Sunday, November 7, 2010

Pear and Apricot tart


I have looked for a good Pear tart for a while and this might just be the ONE.


Ingredients*

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan*
1/2 cup raw almonds*
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar*
1 large egg*
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract*
1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled*
1/2 teaspoon baking powder*
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt*
2 pears (such as Bosc or Bartlett)—peeled, quartered, and cored*
1/2 cup dried apricots, halved*
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice*
1/4 cup apricot preserves

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F. Butter a 9-inch removable-bottom fluted tart pan.
2. In a food processor, process the almonds and ½ cup of the sugar until finely ground. Add the butter, egg, and almond extract and process until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse a few times just to combine (the dough will be soft).
3. Spread the dough in the bottom of the prepared pan.
4. In a small bowl, toss the pears and apricots with the lemon juice and the remaining tablespoon of sugar. Arrange the pears in the dough. Scatter the apricots over the dough, pressing them in gently.
5. Bake until the pears are tender and the center is firm, 50 to 55 minutes (cover the edges with foil if they brown too quickly).
6. In a small bowl, combine the preserves and 1 tablespoon water. Brush over the warm tart. Let cool in the pan before unmolding.
Photo and recipe found at this site :

Sunday, September 26, 2010

She'll grow into her wings

Digital Collage, just finished yesterday

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Boys With Attitude

In preparing for Halloween. I have created a serie of collages titled "Boys With Attitude"


Image of the chimney sweeps was found on the Library of Congress Media file.

The young "newsie" also comes from the Library of Congress, in the Child Labor section

This imperious looking child was a freebie from Mrs Inman (Flickr)


And the grumpy boy is also a Mrs Inman'special.
tah, tah for now.


Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Colors on the Water (Free to use)

Looking at the water is for me an endless source of fascination, how the objects get reflected and the colors become fractured into many facets flowing into one another. I had myself a merry time creating these backgrounds/textures . Feel FREE to use them for backgrounds or textures.




Now, go do something creative.
Toodles



Monday, August 2, 2010

FREE for your enjoyement

With summer ebbing (somewhat), I already miss the carefree days at the beach, so I found a collection of ladies happily enjoying the sunshine.

She is the epitome of bathing beauty, I think: great legs, darling, frilly swimsuit, and adorable little shoes; she make me want to return to the BEACH.

Now for a snarky moment : While modesty is a very good thing, for the camera, what about all those guys, in the background and the hundreds of windows from the sky scrappers? I'm just saying... She is really cute though.

Okay this is not very beachy, but I simply could not let the Big Hair slide by.
Those pix were gleaned from the fab site VINTPIX : http://www.vintpix.com/
Thousand of pictures free for the picking.
TTFN


Saturday, May 8, 2010

Won't you come and see my garden?

My garden is just gorgeous this time of year, and I absolutly love it. I have magnificent irises .

Mon jardin est si beau en avril et may, j'ai des iris superbes.












And some wild flower that just decided to grow here, and I don't know what it is but I like the happy yellow flowers anyway ( I just have to cut off the spent flowers so it doesn't reseed itself, one never knows with those volunteers:)

Et puis ya cette plante sauvage qui s'est installee sans permission, mais j'aime bien ses jolie fleurs jaunes. (sauf qu'il faudra que je retire les graines pour qu'elle ne se reseme pas, ces fleurs sauvages sont souvent trop envahissantes)



And then my favorite pink rose. Oh she is so gorgeous, and the fragrance is amazing!!
Et enfin, il y a ma rose rose, reine du jardin. Elle est si belle et elle a un parfum incroyable!!



Y'all enjoy our beautiful spring.
Je souhaite a tous et toutes un bon printemps

Monday, April 26, 2010

New Digital collage in Photoshop

This morning, before breakfast I put this collage together to try out my new Photoshop (words cannot express how much I love this thing.)
I like this captain, got him from the Library of Congress photo files, great ressource, and the gorgeous parrot was borrowed from The Graphic Fairy (thank you Karen.)

Toodles
Ce matin, avant le petit dejeuner, j'ai fait ce collage digital pour essayer mon nouveau PhotoShop
(j'adore ce programme) L'image du capitaine vient de la Librairie du Congres, et le perroquet a ete emprunte de chez "The Graphic Fairy".
Baille baille

Monday, April 19, 2010

Our Visit to the Renaissance Faire

This week end was the opening of the Renaissance Faire in Fairburn (GA) and we were there bright and early, we come every year and we love it.

Ce week -end nous avons ete visiter le Festival Renaissance ou nous allons tous les ans. Sa majeste est venue en personne nous souhaiter la bienvenue:


Here is the welcoming commitee (his majesty in person, came to meet us.)


We saw wonderful and strange animals,


Nous avons vu des animaux tres beaux,et parfois quelque peu etranges





we saw acrobats and musicians and jousts.
Nous avons admire les bateleurs, les musiciens et les tournois





The King and queen were kind enough to let us take pictures.
Le roi et la reine ont eu la bonte de nous laisser prendre des photos.



There was examples of Charming architecture.
Il y avais des exemple de jolie architecture .


And splendid costumes,
Et des costumes superbes,








Very dashing gentlemen.
Des messieurs fort galants





And of course, the three musketeers.
Et bien sur les trois mousquetaires





Et un prelat ou deux.

Our boys had a wonderful time.
Nos garcons se sont bien amuses .
It was a perfect day! !
Hugs to all














Friday, March 26, 2010

Happy Birthday Chase ! !

