A Gratitude Break

Maybe there's a reason two great gratitude holidays closely follow our election day. We could certainly use a moment to be grateful, so I am very happy about today's MIX-Ability theme for Veteran's Day.

I think one thing everyone can actually agree on is gratitude for the generations of sacrifices that stretch behind us to touch the reality of living under a tyrant, and the millions of lives lived under a series of them in the years between.

Sometimes we just don't remember the difference between now and then and it's wonderful to take a day to do that.

I am grateful.

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This was just a quick Schmincke Watercolor, with some Nuvo Drops on the poppies. They are really shiny and fun. The Grateful die is from Concord & 9th.

Before I went to Arizona I did a ton of research on brush cases. I've never had one I liked because none of them really protected the bristles well enough during the roughness of travel. I adore my Silver Brushes, and I didn't want anything to happen to them in my carryon. So I finally found one that has a little flap that protects them inside the case. Now I keep them in here at home as well. I also carried a few watercolor pencils in there for sketching while I was out and about. It has four compartments with flaps for your brushes and the case is plenty roomy enough for erasers, aquapainters, absorbers, etc. I love it.

Here's what the inside looks like.

I'm listening to the audio version of one of my favorite childhood books right now - A Wrinkle in Time.

The reading is great, and there's an intro by the author which is fantastic.

I had forgotten how dark that world was, and it's fascinating experiencing it again. I've always loved dystopian stories like this, and her view of it through the young characters is incredible. I won't give away what she says in the introduction, but I can tell you that it's true. This book presents quite differently when you are older. I highly recommend it.

I also made some tomato bisque today - this is one of my favorite soups when I go out to eat and I've tried for a decade to find a recipe I liked. Most of the ones I've tried just generally lack flavor. There was always something missing. This one today I love!! The original recipe I started with was Jeff Mauro's - I really like a lot of his recipes - but portions of that recipe are not ideal, so I made a few tweaks, and here they are.

JeffLydiaMauroFiedler's Tomato Bisque soup

Two 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes, drained of their juices (I used San Marzano - no basil)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 shallots, quartered
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Dried or fresh thyme - 2-3 tsp to taste
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp minced California garlic in a jar.
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons dry sherry
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 to 2 cups vegetable broth.
1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a mixing bowl, combine the drained whole tomatoes, olive oil, light brown sugar, thyme carrots and shallots, and toss to coat. Season the vegetables with salt and pepper. Place just the carrots and shallots on a silicone or parchment-lined baking sheet and roast until caramelized, about 30 - 45 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes catch up - about 30-35 minutes. The carrots take MUCH longer to cook - the original recipe leaves you with crunchy carrots. 

Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add the butter and cook until foaming. Add the crushed red pepper and garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Then add the sherry. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated and the alcohol has cooked off, 1 to 2 minutes. This part is the key to the recipe. When that tomato paste cooks down into the sizzling butter, it's an amazing base for the soup.

Add the roasted vegetables, crushed tomatoes and 1 cup vegetable broth. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for 15 - 30 minutes while you make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Add the heavy cream and use a Ninja or similar to blend it. The original recipe calls for a stick blender, which won't get the job done with the carrots. I don't like to have carrot pieces in my bisque so I like the Ninja better. Or you can puree the carrots and shallots after roasting, and then stick blend just the tomatoes at the end. Set aside the tomatoes while blending if you like a coarser texture on those. 

I found that it really didn't need much salt and pepper once in the pot. It's very rich and flavorful. It might be *the one*. Jeff's original recipe here.

FYI - as you can see below - my coupon code for the Arkon camera stand has increased to 20% for the duration of the holiday season - the extra 5% ends in January. So you might want to ask Santa for it.

Thank a veteran today. And have some soup. And enjoy the beginning of the holiday season. The rest of the year will be magical, I just know it.

Loveyameanitbye.

Can Someone Bring Me Shock Pants?

I'm finally home after a crazy few weeks on the road. After my retreat, I headed to Phoenix for OnStage, where a series of amazing things happened.

First, I spent a day at the incredible Desert Botanical Garden. I brought my paintbrushes and some watercolor, because I thought a quiet day painting botanicals would be the perfect intro to three days of crazy.

