Pictures from the new nest

The new furniture. View of the living room.











Looking out the front picture window.












The back yard from the patio. The weeping birch may be able to hold a hammock. I am going to investigate closer.

No more excuses!

So, afer a long hiatus, I am back. Havn't felt like blogging as I have been rather uninspired in the art department. Am in the midst of an altered puzzle swap with some friends and Miz Muse has taken off. Part of it is my craft room is in disarray and I still have no idea where everything is and its frsutrating when you spend hours looking for one thing, only to find it won't work. I just have to muster the willpower to get off my sorry butt and organize. Something I am not so fond of. The other thing is the craft room is too dark fro crafting. there is a giant ash tree outside my window that blocks out all the light and it is so sad for me. I suppose I could light the place up but I have taken to the dining room as there is plenty of light there.

Anyways, below are some of the said puzzle pieces.


Top row: Nancy, Mrs Noofy and Lolita Sue
Bottom row:Kimmie, Beanie and Tammy
Pink Rabbit is going to Deb Moon.





















I have also taken some pictures from my travels for work.

Fields of purple wildflowers in Morley. It kinda looks like bluebells or canterbury bells (campanula) but not quite. I'd love to get some seeds to have them grow wild in my garden.














Sitting on the edge of the pristine Bow River in Morley.












Abraham Lake, a manmade glacial fed lake on the highway to the Ice Fields parkway.














View from the Bighorn Reserve.













Crescent Falls in the summer.

New beginnings

I finally moved into my new home. New to me, as it is still older than me but younger than my previous home. Its been a long six weeks and on Tuesday, I was playing "bingo" with the movers as they efficiently moved my stuff into my place and as I crossed off the various articles had in storage for what seemed like ages.

Let's say I have more stuff than I thought I had. And my living room here is a lot smaller than my old place so I am scrambling to find a new home for a lot of my stuff. I see lots of rearranging in the near future. I have been a little overwhelmed at all the unpacking and organizing- as those of you who know me know that I am not an organized person and I don't really care for the minutae of organising. Still, it has got to be done.

I did end up giving up the master bedroom for a den/office/art studio. My bedtoom is small and functional but the den has my large desk, a matching cabinet/buffet combo and a round table for art creation. And best of all, two giganto closets for all the stuff. And maybe I might move in a couple of tall shelves for the stamps. It does overlook the backyard, which isn't as spacious as the previous place. But I do have two lovely flowering dogwood trees and a birch tree so the view isn't so bad, except at night when I have the lovely neighbours flourescent back alley light cast an eerie glow to the leaves and branches of the trees. I want to get to my art but am forcing myself to unpack so I don't have any unopened boxes like from the previous move.

There will definitely be more art to share in the next little while. I created an ATC for my friend Susie, who is needing some "grace" in her life and I want to start an art collaboration with my friends, where I send them two stamped images and see what we can come up with using the same image but everything else our own. Another project I want to start would be "Your Inner Muse", and again, I want to involve friends I craft with and we all create what we would imagine their muse would look like based on what we know of our friends.

How to start on your Inchie Journey

So, I signed up for Dena's 100 inchie in 100 days swap. 100 inchies. It may seem like a lot but it really is very managable. We got to discussing inchies and how to start making them without going blind and batty. I started putting down all my ideas and thought a post on things I've learnt on my inchie journey might help someone starting out. Yes, I am actively converting the masses....

First start with great lighting. Lots of of crafters will espouse the Ott-Lite. It is pretty pricy but supposedly gives you true colour representation. I myself, use a Sunlight lamp from Lights of America. Got this from Costco a few years ago and am pretty happy with it.

A good one inch punch is a must. I have several. There is the 1" whale of a punch from EK Success. It is pretty good. And the same company also makes 7/8" and 3/4" punches, also great for matting inchies. Marvy makes a Clever Lever Extra Jumbo punch that is a 1" punch too. It is a smidge larger than the whale punch, though. But only if you're counting.

