Happy Halloween!

Hiya!
Just thought I'd pop in with some "show & tell" for you. =)

1. Some blue "pumpkins" (I think they are actually considered squash) are decorating our table. I hope they last a long time! They are so pretty, I'd love for them to hang on until closer to Thanksgiving. Have you ever had the blue boys? How'd they hold up?

2. I made a row of bunting today to decorate my booth at a gift boutique next month. I'll tell you about that another time. But let's get back to bunting. How darn popular is bunting?! This is the first time I've ever tried to make some. I think I am now addicted. I see hanging it over my desk after the art show. And I see making more for a sweet baby gift. The ideas are endless.

I hope you are having a swell Saturday. I'm off to work on more gift boutique projects while watching ghosty shows. I'm a total scaredy cat, but I love it!

(Recipe Thursday)

This week I got a hankering for humus. Humus is so amazingly easy to make, I thought I would share my recipe with you just in time for any last minute Halloween parties this weekend. Don't worry about leftovers, it gets even better the next day!

RECIPE
This is a double batch because I was mental and thought we needed a ton, so unless you have an extra large food processor, you'll need to do this in parts. (Edit: now days later, it doesn't seem so crazy! Yum!)

2 cans garbanzo beans
1 cup tahini
1 cup flat leaf parsley
3 garlic cloves
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
12 kalamata olives (pitted)
kosher salt to taste (roughly 1 tbs)

Finely mince parsley, olives, and garlic in processor first, then add the rest and go to town!

And by going to town, what I did was blend 1 can of bean, with half the lemon juice and all of the olive oil. Then I scooped that out and repeated the process with the remaining ingredients cause my food processor was getting mad. And truth be told, I actually did the olives last, by themselves, because they were a last minute addition. I assume nothing would go wrong if they were done with the parsley and garlic.

Have a great day and a Happy Halloween this weekend!

The Winner is....

{I wrote your names in pretty silvery ink and folded them each twice, put them in my favorite army green hat seen below and interrupted the hubs' game of World of Warcraft to have him draw the winners.}

Jacqueline! Congratulations! You win any print from my shop of your choosing, Yay!

This is what Jacqueline had to say:
I have a programming background (ick sounds so boring huh)...but i have always been interested in creating and sewing ever since my nanny took care of me when i was a little girl...she taught me embroidery and little sewing projects. Thus, from there on i started making little gifts for my family, friends, my little dolls, my room and myself. Only last year in October that i took the plunged and paved my little creative path with all of you, lovely creative souls out there. :) Even though i am not living it yet but im sure loving it lots. :)

And the runner-up is Rock Star Librarian! Woot! Please choose any set of flat notes that you so desire. =)

Jacqueline and Rock Star Librarian, please send your choice of prize and your mailing address to shanongass@hotmail.com Thanks!

I want to give a giant THANK YOU to everyone that entered. I'm sorry I can't send you each a print because sharing your stories with me, and stopping by to say "hi" means the world. I definitely think that we won't be waiting a whole year before we do another giveaway because I got seriously giddy when the names were drawn! Too much fun. ; )

Two photos & Four things on my mind...

1. I have some magazines waiting to be read, preferably over some tea while cozy on the couch, but lately I can't get my mind quiet enough for that sort of thing. (The mags are what I'm assuming to be the last issue of Gourmet. Makes me sad. I can't even open it. And the new issue of Real Simple.)

2. I'm starting to think of what I want to make for Thanksgiving. I'm not a fan of turkey, but I'm a MAJOR fan of all the sides. Last year I made sour cream mash potatoes, sage & dried cranberry wild rice, and brussel sprouts with bacon and cream. I want to get REALLY creative this year. (I bet the aforementioned magazines will have lots of ideas. Maybe I should get going to that cozy magazine reading?)

3. I need to do some major house cleaning because a friend that I haven't seen in many years will be coming over next week. I've missed having her in my life. She lives far away now, but will be back to Minnesota for a visit. I know that I don't need to impress her with a perfect house, but after not seeing someone for so long, my nervous energy needs to be channeled into something!

4. If you haven't done it yet, I hope you click over to my anniversary post and get entered in the giveaway! It ends at midnight CST this Saturday. You could win any print of your choice, or if you are the runner-up you'll get to choose a set of flat notes. Don't miss it!

Anniversary Giveaway!

