***

Oh, Beau-Beau. You love cooking utensils more than toys, son. Ever since you could sit up by yourself, you’ve been whisking ping-pong balls around in a ceramic bowl.

Nowadays it’s a wrestling match to see which one of us gets to use the good silicon oven mitt (FYI: I usually let you win).

You have your own set of pots and pans. You even have a favorite “pancake flipper” and when it gets washed and accidentally ends up in the canister with the rest of my tools, you are quick to point out that it’s not in YOUR drawer where it belongs.

I can only hope this interest in cooking and helping in the kitchen continues throughout your life. I have no doubt you would be an excellent chef…or at least skilled enough to bless your future wife by giving her a night off.

As your mama, it’s my job to make sure you don’t move out of our house without knowing how to cook more than macaroni and cheese (unless, of course, it’s completely from scratch, in which case makes it fancy!)

At the rate you’re going, you’re learning a LOT and you’re learning it fast! So, what shall we cook next, bubba?

***

Check out some other folks doing Project 52: Lucas & Mahina; Shawna at StyleBerry; Wicked Kate

If you are participating in this year’s Project 52, leave me a comment and let me know…I’d love to link up with you!

If there is one thing Teresa loves more than red, it’s glitter! So, in honor of her upcoming birthday {I think she’s going to be 25…something like that, right, T? }, I made her a special sign for her studio:

I found the perfect candy-apple red spray paint and gave the frame a makeover. Then, I used my Silhouette cutter to make a stencil, which I then painted in white acrylic on black matte board.

Sure, I could’ve just cut the letters from white vinyl and been done, but there’s something so authentic and organic and lifelike about seeing brushstrokes within the letters! They just make a work of art seem more like, well, a work of art.

Then, I added the finishing touch: GLITTER. Red glitter. And lots of it!

To say Teresa loved this would be putting it lightly. She immediately shared the above image on Facebook and Instagram and people started demanding to know where she had gotten it.

Though I intended this to be a one-of-a-kind, Teresa has not only given me her blessing to make replicas, she’s downright encouraged it. {I guess when you love glitter like she does, you figure there can never be too much of it in the world!}

So…BIG NEWS!

I will be making more of these in the weeks to come and you can get one of your own!! The color of the frame and glitter can be customized to suit your tastes {everyone has “their” color, right?!}. Each one will be individually handmade and cost $35 plus shipping.

For those who live in the Edmond/OKC area, we can arrange pick-up or delivery {for an extra fee} of your art. For those of you outside OK, I am researching shipping options to keep these as cost-effective for the buyer as possible. I hope to update this post soon with approximate shipping charges.

If you would like to purchase your own, feel free to leave me a comment on this post or email me privately.

***

Since the. day. you learned to crawl, you’ve been pulling up on things. Then came the climbing. We can’t leave you alone for two seconds or you’re on top of something. Sometimes something REALLY TALL, like your sisters’ bunkbeds.

While your sheer fearlessness is awe-inspiring, it is also terrifying {at least for mama}. Daddy thinks if we make it to your second birthday without a trip to the emergency room, it will be nothing short of a miracle.

It’s your nature to explore and discover, and I sure don’t want to limit your curiosity to the things on your eye-level. There’s just too much in this life that deserves exploring.

So instead, I’ll be right by your side, ready with open arms to catch you. And band-aids {just in case}.

***

Check out some other folks doing Project 52: Lucas & Mahina; Shawna at StyleBerry

If you are participating in this year’s Project 52, leave me a comment and let me know…I’d love to link up with you!

Writing is one. It’s difficult to figure out how much space you’ll need to pen your message on a cake. Sometimes the icing consistency throws you for a loop. Sometimes you just work too fast and things get sloppy. I’ve run into all of these obstacles. Another big area where I’d like to continue to improve? “Fonts”…meaning: I can print on a cake and I can do your run-of-the-mill cursive, but that’s about it. I’d like to spend more time perfecting some other typestyles.

Looking at this photo now (two years after I made this cake), I wish I’d spent more time smoothing the icing. It’s not bad, but there’s still room for improvement.

