Watercolor Crayon Backgroounds

Check out the article by Caroline Rondel in the March issue of Somerset Studio.  She uses watercolor crayons to make some interesting backgrounds.   I have a box of these that I've never used, so decided to give it a try. 

She explains the technique -  either on dry or wet watercolor paper, color with the crayons and then "paint " the crayoned section to create a watercolor image.   I had better luck on dry paper- it was hard to get much color down on wet paper.  I also did better with  a very light touch with the crayons..  If I pressed too hard with the crayons, the hard line of color was difficult to "wash" with water, leaving a distinct color line. 

It takes lots of water to disperse the color!   After painting the colored areas with water, I stood them up, shook them around and generally tried to get some little rivulets of color to drizzle down the page.

Caroline  recommends blending only two colors to avoid getting the dreaded "mud" wash.   On some I used three colors, but made sure the first colors were totally dried before adding a third - no mud involved!

Some of the backgrounds:

I made a quick birthday card with one and a tag with another.  

These backgrounds would make great journal pages .  I'm going to try it on some text paper too. 

Meyer Lemons + New Tool = Lemon Madeleines

"Ok, here's the Thanksgiving menu so far: apple pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry tart, and ice-cream roll. What am I missing? ...Cake! We need cake."

- Debra Messing as Grace

I've shared many obsessions here - paper, stamping, shabby-chic do-overs, but not one of my most favorite - food.  How could I have neglected this most favorite preoccupation? 

Enter Meyer lemons - new to me.  I've read about them, of course - no fan of Martha can escape her love affair with Meyer lemons, but I've never had or even seen them.  Last week I found little bags of them at our grocery store - so cute!  While lots of people like citrus- flavored entrees, I'm not one of them.  I want my lemons sweetened and  baked with sugar into some tasty sweet - lilke Madeleines.  These lemons are less tart than the regular ones - perfect for desert!

I found a recipe over at Martha's (of course) - these are just a vehicle to deliver lots of butter, eggs and sugar, flavored with lemon and just enough flour to hold it all together. They are not on anyone's diet - there is probably a lower fat version that I should check out, but no amount of butter and eggs would be spared for my lovely little lemons.

 When I got to the part about lemon zest, I remembered the new microplaner I brought home from Montana.  Thank you, thank you  fellow shopper at World Market in Bozeman who told me to buy it!  Is it wrong to love a kitchen tool?  This thing is amazing - it makes very fine zest - nothing like the chunks I get with my old cheese grater.  

Aren't they lovely? 

Vase Facelift



Boston daughter got this vase for me awhile ago.  I love the shape, but the blue doesn't really work anymore, so what to do but give it a new life with some paper !   I glued on various off-white pieces of torn papers - text, music, and pieces from a shopping bag.   It still needed something, so I gave it a swipe of some gold shoe  polish that I bought at the cobblers.   I didn't plan to actually polish shoes with it, but couldn't resist the old gold color.  Here is the new version of my vase:

Remember those flowers we made out of tissues in grammar school?  I'd forgotten about them until I recently made some out of tissue paper for my granddaughter's 3rd birthday.  Then I remembered that I had seen some out here in blog land made of sewing patterns.  I dug out an old pattern and made these flowers.   Next time I'll iron the paper so it's a bit neater  and maybe try some Distress Ink on the edges.  

PS - Love the new, improved Blogger picture upload, but still fooling around with text and layout!!