Life is an Adventure…

Good evening, my friends!

What a lovely start to a beautiful weekend…75 degrees, a lovely ocean breeze…perfect!

Just a couple of things to share with you tonight before I head out for an 80th birthday weekend {not mine!} 

First, a card I made for this week’s Crafty Secrets’ challenge over at Splitcoast…the challenge was an easy one this week…we were to use pink (in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness this month).  Not a hard task for this pink-loving vintage girl!

This fun image is from Crafty Secrets’ new “Vintage Photos” Creative Scraps…I so love this set!

Here’s a cute couple out for a spin on this VERY old-fashioned motorcycle…”Live a little.  Life is an adventure”, they remind us!

They reminded me very much of another cute couple …

My wonderful mother-in-law, Shirley, turns 80 next week, but we’re having her big party this weekend, as some members of the family wouldn’t be able to travel here next week.

For her gift, I tried my hand at a new kind of project …now, you have to forgive my photos…for some reason I couldn’t seem to catch it properly (I think it was the printable cotton sheets for the photos—they have a bit of a sheen to them)…oh, well!

A fabric wall hanging—all wonderfully rough around the edges…cotton batting, muslin, various swatches of vintage fabric, laces and my favorite mother-of-pearl buttons…

…rosettes made of strips of torn muslin…twisted and wound till they became the size I wanted.  Glued to a piece of felt and sprayed with Glimmer Mist…a bit of “Lemon Zest”, “Gold”, and “Creme de Chocolat”…

The happy couple on the wall hanging are my mother-in-law’s parents…Ted and Fern Gorrell.

Friends and schoolmates since elementary school in Arizona…then divided by Ted’s family’s move to Los Angeles.  Reunited once again at USC…the University of Southern California in 1924…

…where Ted was a football star…nicknamed “Butter” Gorrell, because he was almost impossible to tackle.

Here’s a few fabulously vintage football poses from his superstar days on the team…

 

…aren’t those wonderful?!  Now, here’s a little trivia for you…also on the team for a couple of years before he could no longer play due to an injury, was a young man named Marion Morrison…

…he’s here in the center back looking straight at the camera in the darker shirt…Ted is right in front of him in position (up a little higher than the others)…any ideas who Marion later became???  Let me know if you know!

Their courtship and engagement were “big news on campus”…the lovely Fern and the husky “Butter”…

Fern was quite an adventurous young woman herself…

…here she is on a hike in the mountains in the early 1920’s…

…and here are Fern and Ted with a friend enjoying a few moments by a beautiful waterfall…

I had so much fun with this gift for Shirley…a little remembrance of her lovely parents that she loves so much…

I hope your weekend is a beautiful one…life IS always an adventure, isn’t it?  Let’s have fun with it!

See you early next week with something new…

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,Ted Gorrell,Fern Ellsworth Gorrell

Things with Wings…and Something Sweet!

 

Good afternoon, my friends!

What a beautiful fall day today…makes me happy!  I think it’s about to rain, which we really love here…we don’t get rain very often!

I’ve got SUCH a busy week ahead—so much fun in store!  My oldest daughter, Chelsea, is making a last-minute trip home tonight to join us in celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday this weekend—we’re so excited to get her home! {even if it’s just for a few days!}

So we’ll keep things short & sweet today…just a few things to share with you…first, cards that I made for Splitcoast’s Dirty Dozen a few months ago, and couldn’t share here until now…

 

This is one of my very favorite of the images in Crafty Secrets’ “Altered Fairies” Creative Scraps!  I LOVE this sweet girl just relaxing on the moon…so vintagely fabulous!

I used some of my favorite pink crocheted ribbon, silky ribbon, a button, and of course, a bit of sparkle on Mr. Moon…and the “stars” in the background are platinum Stickles, of course!

Next,

A wonderful image from Crafty Secrets’ “Birds & Blossoms” Creative Scraps…love those dressed-up, chatting birdies!

