crisp

crisp (krisp) - noun 1. the sound my feet make when walking in fallen leaves 2. the cool bite in the air when i take my evening walk 3. a delectable combination of apples, oatmeal, cinnamon and brown sugar, eaten warm with vanilla bean ice cream synonyms: brisk, fresh, nippy, autumn!!

my heart is leaping with joy!! pure, unadulterated heart-jumping joy!

share the love!!!

today's post is all about showing and sharing the love i have for some of my favorite bloggie friends and etsy sellers!! let's get started!!


this sweetheart came to me all the way round the world from australia!! handmade by the lovely elizabeth, aqua girl as she called her now sits on a shelf in my art room where she happily smiles and watches me create, collage and paint!. i've renamed her cecily. you can visit elizabeth's blog here and her etsy shop here!




adorable . . . miniature . . . irresistible! felted bowls from the very talented lindsey! visit her blog here and her etsy shop here.


here you can see all the sassy cuteness of this wonderful bracelet. i wish you could also hear the sweet tinkling it makes as i move! i received this in a trade with gina! love it! visit gina's etsy shop here and her blog here.






wall of creativity love! to hang all the prints i've purchased i took some thin wire and strung it from push pin to push pin on the wall above the area where i paint and collage. i used tiny wooden clothes pins to clip the art to the wire. voila! i have wonderful inspiration and color in my art room! the artists featured on my wall are kelly rae, mystele, martha, julie, flor, jennifer, and debbie. i'm going to continue the wire on around the room as i continue my creativity love!!

thanks to each of you for making it inspirational, fun and real!!!

fall flowers

fall flowers
mixed media collage
8 x 16 x 3/4 canvas
(c) 2009 julie king

i'm having a weekend love moment! love staying up late on friday to collage and paint! love sleeping in on saturday! love coffee and pajamas while blogging on saturday morning! love have one whole lazy day to do whatever i want! life is good, my friends!

tons of rich layers and 3-d textures in this piece i finished late last night. well, technically early this morning. the photo does not do it justice!!

bring in the clouds

nothing like a cloudy day for snapping a few dramatic photos! i caught these on my way home from a photoshoot today. i'm off to shott a few more before the clouds go away or the sun goes down!

have a wonderful weekend everyone!

fly free, sing

sometimes i like to look back at collages i did over 2 years ago when i first stumbled onto mixed media creation. this one, titled "fly free, sing" is one of my all-time favorites. i love the random, chaotic background layers and then the stronger bold elements in the front. back then, every project was an exploration of self-discovery. there were no classes, no rules, no teachers. mostly there was just a longing to get all this pent-up creativity out. now that i think about it, i guess things haven't really changed that much. i still approach my mixed media art with a carefree experimentation approach. some things work, others don't. either way, i enjoy the process. and it's very freeing when i can look at a piece and be comfortable with it, content that it is pleasing to my eye. if someone else likes it, then it's icing on the cake.

thanks for all your support in adding wonderfully sweet layers of icing to my cake. my cup runneth over with the joy that you all bring!

bread, wonderful bread

don't you just love bread? for me, there's nothing like hot bread or rolls right out of the oven, slathered with a hunk of real butter. of course, in julie king lingo bread can mean donuts, croissants, bagels, scones, pizza dough, bread sticks, and on and on. as i've told you here, i grew up baking with my grandma j and my mom is a wonderful cook and baker as well. mom made sure we had dessert for dinner every day. to this day, i like to have something sweet after i eat a meal.

which brings me to the ban i've put on bread. i've reached my all-time high lifetime weight and my percent of body fat number is very sad. hubbie and i joined a fitness club this week and i am determined to eat right and shed some of these pounds. i sure did enjoy putting them on but now i'll just have to work hard to take them off.

i took the photos above thru the windows of a couple of shops in the dayton area. the bagels cooling and the pizza dough rising were so nostalgic to me. i just had to snap their photos. bread, wonderful bread, i will miss you!

on the cusp of autumn

i took a leisurely bike ride this evening with my trusty nikon tucked away in a belly bag. a new route called my name, drawing me out onto a country road where the air was cooler, the shadows were deeper and my senses totally awakened. my eyes took in the clusters of roadside queen ann's lace dancing in the mild breeze. my ears heard the friendly chatter of birds hidden in the brush. my face drank in the warmth of the setting sun. new mown hay filled my nose with a fleeting moment of nostalgia. and, my heart whispered summer is waning and we are on the cusp of autumn. drink it all in, every sweet, glorious, tantalizing moment. drink it all in.

how'd she do that??!

here's my mini art gallery aka my master bedroom. :) i'm so pleased with how these canvasses turned out. they have such a clean, fresh minimalist feel to them that i find so relaxing in my bedroom. as promised, here's how i made them.




i purchased several of these inexpensive canvasses at hobby lobby. i waited for the 30% off sale so each canvas was only $4 to $6 each. i used 3 shades of folk art acrylic paint -- blue mist, sea mist and greenscape, using varying degrees of each color on each canvas. i wanted a free form kind of streaky look.




next i selected a print of one of my original photos and spray mounted it onto an 8 1/2 x 11 4-ply white backing board that i purchased here. i used the palms of my CLEAN hands to smooth the photo down onto the backer.




next i used a sharp xacto blade and a straight edge metal ruler to cut right along the edge of the photo. easy peasy!


then i cut a piece of scrap black foam core (i get FREE odd ball small scrap pieces out of the trash at work) smaller than the print. a coat of mod podge is applied with a foam brush which are the best; i wash them up and use them over and over again.


press the foam core onto the center of the back of the mounted print. this gives the photo the appearance of floating on the canvas.



i put large glue dots on the back of the foam core. these will hold the mounted print onto the canvas and can be removed some day if i want to reuse the canvasses or change the photos out.


the finished canvas is ready to hang!

please let me know if you have any questions at all!! i'd be glad to help. i'll be having a sale on prints in my etsy shop later tonight if i'm very ambitious or tomorrow night if i get distracted by something else.

