Stewart is a very prolific author but somehow I’ve never managed to read any of her books until this one. A sweet story of a young WWII widow that goes back to her childhood home to pack up her grandmother’s things. There is a little mystery, a little budding romance and I want to pack up and move to the cottage myself.

The book I am currently reading is The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. She of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle fame. It is the true story of her life trying to run a chicken farm with her husband. I just picked it up from the library today and have only read just a few pages. I love books about people that just pack up and do something different and out of their comfort zone.

I wish I was brave that way.

What’s funny about this book is that the copy I picked up at the library looks nothing like the ones I’ve seen on Amazon. On closer inspection I see that someone has carefully covered it in a scrap of vintage wallpaper with a poultry theme.

Next on my list is anything by Beverley Nichols. But preferably Down the Garden Path. His account of trying to create a proper English garden in the 30’s. I must be on a country, cottagey, English kick this Summer. Unfortunately my county library system doesn’t have ANYTHING he’s written. Harrumph. I have gotten so used to not buying books that I’m hardpressed to start up again. Even used, his books are a bit more than I want to spend right now.

So what are you reading?

La Cage aux Folles

I have this thing about the various bird cages I have decorating our house. I have to leave the door to the cage open. They are all just decorative and only faux birds live in them but the door still needs to be open. Because you just never know what happens when your eyes are turned away or you are sleeping. What if those little birds actually come to life – it could happen! – and then they are trapped.

So they all stay open. It’s my own little version of feng shui and good karma. Everyone is free to come and go at our house.

Look this little bird is just hanging out on top.

Notice the teeny nails just below the trim work? I put those in at Christmas and hung snowflakes on fishing line. I put a little dab of ivory paint on the nails so they would blend in better. Never got around to taking them out and now, since it is only 159 days until Christmas, I figure I might as well leave them.

Sorry about the Christmas reminder.

See? That little bird can leave whenever she wants.

I have wanted a bird cage stamp for a long time but all of them depict a bird in a closed birdcage and evidently my neurosis seeps into my crafting. But this week I found a small birdcage stamp with NO door on it. No bird either but I can fix that.

There is a shop in Sunnyvale, CA called the Cranberry Mercantile (or something like that) and they have a decent stamp inventory and it looks like they are really branching into scrap booking with a classroom and everything. They have a ton of cute projects displayed and all over the store are signs saying to take a picture and leave the cards for others to view. I had my cellphone out snapping pictures left and right. One of the projects was super easy and above is my stab at it.

I started with a card from A Muse (love their paper products – very mix and matchy) and just fliped up the bottom and creased it and then used a couple of teeny pink eyelets to hold it in place. Then I cut out a small scrap of matching patterned pink paper and put it on the exposed part (so when you open the card you just see a small strip at the bottom). Then I layered a couple of circles and dabbed a bit of glittery stuff on it.

I need darker pink ink though. And a teeny bird stamp. Which I am going to go on the hunt for now.

Again, sorry about the Christmas thing…..

Blackberry cobbler

On our five acres we have about 4.99 acres of blackberry bushes. They have quite simply taken over. When we leave the house we have to take a machete with us just to hack our way to the car.

Do you see my Honda under there?

So what to do with all those blackberries? I’m all for leaving them to the birds and squirrels to eat because those suckers have thorns and I’m pretty sure coyotes or tigers live in them but Rick was brave and picked a colander full.

And I made a cobbler. I used The Pioneer Woman’s recipe and it turned out okay. I think it needs a thickening agent of some kind. The juice was just a little bit thin. I also added about 1/8 cup of cinnamon sugar to the biscuit part only because it was sitting on the counter, left over from Snickerdoodle baking earlier in the day.

There’s nothing like 109 degree temperatures to bring out the baker in me. I think the cinnamon added a really nice flavor to it but you still need to add a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Since we are out looking for my Honda has anyone seen my stone garden bench?

Would you like to come up and see my etchings?

This is going to be the invisible project. It’s hard to get a good picture of etched glass. Especially with the contents of the glass jar being white, on a white table cloth. You might have to dig out your visualization skills for this post.

Years and years ago I bought these French canisters at Cost Plus before it became World Market. I used a black Sharpie pen and wrote Flour, Sugar or Bisquik (yes, with a typo) on each canister.

After seeing some Martha project where she was etching her signature M on anything that would sit still I decided to try my hand at it.

The font I used is Mamae que nos faz and, Lord help me, I really hope that doesn’t mean anything offensive in French….

I played around with font sizes until I found one that would fit and then I printed the words on some clear paper backed adhesive sheets I had left over from some other project. The glass etching cream people suggest using contact paper but I wanted to print, not trace the lettering. I’m thinking the contact paper would be easier to cut and would make better contact (!) with the glass but what I used worked pretty well.

The most tedious part is cutting out the stencil. You are just removing the black part and leaving the rest. Which means you have to be really careful about the middle of the A and the loopy bit of the G. I had to cut out the middle bits of the S twice because I goofed.

Sigh. Trying to photograph something clear on a clear background is like trying to photograph a figment of your imagination.

See that white jar in upper right hand corner? That is the etching medium. It’s by Armour Products and is called Armour Etch Glass Etching Cream. It cost about $11 for a three ounce jar which I think would do a lot of projects.

You can buy kits from Armour Products but I didn’t see anything in there, other than the etching cream, that I really needed. You can also buy pre-done stencils which would be fun for decorating glasses or doing a design on a mirror.

After doing the Flour and the Sugar I decided we didn’t use Bisquick all that often anymore and, besides, my fingers were going numb from clutching the X-acto so tightly.

I am off to use both the flour and sugar for a blackberry cobbler. Blackberries from our very own yard. How is THAT for local? I’ll post on it tomorrow.

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