Prickly Pear Bloom

Interesting neighborhood we moved into.

4:30 am on Saturday morning I heard a rather loud bump, loud enough to wake me up. I lay there for a moment in the dark, in that confusing place between sleep and real wakefulness, wondering what the cat had knocked over downstairs, what I would find in the morning when I got up, if it was anything serious, when I heard it again, louder, and this time the dog became concerned.

“whatthehellwasthat?” I said to the dark, and The Husband. We both sort of look out the window to see if something is happening out on the street. BUMPBUMPBUMP it went again. The dog barking now, had at some point gotten up, went around to the top of the stairs. The Husband gets out of bed, alarmed, and I follow, a little more slowly, eyes blurry from sleep and dryness.

There was someone at our door, trying to come in our house. The dog had gone downstairs and was staring at this dude through the glass door, and The Husband talks to him from halfway upstairs. “Wrong house, dude!” The guy is drunk, confused, must be trying to get in his own house, but it’s the wrong house. Muttering incoherent things. With the lights turned on, a strange dog staring at him, it took him a moment to realize that he was in the wrong place, and leave.

The Husband went outside in only pajama pants, a coat, and boots. We called the police, and all figured it was just a drunk college student, nothing was damaged or stolen, but we went back to bed nervous, shaken, a little bit freaked out, nonetheless.

Between that, revisiting cinnamon rolls, and intense furniture shopping, it was some weekend.

A bit late with this one. It’s nice to be able to say, on the fly, “I’m taking tomorrow off.” Friday was a totally illogical day for me to take off, but this has been a totally illogical week. Hopefully next week will resume regular posting.

Week 13 . Meditate Project

See it larger here.

I’ve been reminiscing in the past couple of days. I followed a link coming into my blog to find that someone had used a photograph that I took in Italy last year on some forum, and that sparked me to go back and read my posts from the trip. And my. Oh my. How the memories came flooding back.

The funny things we came across, the walking, the coffee and wine, the adventure. That crazy rainstorm in Bellagio that we got stuck in and walked through to get back to our bed & breakfast. Sitting on a park bench looking at the lake because it was too hot and humid to really move, wishing we had brought our swimsuits with us so that we could dunk ourselves in the cool water of Lake Como with the handful of Italian guys over at the end of town. That garden full of huge rosemary bushes! Sitting in our hostel in Rome drinking frascati from little blue juice glasses watching strange Italian dubbed television. Eating pizza in that little Roman place while it poured outside. I can still feel the rain from the multitudes of storms and showers that we walked through. Driving to Gallipoli for the hell of it, missing the turn and getting stopped by the Polizia and being a little bit worried that it might not bode well. Swimming in the Adriatic Sea. Driving through vineyards, walking through olive orchards. Laughing endlessly about what the heck “pizza kebab” could be. Wandering. Laying on the ground outside the coliseum at 10 or 11 pm, before catching the train to Puglia, tears rolling down my face at the enormity of it, of this world, the lights bouncing off the enormous structure, knowing that there was so much more adventure to be had, and wondering when I might see again all that I had seen in those first days.

Click here to see this larger

I am so glad that I took the time to write those posts while it was happening so that I can read them later and remember. Memory fades so quickly, but having those words to accompany the images is such a treasure to me. Good thinking, Past Me! I had intended to upload images to the set after we’d gotten back, but then life happened, and I never got around to it. So I’m doing that now, and walking down memory lane a little bit. Ok, alot. I hope you don’t mind.

And yet, I wish I had documented more. The first couple of posts paint a clear image for me, and make me laugh out loud at the little snippets of jokes and funny things that we experienced. I remember taking scraps of paper with me everywhere, and writing things down as they happened so that I could remember them well enough to describe them fully when I found an internet point and was able to blog. Reading the last few posts, I can tell I was starting to get tired. Not of Italy. I could never tire of Italy. Just tired, in general, from the traveling. I stopped noticing and jotting notes down when things happened. Maybe I even got a little comfortable, and didn’t think I needed to capture things as they happened. There is something to be said for that, for just being in the experience without trying too hard to remember it later.

It made me realize that maybe I don’t take enough notes. I have always tried so hard to take a journal or sketchbook with me wherever I go, but the resolution to do so always gets lost in the blur of life. And I wish, sometimes, that I had notes and sketches to rely on to remember some things. So I want to make a little pact, of sorts, with myself, to take more notes. And sketch more. On the fly. Think I can do it?