UPDATE: ••• SALE•••SALE•••SALE•••
Hop on over to my etsy shop where you can get any print of your choice FREE when you buy one print!!

((hugs)) to all of you for all your kind words and support!!

grandma julie's zucchini bread

i took 20 cupcakes made from this recipe to work today and despite a few odd looks they were a big hit. people who've not eaten zucchini bread before are sometimes a little skeptical. i'm sure they think vegetables in bread?! but, really it truly is delicious. as i shared yesterday, i've altered a recipe i found online to make it my own and am very pleased with the results.

ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg (my idea -- i just love the taste of nutmeg and it added a spicy nuance)
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce (also my twist to make it extra moist)
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts (i switched to pecans and left them in fairly large chunks to give the bread lots of texture)

preheat oven to 325 degrees and use canola oil or veggie oil spray to coat 2 8 x 4 bread pans well. last night i made one 8 x 4 bread pan and 20 cupcakes from this one recipe.

place flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl and mix well.

mix eggs, oil, applesauce, vanilla and sugar together in a separate bowl. add the dry ingredients and mix well again. stir in zucchini and nuts. pour into bread pans.

bake bread for 40 to 60 minutes. i used the push-on-the-top-to-see-if-done method or you could use a toothpick -- just stick it into the middle top of the bread and if it is clean when pulled out, then it is done.

cool the pans for 20 minutes and then remove bread from pans. it is delicious warm, will stay fresh in a tight plastic bag for several days, in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks or can be frozen.

last night i shredded 2 very large zucchini and froze 5 2-cup bags. that will give me enough zucchini to make 10 loaves of bread!!

i'd love to hear from you if you make this recipe!!

brimming with creativity

hubby is away on a business trip so i practically lived in the art room over the weekend! my inspiration has been an invitation to display my art at a new art gallery that recently opened in tipp city -- studio 14. i'm very excited! i'm still putting some finishing touches on the above untitled piece -- more layers, details and textures to add . i'm loving the colors, particularly this rich van gogh deep gold 803 acrylic i bought at hobby lobby. it shimmers and is my new fave color!


another work in process without a name. i used the van gogh deep gold as part of the background again. i thought it was particularly rich with the red accents. if you click to enlarge you can see the tissue paper base for the flowers all dried and ready for me to add the paper "colors". it gives my collages a wondereful textured 3-d look and feel. this one will get more details and textures before it's done. any ideas for titles for these 2 vase pieces?



and, here's a sneak peek at the newest member of the simple living girls series. it seems someone is always asking if i have any new cat collages so i added a few to this one. what's a simple life in the country without cats??

here's a preview of things to look forward to on my blog over the next week or so:

• a sale in my etsy shop

• a giveaway!!

• photos of the photo collage canvasses i made -- now hanging in my bedroom AND a quick how-to so you can create some of your own

• grandma julie's zuchinni bread recipe -- i decided to play around with a recipe i found on the internet; i added a couple of new ingredients and the test loaves are in the oven right now. hope they taste as great as they smell!

• a little no-cost way i'm displaying my etsy print purchases in my art room!!!

did i mention i'm brimming with creativity?!!

weekend list

aaaaaaahhhhh! saturday morning and life is full of wonderful, joyful possibility! here are a few things i hope to do this weekend.

1 spend some time tooling around with my camera!!



2 hang these canvasses in my bedroom! i've mounted some of my "reaching for the sky" series photos onto heavy cardboard and then onto painted canvasses. they will hang above our king size bed.



3 these girls need a sweet new companion! hmmmm . . . what will she look like?



4 i bought these kraft photo boxes a while back. they're waiting patiently under my oak art table to be given some personality.



5 our waitress at o'charley's was kind enough to give me a few sheets of this thin paper they put in their roll baskets. i'm not sure where or how i'll collage them but it could be fun!!

what's on YOUR weekend list?

the silver lining

what a bountiful silver lining we are experiencing here in ohio!! we've had rain and cool weather and more rain and then some heat and sunshine for pretty much the last month or more. but the good news is that our gardens are overflowing with huge delicious veggies! i've gotten 3 zucchini from my co-worker susan, each one at least 14" long and 4" in diameter. i'm planning to shred and freeze the last 2 for zucchini bread over the winter. my volunteer tomatoes continue to thrive with loads of green tomatoes, new blooms and 3 just starting to ripen ones. and i don't know when i've enjoyed fruit more than i have this summer -- strawberries, melons, red raspberries, peaches and nectarines galore. healthy eating at wonderful prices!

thanks for your inquiries on when i was going to post more art work. i have designs piling up in my head and i just have to get some of them out onto canvas and wood. i hope to get some work done over the weekend and next week. you are all the best support system an artsy girl could ever ask for!!!!

awesome view

almost-dead tree still yearning for life

love the bluish gray bark of this tree

metal chairs at coldstone creamery

playground equipment

shopping carts at the ready

perennials on sale

gigantic pink flowers

vintage water fountain

parking lot lights

it's funny how i've started to look at the world differently now that i've become interested in photography. i see shapes, shadows, colors, shafts of light and billowing clouds from an odd-ball perspective. my camera lens is an open door begging me to step thru to a whole new world of creative possibility.

and from where i stand, there's an awesome view!!