But when I got there, it was so magically beautiful I could not stop walking around and taking photos of the plants and animals.

I decided to explore on my own instead of taking a tour, and almost immediately, I had a very close encounter with a roadrunner. In my area, they are much more skittish than this guy was, and it was very cool to get this close to him. I really love how he fluffs his little top knot up towards the end. These are beautiful creatures, and in our neighborhood, they run across our rooftops, and dart around in wilder areas making crazy sounds. And yes, of course I talked to him, as I do to all animals I encounter. Stop laughing.

I found a little hummingbird too - those buggers are hard to take pictures of!

The plants were equally spectacular.

They have a pink version of the prickly pears that we have here that were, frankly, ethereal.

And of course tons of crazy cacti.

I stopped by the nearby Hole in the Rock, where man and his best friend were frolicking in silhouette.

It was such a gorgeous day, and I love the desert and all its flora and fauna.

Then I headed back downtown for the CentreStage (formerly Leadership) dinner which was awesome. We got a beautiful bag, filled with goodies, including the Occasions Catalog AND the Sale-A-Bration catalog, which you will love.

The next day was the main OnStage event, and it was PACKED - stamping, stamping demonstrations, presentations and recognition.

Here's where the shock pants come in.

When I checked in, I got ribbons for the various awards I received for the year which ended September 30th, and these were known to me before the event. Sales, Leadership (my team is awesome, not gonna lie), recruiting, Flex Points (I earned the Thailand trip) and then my title ribbon.

But at the end of the day, they did a new recognition award - and that was the top 100 demonstrators globally. Prior to this, each market did their own top demonstrators, so in the US, we had a list of the top demonstrators here in our country. But with the new plan change, they went to a global list, of the top 100 demonstrators of the 50,000 demonstrators worldwide. We knew this would really be competitive, as the other markets are amazing and have some real superstars who we were not previously ranked against.

So when they started listing the names for the global top 100, imagine my surprise when this happened...

I am still pinching myself. I got to add another ribbon that just blows my mind.

The names on this list are friends AND people I respect immensely. I am super grateful to my AMAZING Understand Blue team - people all across the country who had an incredible year, and of course to all my followers and customers. You make my life fun! And I'm extremely grateful to Ronda Wade, Lisa Pretto, Janet Wakeland, Brian King, Mary Fish and a million other people who share their wisdom with me. Surrounding yourself with great humans pays off, I promise. I love that there are a million different ways to do things, and how unique each demonstrator on this list is in how they approach the fun and strategy of being a demonstrator.

Talking about things like this generally makes me uncomfortable, but this is a moment worth stopping for. So now I'm done. I wish you all could have been in Phoenix - we had a blast. I'm looking forward to the next one in April - you can come with me!

Anyway, the upcoming catalogs are incredible. I won't give too many peeks because it's the holiday season, and I'm trying to have fewer SQUIRREL moments, but one set really captured my heart, and I have to share. It's from a stamp set called Beautiful You - it was one of the Prize Patrol giveaways. I didn't win this set, but my sweet friend Lisa traded with me because I was pining for it. This will give you an idea of the style of the set. It has many, many inspiring sentiments.

My experiment is no line watercolor with-

wait for it-

The new Stampin' Up! watercolor pencils!! I know a lot of you have waited a long time for these. The set in the Occasions catalog has 13 pencils, and they are buttery soft and very blendable. I only had a few minutes to try them out yesterday and I loved them.

I've done a Facebook live walk through of the new products with my team and they agree - it's all incredible. If you want to join us and have fun in our group, you can do that here. It's a great bunch of people and we have fun together.

So that's enough excitement for one day - I'm glad to be back in my office with the kitties, catching up on work and hopefully doing some crafty stuff this week. I'll be posting a new online class towards the end of the week, so be watching for that - it will feature the Cookie Cutter Christmas bundle.

Loveyameanitthanksforbeingherebye.

 

The Long Game

I will be sleep deprived for a while.

My UNWIND retreat was amazing - a fantastic group of people attended and we had so much fun learning techniques, playing Pokemon, eating ridiculously awesome food and hanging out in Austin for a few days afterwards.