I’ve been inspired lately by seedlings, the birth of spring, greenness. My visual research for this poster is what got my gears turning to start those heirloom tomato seeds for the garden a couple of weeks ago. The poster didn’t get used for the event, but I still like it quite a bit. I did the illustration pretty quickly, a loose gestural sketch, scanned in and colored in Photoshop. The main type for “Grand Jete” is hand rendered and scanned in as well.

Friends are in town and I was notified just as I got home that an evening out would be on the menu, if I so chose to come along, on top of a whole bunch of things I needed to get done on a project for tomorrow, so I scurried along cutting orange and red and yellow squares of magazine pages and gluing them in little lines and trying to negotiate in my head what I could put off until tomorrow so that I could go out and have that beer with my peeps.

And, my, that was quite the runon sentence, there.

In the meantime, I’ve been compiling inspiration lately, not quite knowing where to put it, just listing it. Here are a few things that have been making my heart all aflutter lately:

wow, the amazing work of Brigid McCabe

Milwaukee artist Ric Stultz

Christopher David Ryan

And holy moly look at this guy’s illustration: MediumPhobic

The Husband is a homebrewer. I started it, years ago, when I planted the idea, “Oh, wouldn’t it be great to brew our own beer?” We drink our fair share of beer in this house. I convinced him that we should try it, and we picked up a basic kit for an amber ale, and we both brewed it up. I think I may have helped with the next batch too, but then I got bored, my interest became focused on other things, as is opt to happen, and then he began down the road that starts at idea, passes hobby with some overnight stays at intensive research and joining forums. He brewed from pre-made kits for awhile, where the main ingredient was malt syrup, but he soon invested in some more equipment and started brewing from all grains, and then began making up his own recipes. He entertained the thought of getting even LARGER and more expensive crazyass equipment, but then life hit the fan. We were both consumed with wedding planning, and then honeymoon going, and then house buying, and then house selling, and brewing went by the wayside. Well, this weekend, he finally got back on the horse. I took notes.

0900 The Husband searches for all of his equipment, and places it in a rather large pile in the middle of the kitchen. He surveys the scene as I make myself a cinnamon roll and cup of coffee.

0902 The pets investigate. Nari sniffs these things that he knew resided in our house, but that he’s never experienced being put to use. He’s confused.

0940 Supplies assembled, The Husband lugs everything upstairs to take over the bathroom, and washes the large, bulky buckets and things in the bathtub

0950 I finish watching the movie we started 4 days ago and decide that this would be a nice time for a bath. This feeling quickly passes.

0957 The Husband wonders where his recipes are.

1004 I gaze out the window at the falling snow. Blizzard, is more like it. Snow? Really? I was just saying hello to you, Spring, and then you flip your hair at me and giggle daintily as you say, “Not quite, missy!” I started to see what our backyard looks like under all that snow that we had this winter, imagining where I might put plants and flagstone paths. The puddles had started to drain away from the sidewalks as I got used to running outside again. In fact, I was so inspired that I ran an extra mile on Tuesday. And now, snow again. On the day after Spring officially started. Blast.

1005 Read Angie’s comment and lament that the hyacinth buds that I saw two days ago are now covered in snow.

1045 The Husband fills the gigantic pot full of water and puts it on to boil. Well, not to boil, yet. To bring it up to 170 degrees for mashing, the first step of converting the proteins in the grains. He hasn’t had any coffee or breakfast this morning yet, all in the name of beer. Beer is important to us.

1048 Time to grind the grain. “Where’s my grinder!” Obscenities float up from the basement.

1106 The Husband breaks the nutrient pack in the yeast to get it going, and does a little dance in the kitchen as he shakes it all up.

1112 We speculate on when we will crack open the first beer.

1128 The water is hot enough and the grains go in.

1218 It smells like barley in the house. I love the smell of barley. Beer is healthy for you. Whole grains.

1227 “I think we have a full conversion. Which is good, considering how old the grains are.” Hooray! Next comes juggling hot liquids. Always fun.

1228 I wander around the house with too much caffeine coursing through my veins, unable to focus, picking up a couple of things to tidy the counter here, moving the pile of gocco prints to sign and number them. But I can’t find my pen. Taking a couple of pictures. Looking for the cats. Tidying some more.

1241 I open up a bottle of beer.

1253:23 I hear a splash and a groan from the kitchen. The Husband forgot that the lid was on the bucket, tried to pour water in, got water everywhere.

1253:25 I go fetch a towel.

