Sunday Photo - Chickens

These probably weren't the chickens you were expecting! :) Living down here close to the Mexican border, we have lots of Mexican pottery items available to purchase. I have several pieces in this style, I love the colors! This pair sits in my kitchen window, normally, keeping me company while I'm working.
Sharing with these fine linky parties: Orange You Glad It's Friday, Weekly Top Shot, Your Sunday Best, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Mandarin Orange Monday.

Flower Art Friday - 09/28/2012

The roses have been blooming again this week and I wanted to show them off for the Friday memes. I took a bunch of pictures trying to come up with something that really made me say hmmm. I finally settled on these two. I like them but, eh, not my favorites... LOL!!

We have been enjoying the roses on the fireplace mantle anyway! :)
Linking up with Floral Friday Foto, Flower Art Friday and Photo Art Friday.

Cranberry Cordial

My blogging buddy, Kathy at Moving On To The Past, recently did a couple of posts about making cordials and inspired me to dig out my recipe for Cranberry Cordial and one of the extra bags of cranberries I bought last year just for cordial making. Thanks Kathy!! :)

1 16-ounce bag cranberries
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 bottle vodka

Combine cranberries, sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook 4 to 5 minutes, until skins start to pop. Cool berries completely and then place them in a half-gallon jar.

Add vodka and stir well. Allow mixture to infuse for at least a week stirring occasionally. I left mine for almost two weeks.

Strain cranberries into a bowl using a colander lined with cheesecloth. Use a spoon to press the good stuff out of the cranberries. Do NOT eat the cranberries, they are really potent! Ahem, don't ask me how I know. (hic!) Pour the cordial into a jar and then squeeze the cheesecloth to extract the last little bit of cordial. I got an extra 1/2 cup!

Make a simple syrup of 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water. Cool completely and then mix into the strained cordial. Allow to age for 2 to 3 weeks.

Pour into decorative bottles. Okay, I only had two decorative bottles but you get the idea! :) This makes lovely gifts for the holidays or an extra special after-dinner drink for you on those nippy fall and winter evenings.

Sharing with Rural Thursday and Farmgirl Friday.

Chiminea

Okay, I'm just having waaay too much fun with this photo editing stuff! :) I realized today while playing around on Pixlr Express that I can add the same effect more than once for more oomph, apply multiple effects and/or overlays and I can even add multiple borders to the same picture. What fun!! Below is a shot of our chiminea SOOC.

Linking up with Emily for Tones On Tuesday.

Back Online

My computer has been in the shop for the past week so I haven't been online. Wait a minute, what do you mean nobody but Robyn noticed?!? LOL!!
Anyway, I hope to get caught up with everyone in the next few days and get back in the swing of blogging. One thing I did notice last week, I sure have a LOT more free time when the computer isn't working! ;-)

These are pictures of one of the Lantana bushes in front of the neighbors' house. They also have yellow and red ones but I wanted to share these pretty orange ones for Orange You Glad It's Friday and Mandarin Orange Monday.

Sunday Photo - Peppers

The peppers I was given the other day were just so pretty that I wanted to share a couple of more pictures of them. Above is a fun effect from Pixlr Express called Yin.

Here is the same shot SOOC. :)

Linking up with Weekly Top Shot, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, Your Sunday Best and Mandarin Orange Monday.

Photo Art Friday - 09/14/2012

I'm joining Bonnie for Photo Art Friday this week where she challenged us to compose a seven word sentence that describes your life or experience or process as an artist (be it a photographer, painter, mixed media artist, digital artist, whatever ...) and marry your sentence to a piece of photo art that somehow illustrates your sentence. Of course, this is entirely optional and you can link up any piece of photo art that you want to share!

I came up with my "sentence" a couple of weeks ago and have been working on what type of photo art I wanted to use to illustrate it. At one point, I was even trying to figure out how I could use a picture of the laundry hanging outside on the line! LOL!! Instead, I started with the beautiful basket of peppers in the lower left corner. The peppers were given to me yesterday and as I was getting ready to chop them up for the freezer, I realized how lovely they were! Then, I started thinking of all the beauty that is in my life every day and decided to add my sweet goat, Daphne, and a beautiful wildflower I photographed earlier this year. I used Bonnie's free Vintage Vellum texture as a background.

Quite often, I think I have to have a WOW picture for it to be beautiful and be considered "art" but I'm learning that there is beauty to be found in the little things every day! :)

I'm also linking up with Orange You Glad It's Friday, which was one of the memes I had in mind when I photographed the peppers!