I have three rules at my retreats: 1) No politics 2) No news from the outside world (you know - when you're happily stamping away and someone dramatically gasps and reads everyone a story from their phone about how all the kittens in the world were killed at a rodeo or something. Total buzzkill.) 3) No whining - so if something isn't working - or you're cold or hot - you just buck up and be chipper and try again.

It makes for a wonderful, fun, positive, off-grid experience for two short days. It's amazing what a two day break from the negative things in our world can do. My sides still hurt. And there were only a few interactions with law enforcement. Involved parties will remain nameless.

Then, magically, when I got home, the bubble persisted, thanks to the most magical World Series in a long, long time. I was so afraid I'd miss the series entirely if the Indians clinched an early win because I didn't take my last guests to the airport until Tuesday. Thankfully, the Cubs soldiered on, and I was able to experience the magic of those last games.

My friend Katherine watched the Monday night game with us and made a comment that a lot of people echoed in the ensuing days, and that was this: This is the opposite of everything happening in the world right now.

And it's so true. I've always felt that way about baseball, truth be told. It's the ultimate American sport, and so full of all of things that are great about living in this country. Watching the fans on both sides, hoping and singing and cheering - it just warms your heart. And after game 6, when the Cubs fans stayed in the stadium singing Go, Cubs, Go - how in the world could you have wanted to be anywhere else on earth? I couldn't have.

My Facebook feed was filled this morning with posts from people appreciating the "break" from politics it gave us all - and how the feeds were full of positive, happy posts about the games. And while I would like to point out that you can have this all the time by eliminating amateur news reporters and negative posters as I have done - I realized one of the reasons I just adore baseball is that, like America, baseball is the long game.

Honestly, this is why some people don't find it exciting. There most definitely are many more instant gratification sports, but they bore me. I love the long uncertainties, the strategy, and the calm between storms in the sport. You learn a lot in all the spaces in between the double plays and grand slams. And many of those things aren't about baseball at all.

The election and all the accompanying garbage you see on television is like one of the exciting moments in a long game. ("Exciting" can be interpreted in many ways, not all of them positive, of course.) But the long game persists, in large part, unaffected, because there's so much to come and so much that has gone on before.

Our lives will go on after next week, despite what everyone wants you to think. And if we make sure we have a little more baseball and a little less drama, I bet the world will be just fine.

I dug out an old, treasured set for a quick watercolor before my trip to OnStage because I just wanted the series to last a few minutes longer.

I stamped the player image from Take Me Out To The Ballgame in Smoky Slate and watercolored it with my Schmincke watercolor - and added a retired sentiment from The Art of Life.

Think how powerful a force those games were to change the quality of these recent days. Magic.

Go, Cubs, Go.

Long live baseball and God Bless America.

Enjoy the sights and sounds of your fellow Americans united in something 100% joyful. That's the world I live in. Couldn't be happier about it, too.

Loveyameanitbye.

Next Up - WINTER As We Know It

Since we've discussed fall, or actually the lack of fall, in Texas already, let's talk about winter. Sorry -
"winter."

"Winter" is a period of time here that is generally characterized by the following.

• Rain
• School closes when it's raining and the temperature is below 50, for fear that buses full of little darlings will go skidding into ditches because the rain is moderately chilled, and thereby dangerous to people unaccustomed to being chilly (outside of a margarita brain freeze.)
• Lower air conditioning bills for a period of exactly 60 days, during some of which people might still whine that it's hot and debate about whether to turn it back on (myself included.)
• Cedar fever, which renders everyone unable to enjoy the below 90 temperatures because they are in the emergency room getting breathing treatments and having their heads removed.

However, winter - sorry - "winter" - does bring one blissful, welcome reprieve for all Texans.

A significant reduction in the likelihood that you will be killed by a poisonous insect or snake. 

Not an elimination, but a reduction. And this is cause for rejoicing. 

No longer does a cloud of wasps dive bomb you when you open the front door, snakes are sleepy, and chiggers go dormant. All the whos in Whoville sing their little songs and romp freely for 60 days until it begins again, and we don our armor, beat our light sweaters back into swords and get ready to fight to live another day.