1257 The Husband vows never to brew beer again.

1258 The barley flavored water goes on to boil.

1331 The Husband notices that there is nowhere to put the spent grains. We always used to toss them in the compost bin, but since we’ve moved, we don’t have one yet. As he decides what to do, The Husband does an astounding impression of a garbage disposal. Really astounding. I wish you could hear it.

1354 It’s still snowing. The beer still isn’t boiling. The Husband brings the hops to me to smell. I love the smell of hops, spicy, green. Suzie didn’t much care for the smell. She’s never liked beer.

1401 Finally it’s boiling. The Husband lets me throw the hops in.

1415 I finish my book.

1427 The Husband wrestles with hoses. Suzie facilitates.

1514 It’s done! Elapsed time: 6 hours 14 minutes. Roughly.

Then he strained it, cooled it, put it into a bucket for fermentation, pitched the yeast in, and set it aside. This probably took another half an hour, but I stopped counting. Now it will be a few days/couple of weeks for it to ferment. Then eventually we will have homebrewed beer. Hooray!

Week 12 . Meditate Project

See it larger here.

Last week Julia tagged me for a meme. And who the heck decided this weird word was going to be pronounced “meem”? I think I’m still going to prounounce it mee-mee, cause it’s hard to turn my head around once it’s been doing something for awhile.

1. Why did you start your blog?

I used to hate blogging. Ok, well, I didn’t understand it. I have always been a fairly private person, I kept a private online journal for awhile, and I couldn’t grasp why people wrote things about themselves on a public website. Then in a haze of boredom, I came upon Dooce, and became a regular reader. Awhile after that, I found Little Birds Handmade, and a switch flipped inside of me. Craft. Making. Blogging. Creativity. Feedback. It all seemed to immediately make sense. I started it as a creative exercise, to push myself to take more photographs, become a better photographer, a better writer, and to make more stuff.

2. How did you come up with your blog name?

I’m really not sure how to answer this one. I didn’t want to use my real name. Because I already have a website with my name, that I want people to search for me and find. And I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to use anything remotely associated with any passwords that I’ve used in the past. Cause, duh. The word “prickly” came to mind randomly, because for the longest time my hairstyle has been of a spiky nature, and I consider myself sort of a prickly constituted personality. So Pricklypear was the next iteration of that little brainstorm, and that was taken. Pricklypearbloom was the third interation, and it was available. And it sort of made sense anyway, because I’ve always had an affinity to flower imagery.

3. Do your friends and family know about your blog? What do they think of it?

Yes, some of my friends and family know about it. I always forget that they read it though, since they rarely comment, until someone brings something about it up in conversation. Seems they like it, though.

4. How do you write posts?

Usually if I sit down with the purpose of writing a post, nothing comes. I generally write here and there during the day, and add photos and last minute things at night before I publish. Sometimes I’ll jot ideas down and flesh them out later. Sometimes I will start a post and intend to come back to it, publish it days later. And I have quite a few drafts sitting around, who knows if they will ever see the light of day?

5. Have you ever had a troll or had to delete unkind comments?

Not really. I had one post awhile back that got some negative comments, but I published them anyway. It’s a hard decision for me, because I don’t want to limit anyone’s freedom of speech, but at the same time, don’t want nasty things showing up on my blog. Luckily, I haven’t had to deal with it since then.

6. Do you check your stats? Do you care how many people read your blog? If you do care, how to you increase traffic?

I do check my stats. Not as often as I used to. I do care how many people read my blog, but I don’t really do anything special to increase traffic. I will say that I do enjoy people’s comments, it’s nice to get feedback, and hear others’ points of view, and learn a little bit about people that way.

7. What kind of blogs/posts interest you?

I have a few categories of blogs that I read on a regular basis: crafty stuff, photography, food, art+design. I am interested in visual things, texture, design, art, painting, printing, and I am also interested by things that I don’t necessarily think of myself as skilled in, like sewing and knitting, because they give me inspiration to push myself, and bring different elements into my work. Sometimes I am surprised by some things that I find myself bookmarking or inspired by.

8. What do you like and dislike about blogging?

I love the blog community out there, and I get alot of inspiration from blogs, especially from places/artists/genres that I normally might not be exposed to. It’s also a different creative outlet for me, and allows me to get myself out there, which is something I have always been hesitant about. It challenges me. I love meeting people from all over, finding connections with people that I probably wouldn’t run into in person without the internet. That’s pretty cool.