I’d also seen this cool diagonal design in a magazine and wanted to try it. However, in my excitement, I didn’t plan it out as well as I could have, and the bottom row of diamonds ended up getting a little wonky. If I had done my due diligence, I would’ve used toothpicks to space out the markings evenly.

But as they say, “live and learn.” I think it’s important for all artists to document their work and reassess their growth from time to time. We can learn so much by looking back.

Surely all of us at least have a photo that makes us wonder WHAT we were thinking in choosing a particular hairstyle.

How about you? Do you have old photos that teach you lessons about life?

Well, today she’s the big 1-8, and I would be remiss if I did not give her a

birthday shout out!

Since she’s living in Nebraska for the next month (though SOON to become an Okie transplant, like moi!), and I can’t be there to celebrate her today, I’m doing the next best thing (cyberly speaking): PHOTOS of cupcakes!

The following cupcakes are from my “Abbi-Gail Adventure.” Yeah, remember that? It’s been awhile. These are recipe #96, Strudel Cups:

The ingredients for Strudel Cups are pretty basic: (that’s melted butter in the bowl)

Phyllo dough is a funny thing. It’s pretty much like edible tissue paper. Very strange. I’d never worked with it before, and that was my first impression of it while it was raw…it’s Kleenex-like.

First, you cut the phyllo dough into fourths, cram a piece of it into a sprayed muffin tin, and brush a layer of melted butter on it.

And repeat.

And repeat.

And repeat several more times, in several more muffin cups.

Add some lemon juice to your chopped apples,

…some cinnamon,

…some sugar,

…some chopped walnuts,

some ground almonds and golden raisins, and give it all a good stir!

Fill each muffin cup with a heapin’ helpin’ of the strudel filling.

And bake until golden.

Once these were baked, I removed them (carefully!) from the tins and placed each one on a bright red muffin paper to give them a little pizzazz! Easy, though, not many of us would consider this truly a “cupcake.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEESTER!! I LOVE YOU!!!

When I see you again, we shall bake!

For those of you that don’t know me, I LOVE LOVE LOVE to organize. I’ve always enjoyed it. Even as a kid, I would help my friends clean their rooms so they wouldn’t get grounded!

There’s something really satisfying about organizing someone else’s space. Perhaps it’s because once it’s done I don’t have to be the one that keeps it that way.

In all fairness, my MIL has help when it comes to creating this chaos…7 kids and 8 (soon to be 9) grandkids create, play, and run around up here during family get-togethers.

So, my AEDM project for today is the “after” photos of my MILs sewing/craft room. I didn’t take any “before” photos, but even if I had, she may not have wanted me to put them on the internet for all to see. HA!

Luckily, she had clear plastic boxes with lids. I boxed up like items (ribbons, sewing notions, etc) and pushed the chairs under the table where they belong.

There was a plastic box only about 1/3 full of empty photo frames and a box of fabric that was overflowing. So I swapped the contents of the two.

All the fabric scraps that had been tossed near the sewing table got folded, sorted by how much remained, and boxed up accordingly.

It was really fun to be able to do this for my MIL. I know once she gets some time to sew again, she’ll have plenty of organized space to do it in.

Love you, Mama Meadows!

It’s funny how a fruit that’s existed for centuries (it’s mentioned dozens of times in the Old Testament of the Bible) is suddenly the “newest” rage.

Surprisingly though, I had never ventured far enough into the fad to mess with a fresh one. I’d even read recipes that sounded amazing but avoided making them because they called for fresh pomegranate seeds and I just assumed it would be too much hassle.

You know what happens when you assume, right?

Although some days my AEDM “creativity” has been something incredibly simple that hasn’t seemed to amount to much, the challenge has given me a new perspective.

WHY on EARTH am I waiting for some magical moment where all the stars will align and the timing will suddenly be perfect for trying new things?!

SEIZE THE DAY!

So, I went to the store and bought a fresh pomegranate. I didn’t know if I would get to it the same day I bought it, but I was SURE I was going to do it for one day of AEDM.