One bug I do miss in the "winter" is the bees. We have tons of sage bushes in the neighborhood and I love walking past them when the whole bush is buzzing with fluffy little bees. It's just a happy sight and sound, the sage leaves, the purple flowers, the smell, and the furry yellow little bumblers.

I had BEEn (see what I did there?) meaning to make a card with the sweet bees from Shooting Star since JUNE when I got it, but just never had time to ink it up, so the time came for the bees to make it onto paper. What I LOVE about this bundle is that TEENY bee has a TEENY matching die. It's the cutest die I've ever owned. 

I just quickly watercolored a wash and the hive with Schmincke, colored (Copics) and die cut the bees and added a single 1/8" strip of gold Rainbow Tape for an accent. The teeny weeny sentiment is adorable too. 

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My 1" wash brush is seeing a lot more action these days - but with the half pans of watercolor, it's not exactly a match. I feel like the universe is telling me I need full pans. WHO IS WITH ME? 

So cheers to you as you head into the holiday season with me - with or without your air conditioning on. Enjoy your wasp-free days - I know I will!

Watch for updates from OnStage on my Instagram and Facebook accounts over the coming weekend! I can't wait to see what they've got for us from the Occasions Catalog.

Loveyameanitbye.

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

I love Halloween. I remember every costume my mom made me, and I LOVED our Halloween parties at school. And yes, I grew up in the olden times when we were allowed to have Halloween parties and not genericfallfestivalsorsciencefairsthatjusthappentotakeplaceonOctober31.

We didn't go far on Halloween. My friend David and I would trick or treat with our plastic pumpkins until we couldn't lift them - which didn't take long. A few blocks maybe. We were at home sorting our candy no later than 8 I'm quite sure. In those days you didn't need to drive across town to have outstanding trick or treat hauls.

I remember one house on our street - if you want to talk about spooky - that handed out those red chewable things you chew and then you see where there's plaque on your teeth. I'm not even kidding. Yes, maybe he was a dentist, but I am 100% certain he could have benefited by just having a beer and maybe riding a rollercoaster and pulling the stick out of his butt for just one day a year. Just one day.

He might actually have been the Patient Zero of our current funsquashing epidemic in the 2000s.

In the olden days, it was a magical night.

It brought our neighborhood together, and told us, as kids, who the really fun adults were. The ones that would take a night to just focus on providing a joyful experience for perfect strangers' little brats.

I walk a lot, and I love that my current neighborhood is very gung ho about Halloween. There are so many elaborate scenes set up on people's yards. I passed one the other day that made me shriek involuntarily at 8 AM. They have my complete admiration! Don't worry - there were no clowns.

Unfortunately, I am not organized enough to do all that, but what I can tell you is that the very best candy is purchased for my little visitors. It's what I can do. Kit Kats, Snickers, Reese's, Butterfingers - we are not messing around with value bags on this one night - we are blessing these little kids with every delightful candy bar there is. You do what you can. Especially to fight the dentist funsquashers.

In Texas, we get the added fun of Dia de los Muertos, which brings its own beautiful imagery and treats. The beautiful sugar skulls, (calaveras) and celebration of lives past, makes it an especially happy time of year. It's OUR fall, since we don't really get one, and it's exciting and fun and sweet in so many ways.

So I wanted to wish you a very, very happy Halloween, happy Dia de los Muertos, happy All Saints' Day. Happy Please-For-The-Love-Of-God-Don't-Give-Dental-Products-To-Trick-or-Treaters-Day.

And I had to do that with an ADORABLE skelly. And a fun little texture technique for Lori's Falliday Fest challenge with Rainbow Tape. Please, if you are afraid of mixed media, watch my video and see how I do "clean" mixed media. But first, please know that you are GRRRRREAT.

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Isn't he the cutest? And I guess I'm on a retro technique kick because the way I did that texture reminded me of the old rubberband on your brayer technique. Just a little updated and more textury. :)

So here's a quick video, mistakes included, of the whole process in real time.

I like doing real time videos every now and then just to remind myself how much fun you can have in 6, 8 or 10 minutes.

Happy Halloween.

Loveyameanitbye.