Tiny Houses, living-large cottages, and my great obsession continues...It's Friday.

 

 

My obsession as of late

 

Cottage Life

We live in a very small cottage, but as always, everything in life is relative. Our 600 sq feet becomes down right palatial when compared to this tiny little house in nearby Olympia.

 

Before and After

I have, as has been previously stated, been obsessed with "card making". A little unusual because I personally tend to forget to send cards for such things as birthdays and other Holidays. My family will attest to this I'm sure.  None the less, with the availability of a reliable printer, a whole lot of photos, and time to play with photoshop I have indeed become a woman possessed with the process. I've made farm cards, boat cards, floral cards, and even "cabbage" cards. I love the fiddling involved, tweaking colors, adding layers, finding little snippets of things to use, and then holding the results in my hands.

It's probably a good thing that I will be going back to work in a couple of weeks. We will be running out of room. If anybody knows of a note writing grandma, or two or three, who needs some notecards give me a holler.

Before

The Astoria Marine Construction Company, a soon to be relic of the past in Astoria, OR

I wanted to do this as a water color because I think that the rusty metal really lends itself to that kind of look. Watercolor can be done "simply" disregarding some of the less important features. This helps when trying to do a small card. to much detail on a large landscape scene just seems to make it muddled.

After

This was done pretty easily by using some simple "Topaz" filters, some curves layers, and a adding a little watercolor paper texture. I also cropped it to fit and removed the telephone box in the corner.

Cabbage anyone? Okay, a little odd but maybe I could send it out for St. Patty's Day... I'm just sayin'

Low carb livin'

Last night a craving hit from out of nowhere. I wanted something salty and crunchy. Hmmm... Nachos were out, too many carbs. I didn't want cottage cheese with cinnamon and sweetener although that will definitely work sometimes. I didn't want blueberry muffins nor even the infamous peanut butter balls. It was fairly late and I could've just ignored the intense cry for satisfaction. Okay it wasn't that really that intense,  just a gnawing. (nice pun eh?) Then it dawned on me. There was indeed a low carb solution.  Parmesan Crisps Click on the link for Alton Brown's recipe.  I just grabbed a silpat , took a generous portion of shredded parmesan cheese, made a couple of little "nests", and flattened them. I then sprinkled on garlic salt and drizzled them with a little "Crystal's Hot Sauce." I nuked them for about 20 seconds, and let them cool. For those of you that have ovens, you can make a lot at the same time at 300-350 degrees for about five minutes. Amazingly salty, crunchy and crispy.

They also go really well with soups or salads.

Hmmm... Pause for Thought

You can thank The Bearded One for this one... A fine performance, and a song the "Bearded One" sings often.

Until next time...