I joined Etsy two years ago this Saturday. October 24th, 2007. It probably took me a year to narrow down what it was I wanted to fill my shop with! I initially thought it would be my watercolors. Did you know that I paint? That was a whole other lifetime ago. =) Then I was working on digital illustrations... I mean, I DID go to school for that sort of thing. ; )

BUT when it came down to it, I knew I was a photographer at heart. When you can spend all day shooting and processing photos and wish the day was longer so you wouldn't have to stop, when you want to pull over every 1/2 mile while you are on a weekend drive because perfect shots are whizzing by, when the best job you ever had was editing photos for a daily newspaper well after midnight, and you grew up arranging your Strawberry Shortcake dolls just so you could photograph them... Well, then I think, if you are me, you'd say you were meant to be a photographer.

That, in a nutshell is how I came to my Etsy shop. And maybe I'm sharing the unorganized, behind-the-scenes process with you because sometimes we don't have a clear idea of what we should be doing at first. But dabbling in lots of creative endevours doesn't mean that we are flighty, or that what we decide to do is less authentic because we tried other things first. It just means that we are open to experimenting. And whatever form experimenting takes, I just know that it has a postive effect on what ever it is that comes after. Even if what comes after is what we kinda sorta knew we should be doing all along.

So, to celebrate this anniversary I want to give away any print in the shop. ANY print! As long as it's in the shop it's free game. That's pretty simple, right? If you'd like to share a story about your path, the experimenting that you did along the way that led you to what you are doing now, or something you did when you were growing up that hinted at what you'd do when you were older, that would be awesome. Of course, on the flip side, all you have to do is say "hi" in the comments and you'll be entered into the giveaway too. I'm not picky.

Happy Anniversary!
=)

P.S. I will also draw a runner-up that will receive their choice of a set of flatnotes. Cause seriously, two giveaways is better than one I say.

(Rules: 1 comment per person. Giveaway runs until midnight CST 10/24/09. I will draw one winner and that person can pick any item from my shop. The winner will be announced the week of 10/26/09 and will be responsible for emailing me their mailing address and what they would like from the shop.)

The Garden Revisited

We took what will probably be the last walk through Longfellow Garden for the year yesterday. There is something romantic and wistful about a garden in autumn, when it's been stripped of all it's fanfare. So many of the beds were already overturned and the ones that weren't contained skeletons of summer, which were in their own way just as beautiful. It's been a dreary fall, raining so much, and we've already had snow a good two times... but yesterday was a nice day. I'm committing it to memory, hoping it will get me through at least a few of the winter months.

Oh! And guess what, I even got to rub a fuzzy black and orange caterpiller! I haven't done that since I was in grade school! Loved it.





P.S. Stay tuned. I have a special announcement coming, and I know you are really going to like it.
; )

~Flickr Faves~

1. remembering spring. 2. because i know no other way 3. untitled 4. breakfast 5. earlier that morning 6. *** 7. intro 8. Rain of pearls 9. untitled 10. i haven't been productive all week... 11. Hello New York : ) 12. the view from a 25th-story hotel window 13. the many layers of memory 14. untitled 15. in the tall grass 16. a boy's summer 17. chairandwindows 18. Happy Summer Time! 19. canoe 20. Balloons! 21. untitled 22. hemispheres 23. untitled 24. old bottles 25. the collector 26. week twentysix. 27. caged figs 28. snowing 29. Park Sign, New Orleans, LA 30. On my inspiration board today 31. könnte schlimmer sein 32. untitled 33. vt_dip1 34. do you know why we are still friends? 35. * 36. untitled

Happy Friday! I've never done this here before, but I really felt like sharing my Flickr faves with you. This is the first page of my faves today. I want to say that they are an inspiration for Fall for me however, there are not many "typical" Fall shots among them. But there is a warmth, and a layered complexity, and there's a blue in there that I've been feeling for Fall this year.

With the closing of my latest favorite magazine, Gourmet (seems all my faves keep shutting their doors) I will need to depend on Flickr even more so for inspiration. Good thing Flickr has an endless supply of it! Do you have a favorite photographer there that keeps popping up in your faves? Is there a particular photo that if you could fave 100 times you would? Please share in the comments. I'd love to check them out.

Have a wonderfully pleasant weekend! And three cheers for no snow! =)

{Seasons Change}

I raced to the lake last Friday afternoon because I heard the dreaded word... snow. And yup, there was snow on the ground the next morning. Luckily it melted, but now today it's here again. I know that seasons change. It's one of the nice things about Minnesota. Knowing that time is limited every year to enjoy the specialness of each season, it makes us appreciate what's around us in the moment.

So, to this snow that is still falling outside my window, I'd like to say "Wait your turn! There are still green leaves that need to turn gold and red. You get more than your fair share of months here the way it is. I'll see you mid November, if that's all right with you."

That's not too much to ask, is it? =P
But if it is, I think I might haul out my Christmas decorations.
Even before Halloween. =)