Other companies that make 1 inch punches are Creative Memories. Martha Sterwart has some scalloped edged and stamp edged punches that can be layered onto the 1 inch square.

Some people like to mat their inchie with something sturdy, like chipboard, or cardboard, to give to more weight. You can also purchase 1 inch chipboard squares from Magenta Stamps. And I think Inchie Arts also carries these. My recent favourite is 140lb watercolour paper. I gotta thnak my fabulous friend Phyllis (Pugs) for this idea. It's sturdy and it accepts colour very well.

Precision tip scissors is also a must since you'll need to be getting in crevices when you're cutting out images. Mine is an EK Success Cutter Bee with teflon coating. An Xacto knife is also useful, along with a self healing mat as well.

Other things needed are tweezers (to pick up small embellishments, half pearls and other tiny bling), good glues like the Sakura glue pen, or Judikin's Diamond Glaze, or Stampin'Up! Crystal Effects or Ranger's Glossy Accents.

Another must are micron pens with a really fine tip, such as the Sakura Pigma Micron Pen. They come in very fine tips and normally available in artist supply stores.

Various embellies can be obtained from crafting stores, dollar stores and even second hand stores. You want them smaller, of course, than the usual so keep your eyes peeled for them. German scrap foils are also lovely.

Then all else you need are the old magazines, art catalogs, flyers, postcards and away you go. You will only be limited by your imagination. Inchies typically have a word them and also a bling item.

I'm still here.

Nope, I havn't expired. I am still alive. Just busy with the big move. Whenever that happens. Well, when the house sells. It saddens me that people aren't as enamoured with the house as I was. I am very sad to leave it as I like it very much. Meanwhile, I am still living in limbo. Half my crafting stuff is in Calgary.

I did manage to get some art done for Tammy's ATC/Twinchie/Inchie swap on SCS. Here is what I submitted.







And to appease some of you, here are some beautiful pictures taken earlier this year-the top picture of Crescent Falls- a lovely gorge with some awesome falls, I am told. I only saw it in the winter and I look forward to taking a picnic lunch there in the summer. The middle one was taken on the way back from Bighorn or Kiska Waptan, which is in the Rockies. The third picture is taken just a ways away from the Rafters Six Ranch, just outside Kannanaskis. There are still some other lovely views I've yet to share- and I do look forward to doing that sometime in the future.

I know, I am sooo blessed to work in such beautiful surroundings. The only downside is the weather can be unpredictable and dangerous.





I was trolling my pictures file and noticed I have in inordinate number of dog pictures there. Next post, I shall include my favourite doggie. He is very expressive. And maybe I'll also have more art as well. (I can hope my muse will visit).

The in between world.....

Liminal. Thats how I've felt the last two months. In between. On the verge. In the doorway. I had hinted to some that my life is in upheaval. An opportunity presented itself to me awhile ago decided that I would like to move back to Calgary. The time was right and although this was not a climb up the ladder move but more of a lateral move, it was a big step for me. I have enjoyed the city of Edmonton. I love the life I managed to carve out for myself here, with friends I like and a lovely home. So when I got the go ahead from the powers that be, I was happy but apprehensive since this would entail moving. So for the last month in a half, I had been frantically packing and decluttering my place to prepare it for sale. All my art stuff got packed away, save some christmas stamps and so I am desperately missing my crafting time. Things were given away, donated or sold. Furniture promised to strangers and friends.

It's been almost a month since my house went on the market. I did have some looky Lous but no nibbles. I am tired of living this way. I have been trying to keep the house in a presentable state so I have refrained from cooking (so I didn't have to clean up after). With me travelling back and forth but not really having a permanent place to call home since I am already mentally letting go of my current home, this has been hard. I have even started to look for a new place in Calgary. Every breathe I take in my current home beings me closer to goodbye and I know I will miss the spaciousness of this space. Especially given what I can afford in Calgary. I do not know how I am going to downsize. It will be a challenge. But first, may I ask you to say a little prayer for me so my place sells? I don't want to back in three months whining about the same thing.

