Tag: homespun (page 1 of 2)

Christmas Sewing Projects

I haven’t been able to come to this little space as often as I would have liked lately. November has been very busy so far and there doesn’t seem to be a moment to catch your breath. But it is, what it is.

In the quiet moments that I have been stealing away, I have been working on sewing up two little dolls for two very special people. These will soon be nestled in tissue paper, tied up with a satin bow and will be winging their way into the arms of two people who bring me endless joy and love.

The Ending of the Week

This has felt like a week where there has not been a chance to catch your breath. The news is inundated with sadness, from all over the world. I’m very much looking forward to this weekend, as chance to catch our breaths and to hide away in the cottage; baking, cooking, listening to music with candles lit and restoring our beings from the week that has been and the week that is to come.

Inspired by a recent blog post from the lovely Alexandra Stafford, I made her pickled vegetable recipe yesterday morning, to sprinkle over homemade pizza tonight. I don’t know why I haven’t thought about this combination before, as one of our favourite pizza joints in Copenhagen, Neighbourhood, has a pizza that is topped with pickled veggies and we simply adore it. I normally try and recreate things at home, but this one has slipped my mind to attempt. So, I am very excited about dinner tonight, followed by our movie date to see Blade Runner 2049.

On a side note, I have long been a reader and fan of Alex’s and have been making her mother’s peasant bread ever since she originally posted the recipe. It is a staple around these parts. It is super easy to make and incredibly delectable to eat. I make it not only for us, but also for my family when we visit them and quite often to give away to friends. I would highly recommend making a loaf for yourself or someone you love. It is great toasted, slathered with salted butter. It makes a divine grilled cheese, a perfect pair of book ends for a roast beef sandwich and we normally save the ends to make croutons with as toppings for soups or salads.

I hope that wherever you are, you find peace in this weekend and are able to find the beauty in the everyday, because it’s still there, even in this messy, messy world.

Colour Scheme

It’s not always fun to be practical. I’m in the realm of pumpkins, hot apple cider and walks through the woods that are slowly turning a delicious golden and red hue. However, I do have to put my practical hat on because October is just around the corner. In fact, October will be here this weekend and I don’t have that much longer to design this year’s Christmas card so it can be sent off to the printers.

Last year, I did a full watercolour winter scene. The year before that a Christmas in London theme. In previous years I’ve also created a collage and used a photograph of a winter wonderland that I designed. This year, I decided I wanted to keep it simple. I toyed with a lot of ideas, sketching them out and then scribbling them back out. But, I’ve finally decided on what I want to do.

It’s going to have a 1950’s/60’s design flare. Almost everything will have been created out of basic shapes that I’m reinterpreting.

Above is the current colour scheme, there is still some tweaking to do, but I’m very happy with where this project is going. It’s always nice to see an idea come to fruition.

Here’s a sampling of some of my previous cards. Goose Girl & Foxy managed to get onto one of them:

Christmas Card 2013

The Anatomy of a Christmas Card

A New Years Card

A Photo Shoot

We woke up early this morning and ran out in the rain to get coffee and go grocery shopping. Everyone in the grocery store seemed to be in a bad mood, maybe it was the weather? It has rained all day without ceasing, but I don’t mind it. The candles are lit, we made a fresh loaf of buttermilk banana bread, tried a new recipe for dinner, drank tea, listened to Christmas music and worked on this:

Jennifer Michie Christmas Shoot 2014

Those objects were the beginning ingredients for our photoshoot that will become our Christmas card this year. I still had the watercolour of the evergreens I did last year, so I cut them out and made a stand for them and decided to make them part of the background. I’m going for a 50s/60s look this year.

You can see my previous designs here:

Christmas Card 2013
The Anatomy of a Christmas Card
A New Years Card
The Christmas Angel (our card for 2012)

{These cards are my original designs, please do not use without permission}

Christmas Card 2013

Well, it’s that time of year again and I thought I would share my Christmas Card with you. This year I took my inspiration from two very talented ladies. The first being Phoebe Wahl and her beautiful artwork and the second being Mindy Gledhill and her Christmas Album.

I collaged the front of the card with a selection of vintage wrapping paper and card images that I steadily collected and then cut to my desired shape.

Print

The back of the card has a quote from Winter Moon, and a watercolor painting that I did.

Print

I’m really pleased with how the cards turned out and I so enjoyed working on the painting of the forest evergreens that I might just make a card next year based on a painting of mine, but I have plenty of time to think about that!

My previous card posts:

The Anatomy of A Christmas Card

A New Years Card

{These cards are my original designs, please do not use without permission}

The Anatomy of a Christmas Card

Last year, due to the general craziness of school, the cottage being painted and other things going on, I never mailed out Christmas cards. Instead I made, “Happy New Year” cards in January and mailed those out. Since we were already being non-traditional, we kept it that way and had our design printed up on postcards with envelopes to mail them in.

I had so much fun doing that, that this year, I decided that I would do it again. I created a design to fit on a postcard and this time I had the help of Mr. Michie, Goose Girl & Foxy.

I gathered up a few of my Christmas items, GiGi & Foxy invited over some gnomes and deer to the party and we got to work.

We set up a green screen, laid down “snow” and set up lighting. It was a regular little photography studio we had going on here.

We posed everyone in different positions, until we found one that would work best, after going through all the proofs, we picked a few images to work with and got going.

Through Photoshop, I extracted out the background, placed in an image we found, that seemed to work in harmony with everything else and adjusted the lighting, placed an overlay on the top, to create a frosty feel and added in a “Merry Christmas” banner, drawn by Mr. Michie.

We designed a back for the postcard as well, with a small Christmas message and a vintage picture of Santa. This was a project I truly enjoyed working on and I can’t wait till next year, I already have ideas like sugarplums dancing in my head!!

(My work is my own, please do not use it for your own purposes! Thank you.)

Oh, Deer!

Oh Deer! She, just happened to jump into my hands at the Renegade Craft Fair and I took her home with me. Isn’t she lovely, she traveled all the way from Germany and she is made by hand.

I haven’t picked a name for her yet, but I think it has to be along the lines of Gertie or Heidi or Gretchen….

 

Homespun Pot Pie

Today we have both been off kilter. We are fighitng off colds and back to school tiredness and so a meal of true comfort was in order. So, tonight I made our first pot pie of the Fall season. It was delicious and Mr. Michie said it was the best I had ever made! We made a turkey pot pie and I decided this time that I would roast the turkey and the celery and carrots instead of my usual sautéing the vegetables and boiling the meat.

I tell you, it had the most wonderful flavours and the turkey was so moist. When I pulled my roasting pan out of the oven, I went to work on making a gravy and when it was almost ready I dumped the cut up meat and vegetables into it, stirring in some beautiful red onions that I had leftover from breakfast the day before and some frozen peas.

The house smelled so delicious. As it baked we worked on making some mashed potatoes which were a wonderful and homey accompaniment to dinner. They were mashed with my favourite French butter, spring onion and cracked black pepper cream cheese, fresh parsley and goat’s milk. They were sinfully divine.

To top it all off, we did something we don’t normally do, we sat on the couch and watched TV while we ate. This has been a long week and so we vegged out and caught up on NCIS. I can’t think of anything better tonight then turkey pot pie and watching the adorable Mark Harmon on TV! Delicious!