What I don’t like about it? Sometimes the time it takes, both to write, and to read. And it’s hard for me to sometimes find the balance between being inspired by others’ creativity and feeling intimidated by it. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, the amount of inspiring things out there, the magnitude of people’s creativity. I feel dwarfed sometimes.

I know I’m probably supposed to tag some people for this, but it’s late, and my head is fuzzy, so I’m not going to. But if you want to do it, or if you have already done it {because I know it’s going around} let me know in comments and I’ll stop by and read.

They’re growing! I have baby tomato plants!

After planting my little saved seeds, I hovered over that tray of little pots like a mother bird. I was fully aware that they would take days and days to germinate, if they were even viable, and for some reason, maybe since this was my first attempt at seed saving, I was totally and irrefutably paranoid that all of the seeds would turn out to be dead. I could have tested them, of course, but it wouldn’t have made me feel any better had they actually been duds, and if not, then I would just have to do more work and plant them at that point in time anyway. Better to just jump in head first, I say.

So from that first day, I checked them and checked them, a few times a day, to see if anything had happened yet. How about now? Maybe now? Anything yet? Nothing? Comeonsproutlittleguys! Then about 5 days post planting I asked the internets how long tomato seeds generally need to germinate and the internets told me 10-14 days. Well, ok then. So I tried to be a little more patient.

Seriously, 7 days after I planted them, they started sprouting. With a vengeance. Early, even, according to normal germination time! The Husband noticed it first, little curved stems peeking through the dirt, and within 24 hours they had shot up like rockets. Only a few of the 30something seeds that I planted haven’t done anything yet, and since it’s still only been 10 days since planting, I suppose I will give them a little more time.

Now I’m crossing my fingers that the cats don’t eat them, and that they make it past this tender stage to become healthy teenage plants so that I can save that money for buying other things. Like tulips. And herb plants.

Also, I found them! The first shoots of spring. Now I know where they happen, where to look for them when I am feeling the winter hangover that is March. I just love how bulbs force their way, matted leaves be damned. These spikes look like hyacinth, but I suppose they could be something else, too. Spring will come. Oh yes it will.

Thank you all for your kind words and support yesterday for the project. “Piece” was such a welcome challenge, and it was so great to see how Erin interpreted “tea.”

When Erin approached me with this word thing, I was just starting the brainstorming process for a product label project for a line of tea. So “tea” was the first word that floated out of my head for Erin, because it was at the forefront of my mind, and I was interested in seeing her process and interpretation of it alongside my own. I knew that they would naturally go in different directions, but I also suspected there might be similarities, too.

Click here to see the sketches larger

For my own tea project, after doing some research and learning alot about tea, including the difference between green, black, and oolong teas, I developed the name and logo: Kutu loose teas. “Kutu” was derived from a bit of a story about tea that I happened upon:

The first documented reference to tea, according to the Tea Council of the U.S.A., came in 350 A.D., when the Chinese scholar Kuo P’o described “k’u t’u” as a medicinal beverage “made from the leaves by boiling.”

I settled on an icon representative of a tea ball, the metal ball that many people use to steep loose tea leaves. Although I later learned from Alton Brown that REAL tea drinkers let their leaves bloom freely, without the constraints of a ball.

I created two alternate versions of the logo, one in black and white, and one using the outlines of the shapes that could be used in situations where the color shapes might not work. I also included my color inspiration for the project above.

As soon as she told me that her tea project was morphing a little bit for her, turning instead into a sewing exploration, I couldn’t help but wonder if she experimented with tea dying. Low and behold, she did. This was my first experience with tea dying, and it was pretty fun. The colors didn’t dry as dark as I expected, and I had hoped for more difference in colors between the three teas that I used, green ginger tea, chai black tea, and an orange scented herbal tea.

The differences were discernable, but only slightly. I scanned the pieces of fabric and adjusted the colors a little bit to try to get a bit more contrast between them for the three different tea varieties that I created labels for. I then used the fabric images for a slight background texture in each of the labels, and brought in a leaf pattern and diecut for some repetition.

I had envisioned these labels affixed to tall skinny tin tie bags, like the ones used for coffee beans, with a label over the top as a seal. I thought about making bags, but that felt like it might be a little too much work for me, so I purchased 1/2 lb kraft tin tie bags from a place online. I definitely wanted them to feel calm, using the natural colors and organic shapes, with a little bit of a contemporary feel to them as well. Seeing the labels on the kraft colored paper, I think they feel a little too serene, though. Perhaps I will experiment later with glass jars instead, and maybe make that back label a different size.