Because of the frequent travelling, and uncertainty, I am feeling somewhat anchorless. And I miss the grounding my art affords me. So the next time you sit down to craft, whether it be a story, an inchie or some cards, or knitting, or quilting, please savour the moment for me, and for others that cannot do it for one reason or another.

Here are some pictures from my new workstation. Please don't be too envious of me since the roads to and from the mountains are sometimes treacherous and slick.The bottom one is from my desk. The top one is from out in Morley, where we were out doing some outside work. I think I am blessed to work in such beautiful surroundings.
They were taken two weeks ago. The mountains and the meadows are covered in snow now.

Comfort and Joy

This post won't be about the usual Christmas saying. I have been a little distressed lately. My life has been in flux and I find myself seeking comfort in familiar foods. My comfort food is very asian. It is rice porridge or congee. In Cantonese, it is called chok or jok. I am more accustomed to calling it moey, the Hokkien dialect of Chinese. It is a very cheap meal to make- a cup of rice will likely feed the whole family since it is mostly water or stock. The rice is soaked for about an hour and if you're like me, you'll break up the grains before you boil the daylights out of it. It can be had with any kind of meat- chicken can be steamed or poached with ginger and some green onions before shredding the meat. Fish filets can be marinated with soy, sesame oil and ginger and be cooked in the porridge. Ground pork balls can be made with some chopped up tung chye (Tianjin Preserved turnip), which is very salty, and dropped into the porridge or be made into a soup to be added to the porridge. But if you do it the latter style, your rice porridge has to be thick and goopy so it can be diluted with the soup.



Condiments for rice porridge include a little bit of the following: shredded ginger, chopped green onion, white pepper, soy sauce (not China Lily, of course- but the typical real kind of soy sauce from China), fried chopped garlic and some garlic seasoned oil and thinly sliced bits of the chinese long donut called You char koay or something similar sounding.



One of my favourite rice porridge is a standard dim sum offering- Century Egg and Pork Congee. Now I cringe everytime I see Century Egg in western media. Typically, it is in the context of strange things those other people eat and it is lumped with balut (fertilized egg embryo), or dinuguan (congealed blood and meat) or bugs, bats, civet cats and bushmeat. I am sure some of you will remember episodes of Fear Factor with contestants having to chow down on century egg slurry or something unappetizing to western sensibilities.



I attibute my love for century egg to my term in my mother's belly. She had some nasty cravings, one of them being century eggs. Luckily, she didn't crave the smell of gasoline/petroleum like she did when pregnant with my brother. In asian countries, century egg is cut up and served with slices of ginger, or cooked up in my favourite porridge. Basically, it is a duck egg that is allowed to cure in a very basic solution for a few months. The chemical process solidifies the yolk into a brown gelatinous mass and converts the yolk into a creamy, yet very ammonia-y custard. Sometimes, the egg white will have some very pretty snowflake like crytals develop within the gelatinous mass and it is oh-so-pretty.

I won't lie to you- century egg truly is an acquired taste- but to me, a very comforting one.

So I made this porridge this weekend, and as I was scraping off the mud that is wrapped around the egg to preserve it, I remember taking mud off salted duck eggs and remember how much more satisfying that process is. Salted duck eggs are covered in grey clay and then rolled in black ashes so they don't stick to one another. And suddenly I am taken back across time and space and I am in my mothers kitchen and washing off the ashes and clay, bits of the clay washing down the sink as water dilutes the mess. The salted ducks egg typically has a blueish hue. We only made salted ducks egg one way- boiled and eaten with porridge. The white is typically very salty so an egg would feed at least two people, when eaten with congee.

There really isn't a point to this post, I suppose, aside from remembering and being comforted by things familiar, no matter how unfamiliar they are to others. I hope that I can still turn to my comfort foods and things that bring me joy when I need to.