Hold on to your head!

I finally finished up my Queen of Hearts for the Go Ask Alice show and she is just about ready to start chopping off some heads! My goal was that she would have a stiffness to her, very unemotional since she is after all a playing card. I wanted her to be royal and no nonsense, that’s why I opted for no hair. Hair to me adds too much softness. She had to be very hard and unmerciful. She has a tightly laced black suede corset and long pointed golden boots. Despite her attitude she’s still pretty. Even if I wanted to, I have a hard time making ugly.

If you’d like to see more of her, check out my Flickr.

Socks and Bones

As a child I collected deer jawbones. I kept them in a box like treasure. I would take one out from time to time and comb my long, dark hair with it. All the while imagining myself a beautiful Native American princess. When my daughter came home with these two jawbones I thought it was pretty cool. Her story is that her and her friends came upon a deer skeleton in the woods and claimed it as property of "the fort". The bones were gathered and arranged artistically in the fort along with a lot of other broken, sharp and dangerous treasures that I'd probably rather not know about. My girl tells me she was allowed to take what she wanted home because I'm the only mom who happily allows "dirty bones" into the house. About the sock- I started this blog with my spring sock so I thought I'd show off my fall sock. It's taking a long time what with all the doll making going on around here but it's coming along.

Go Ask Alice poster

I am furiously working to finish up my 2nd doll for the Go Ask Alice Doll and Plush Art Show with opens on Dec. 5th. Here is the very cool promotional poster which is sure to drum up interest with all those lovely images. There's my long necked gal peeking in at the side there. If you are in the Santa Barbara area join them for a Mad Tea Party reception, I'm sure it will be a grand time.

acorn caps

I’m always looking for different ways to bring bits of nature into my home. I am especially fond of acorn caps. The little hats fit snugly on many things since they come in different sizes. Here are a couple glued onto the corks of little glass bottles. One holds tiny glass seed beads. The other is filled with an ancient red dye, a powdered pigment made from the crushed cochineal insect. In the foreground you can see one of my many beaded acorn pincushions.

food ruts

When I find myself in a food rut I use the internet to get some inspiration. I’m not talking about a recipe search. What I’m looking for is an idea, a pretty picture that will spark me. Many times I come across an old favorite that I haven’t made in a while because I just forgot about it. That’s what the rut does, makes me forget about great dishes that I may even have all the ingredients for. It’s wierd, but the rut seems to creep back little by little. Soon I’m rotating the same 3 or 4 dishes. I’m not talking about buying fancy new foods for the sake of variety. I’m talking about buying your usual, seasonal, fresh and affordable foods and just rearranging them a bit. To liven up your senses while sticking to your budget, that’s the aim here. What seems to be mundane can become quite exraordinary with just a few tweaks. So here I am posting a few recent successful meals of ours that you may want to try. If you have any favorite fall meals or cookbooks I’d love to hear about them.

*All meals pictured here are just as tasty without the meats. I just happen to have 50lbs of organic, grass fed beef in my freezer at the moment and need to use it.



Chili with plantains. I like lots of raw veg toppings. For company I would add on some corn muffins.



A stew of potatoes, carrots, white beans, corn and green beans all flavored with oregano, can tomato and a sprinke of feta cheese. One chicken breast goes a long way when you've got all those other tasty things.



Beef and mushrooms with cumin and cinnamon served with coconut rice. A little bit of good quality something goes a long way to enhance a dish. In this case it was chopped tomato and plain (full fat) yogurt.



This is my current favorite sauce. It is coconut-tomato with basil from Molly Katzen's book The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without. What can I say? She is the Queen. I made it here with wide noodles and veggies.