Our Chase just turned 9. His birthday cake had something of a space ship theme and was made by Mom. He is so bright and responsible. It amazes me, 9 years old already! It seems like only yesterday he was a itty bitty baby. Oh, and we forgot the candles, so we used a tea candle, he didn't mind; he was only interested in doing some damage to that cake.
A great day!
Toodles.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Did I Miss The First Day Of Spring ?

Yes I think I did, The crazy things going on in Washington are distracting me, but IT IS SPRING anyway... even though it is snowing.

Est ce que j'ai oublie les premier jour du printemps? Oui je crois, je suis distraite par les folies de notre capitale mais le printemps est avec nous quand meme... meme si il neige ce matin.




And it is time to go out and pay our tribute to nature.

Il est temps de sortir de nos maisons et faire honneur a la nature.




Time to start being aware of the sun and don a large and lovely hat.

C'est le moment de faire attention au soleil et de se trouver un joli grand chapeau.


Time to rejuvenate our wardrobe and to look sharp and fresh.


Le temps de rafraichir notre garde-robe, et de se trouver une nouvelle elegance.



But it is also the time for new love, or renewed love, romance and tenderness.

Mais c'est aussi le temps des amours nouveaux et des amours renouveles.

Thank you to : http://magicmoonlightfreeimages.blogspot.com/ for the gorgeous free images of spring.

Hugs et tendresses a toutes et tous

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Freebies by the hundreds

My cup runneth over! We can never have enough old wall papers, biology/botany plates, antique book covers, vintage letters for our art, or simply to admire. I just discovered this fabulous place where you can see, covet and grab many of those goodies, and they are FREE.


Not Your Average Sock Monkey hearts (drum roll, please,) vintageprintable.com
http://vintageprintable.com/wordpress/



I picked up a few examples of the lovely stuff they offer, and that you can use for your own art work. I suppose that make them "second hand freebies" :-)
I just love this french poster urging us to save petrol and gas...Although I would certainly not advise to store the stuff in containers in your garage. But the poster is great!

Texte en Francais : Je viens de trouver ce superbe site pour les images gratuites, il y en a des centaines que vous pouvez utilisez dans votre art et vos collages gratis. Tres bien, tres bien !
j'aime beaucoup. Il y a beaucoup de gravure francaise. Je crois que les francais, au 18eme et 19eme siecle etaient les rois de l'image imprimee (un petit peu de chauvinisme, la, mais enfin c'est pas trop mechant ;-)

http://vintageprintable.com/wordpress/

I guess today is the big day when the do their Big Vote in Washington. So what do you think? are we going to get Health Care or are we going to remain a free people? All this depressing stuff make me want to go and do art some more.
Toodles For Now

Saturday, February 13, 2010

More Snow... But at home this time

It snowed yesterday, and it got very dark. This is actually a color photo but looks like a black and white. This is a sight we see maybe once every five years, so we really enjoy it!


What a difference a few hours make ! Today everything is so bright and the sky is the most gorgeous cobalt blue. The old homestead is framed in snow covered trees. Now I am hoping that those huge trees can shed their great load of snow smoothly rather than crack under the load or even break at the base, like they have been known to do once in a while. because our house wouldn't have a prayer...


I feel closest to The Lord when I witness the beauty of Nature.


This is the lake just down the street from us.

So this is it for today. Now I am going to see if I can drive up our driveway.

TOODDLES.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

GATLINBURG Mid Season Break

We rented a cabin in Gatlinburg Tennessee and were lucky to see some snow, (quite a rare treat for us Atlanteans) Our three muffins, Chase, Kai and Fox really enjoyed the snow and the tubing down the slopes at Ober-Gatlinburg, snow angels, snow balls fights, snow man, with hot chocolate and hot tub to warm up afterward. It was all great stuff.




Here my Sweetie, Tom (aka Poppy) and our daughter Belinda and SIL Shane leaning against the mini van.
We had some emotions getting to the cabin. The road was VERY steep and pretty iced up, well what can I say, we're city slickers, we don't know any better. So at one point the van stopped going forward, and with the wheels spinning freely, WE BEGAN SLIDING BACKWARD... Very scary, especially with the road lined by a deep canyon on one side.
So, after we managed NOT to get killed, we decided that our choice was to either find chains for the tires or go home(not an option.) We turned around went to 3 stores in Gatlinburg, all were sold out, It was looking pretty grim when, finally,we found our chains at a Walmart. We learned how to install them in pitch darkness (reading the instructions with a flash light) and in an 18 degrees temperature. After that, the van scampered up them steep inclines like a young mountain goat . Good Times!




The cabin was beautiful with a 3/4 wraparound porch, a hot tub and a very cozy interior. The scenery was just breath taking.

Now for something completely different: I changed the name of this blog and rather rudely neglected to mention it. "Mes Petits Papiers" was my favorite name, but after some digging I found out that it was already in use... by someone who had not posted in 5 years, I wish Blogger would put a statute of limitation on unused titles. So I went about to find another name. Then one of our grand sons said something that made me smile. Kai, the middle boy has quite an imagination and a great way with words. They had found an old sock monkey in my closet and were playing a game of cops/robbers or cowboys/Indians or Transformers vs whatever , when Kai said "I shall nevair surrendair for I'm just not your average sock monkey," all with a french/ pirate of the Carribeans accent to make your head spin. And that's how I found the new name for my blog.

Toodles For Now