Today was that day. And, I have to say: it was the most fun I’ve had in the kitchen in a long time.

I felt as if I were seeing with fresh eyes. With a childlike perspective. As if I were glimpsing a teeny bit of the great Creator’s awesome imagination. Seriously, my first pomegranate experience was completely transcendent.

If you’re ready to try it for yourself, here are some simple steps. If you’re like me, sometimes just having some fool-proof directions gives you the kick in the duff you need to get over the fear of the unexpected.

Step 1: Cut off the flowery top of the fruit:

Step 2: Section the fruit into a few pieces.

Step 3: Submerge each section in a bowl full of water:

Step 4: Gently use your fingers to separate the pith from the juicy seeds:

((I liked this step a LOT…reminded me of the childhood summers I spent shucking corn on my grandparents’ farm in Nebraska))

As you can see in the photo, the pith is light enough to float to the top of the water, while the dense seeds sink to the bottom of the bowl! Awesome.

Look at those yummy rubies! Mmm. I can taste their tartness now!

Step 5: Use a strainer to skim the pith off the top of the water.

All the seeds will be at the bottom of the bowl at this point.

Step 6: Use the strainer to drain the seeds. Rinse, if desired.

Step 7: Throw a pinch of those sassy seeds in your mouth and enjoy the flavor rush!

Afterward, my kitchen looked like a scene from the board game “Clue”: Artist Abbi. In the kitchen. With a pomegranate.

This was fun. It was simple. It was outside my “normal” definition of art, yet it felt intensely creative.

And as soon as the pears in my kitchen ripen, I’m making one of those recipes that called for pomegranate seeds!

One of his Aunt Cristi’s gift requests is new music she can listen to while she works out. Since I am a big fan of music AND exercise, I put together a disc full of tracks I think she’ll enjoy.

For today’s art, I used old magazines and scrapbook paper to make a collage for the CD cover.

Which way to the gun show?

My poor baby’s congestion got the better of him and he refused to nap. Well, he cat-napped. But only as long as I was holding him.

Needless to say, I am lucky to have been able to do much of anything (I got in a cardio workout, made a quick trip to Kohl’s, washed three loads of laundry, AND managed to make dinner!)

I call this “Mish Mash Pizza”…I really didn’t have much of a dinner plan, but what I did have was a half-cup of pesto sauce, some pre-cooked chicken strips, a tomato from my MIL’s garden, some bacon, and a tube of Pillsbury pizza crust. Ta da! Dinner is served. And my fridge is sorta tidied up, too!

I also managed to whip together a little project using this relic from the bowels of our closet. Ever since I had my baby, none of my clothes seem too appealing to me. About a week ago, I remembered seeing this book and, LUCKY ME, the library had it!

One episode of “The Office” later, and I had this new redesigned tee to wear.

It’s cute…with little drawstring accents and everything.

I took some step-by-step pics of the process, but Lord help me, I’m tired after such a long day. I learned some things I’d love to share and I also came up with some tweaks I’d like to try.

I think I’ll do this again sometime with a new shirt that doesn’t make me look so boxy. In the meantime, this one will be perfect to wear while I make artistic messes!

I used this as an opportunity to play around with doodling and hand-lettering. Over the years, I’ve seen multiple examples of “color-splotching” instead of precise coloring, so I tried that today, too.

Here is the entire set as well as a few of my favorites:

After trimming the slips, I used a wooden skewer to roll each one into a tube. That way, no one can peek! I also marked the slips for the kids with red marker so they wouldn’t get mixed in with the adults’ names.

Granted, the drawing ‘buckets’ are nothing fancy, but now each family member can see which slip they are drawing without knowing who’s name they are getting.

I will also be emailing out a Christmas Survey this year. Each family member will fill out their “Wish List” and Reply All. That way, the secret of who drew who STAYS a secret (no need for covert spouse-interviewing operations this year!)

The list will also be a great reference throughout 2011 as we celebrate family birthdays.

Does your family have any fun holiday traditions? Do tell!