Bananas from Mars

I mean, how greener can they get?  Fresh my ass....

More Flowers....

Hi Everyone,

It's been a busy week playing catch up after being off sick for a week.  Over the weekend  and  Mary & I decided to learn how to make more flowers.....



 

Here is the group, everything from paper bag Daisys, to Pattern Papter Mums

with some Zip in between for good measure.

This little darling was made by candling the ends. It was tricky
but both Mary & I agree it was the most fun to make.

This one is made from the Tim Holtz Tattered floral die.



Also a Tatter Floral die, but with the ends pinched.

Hope you enjoyed our little project, and thanks for stopping by,

Barbara

Mozaic

Hi Everyone,

Here's a page I did last Friday with a friend who works at Hues 4 Events  in Lambeth. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did putting it together.

Doug in Portugal 2009

What a Sap.



tapped trees waiting for the right temps



OM Gosh! 

We love this time of year!

It is the time of the year where the birds come back,

It is the time of the year when the snow begins to melt,

It is the time of the year when the maple trees provide us with Spring's sweet kiss.....

I'm talking about Sap Season.

From tapping the trees in late winter, to waiting and watching the sap drip out to the process of boiling it down, we here at the Brown household just LOVE Spring.  Follow me on our Syurp journey...



finally the first drops....





after collecting buckets the sap is poured into large pots and boiled
down on the wood stove (we do our syrup the old fashion way)



We boil down the sap several times, watching the colour of
the sap to ensure we don't take it too far.





When the sap is starting to brown and boiled down,
the filtering process starts.



sap after the first filter, see how it has started to colour up nicely?



back onto the stove it goes, as you can see in this photo it already
has started to darken nicely, time to give this a check to see if it is done.



Mmmmm, almost there........



Here we are at the final boil down process, a nice 'froth'. We
take the syrup off just as it comes into a rolling boil. The
syrup is ready.



Now we pour it into our bottles.......



Brown's finest Maple Syrup made from scratch.



Happy Spring everyone hope you enjoyed your Maple Syrup Journey with us.

Barb

My Wits End

Meet Wallace.....

He's one of our barn cats - well, not exactly, he's a barn cat that was brought into the house one January day by my DH (Dear Husband) and my daughter Mary.  You see, they both fell in love with the little jerk  fellow.  They think I hate him -

Wallace is our now house cat #3, who I think has made it his mission in life to drive me nuts.

Or so it seems.


He's vocal,
He's destructive,
He's a theif,
He's vocal,
He's an escape artist
and did I mention he's vocal?

Wallace is so vocal that you can not ingnore him-

 if he wants in -
 a minute later he wants out and if he is out -

 he wants in.

 He is into EVERYTHING and nothing is Wallace -free. 

I must admit  though- the guy has a personality that is tough to beat. 

Wallace has the ablilty to do many things but not be found. I swear he should have been named Macavity.

 Mary has a small  fish tank in her room and often I can hear a cat drinking out of it, but when I get up to go see, there is nobody there. I hear a cat running about around upstairs and when I travel upstairs to see what the heck is going on - not an animal to be seen.  The curtains are moved, things are knocked over, scrapbook supplies go for walks.  He picks up and carrys away pens, paper bits, trinkets, office supplies, placemats, cutlery, jewlery you name it.  Often he can be heard counter surfing, but we only know this by the evidence that is left on the floor..... hmmmm.

Tonight as I type this I can hear him doing 'something' upstairs, but I"m not completely sure what it is,and  its a sound I'm not used to hearing, so I go upstairs ....

and find this on the floor........

Oh WALLACE!

Wordless Wednesday

gotta love those eyes .... sorry I couldn't resist.

Blue Monday

 We hate Mondays, but I love it when the sky is so blue, so I usually grab the camera and take some shots. Hope this brightens up your Blue Monday. Thanks for stopping by.



Maple trees

















what a sap




Gyp



Yippee!