I just did a punched edge on one of the background pages…love the lacy look it gives…inked up and glittered the chipboard letters, added some lovely crocheted lace and gingham ribbon, a Prima flower, and that’s about it!

Now, how about that something sweet I promised you…?

Lemon Curd Bars…Oh, my goodness, these are tasty!

Here’s the recipe, courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens’ Christmas Cookie magazine (my yearly favorite!)

LEMON CURD BARS

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 10 to 12-ounce jar lemon curd

2/3 cup flaked coconut

1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds or coarsely chopped pecans, toasted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a 13x9 baking pan with foil, extending foil over edges of pan.  Grease foil; set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.  Add sugar.  Beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally.  Beat in flour and baking powder until combined (mixture will be crumbly).  Remove 2/3 cup of the crumb mixture; set aside.  Press the remaining crumb mixture evenly onto the bottom of prepared baking pan.

Bake crust in the preheated oven for 5 to 8 minutes or until top is golden.  Remove from oven.  Spread lemon curd over hot crust to within 1/2 inch of  the edges.  In a medium bowl, stir together the reserved crumb mixture, coconut, and almonds.  Sprinkle coconut mixture over lemon curd.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes more or until edges are golden and topping is lightly browned.  Cool in pan on a wire rack.  Using the edges of the foil, lift uncut bars out o pan.  Cut into bars.  Makes 32 bars.

Store in refrigerator for up to 3 days…{but they won’t last that long!}

So yummy!  I didn’t add nuts to mine, as my girls don’t like them…hubby and I have to suffer…oh, well!  And next time I make this, I think I’ll make my own lemon curd first…it will be all the better!

Well, that’s it for me today.  I hope the day is beautiful for you, whatever the weather, and I’ll see you soon with something new!

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,Lemon Curd Bars

Love Connects Generations…

Good afternoon, dear friends!

What  a lovely weekend it’s been…hope yours is going well, too!

I have the last few pages of my mini family album to share with you today…

First, my beautiful Mother, Karen…

My Mother is an amazing woman…she has managed to retain such a childlike love of everything all throughout her life…I love that about her!

She is an incredibly talented dollmaker, (a few of which you can see by clicking here), and has been featured in Dollmaker magazine, but isn’t too concerned about all that…I love that about her, too…

She has loved dolls and stuffed animals all of her life.  When young, and told that they couldn’t afford the things she loved, she simply decided to learn how to make them herself…and she did.

So, my Mother’s page highlights her beauty, her creativity, and the dolls and things she loves so much…

My Grandmother Smith…LaPriel…

A beautiful and gracious woman, who loved all the refined things in life…poetry, proper etiquette, providing a loving home for her family, her favorite color; happy, sunshiny yellow…

Taken away from us to soon…I was only 3 1/2 years old when she passed away from the effects of cancer.  I still remember her, however…a small child’s remembrance of a Grandmother that loved her very much…

And finally, generations earlier…a fourth great-grandmother that I love oh, so dearly…because I feel I know her well…

Louisa Barnes Pratt…born in 1802 in Massachusetts…an accomplished tailor, adventurer, strong advocate for the rights of women, and a prolific writer who wrote her own story in amazing detail, which was published about 10 years ago…which is how I know and love her so well…

…thank-you, Louisa, for telling your story so honestly and beautifully…

The photo here on my album page is a rare treasure for me…she is pictured here, late in her life, with her beloved granddaughter, my second great-grandmother, Ida Francis Hunt, born in 1858…

Have you ever wondered who in your family tree you resemble most?  Being as immersed in my genealogy all of my life as I have been, I’ve wondered this many times…pouring over generations of family photos, I had yet to see anyone with enough features combined to resemble my own in my mind…until I first saw this one, when Louisa’s book was published…

…this is  the face I see when I look in the mirror…almost 50 years old now, I still sometimes see the face of the child I still feel I am inside, her face…

 

(I have to tell you--don’t read this, Mom--there’s hardly a grade-school portrait of me in which my bangs are cut straight—and I didn’t cut them…!)

My album completed…already thinking of the next…I really enjoyed putting this one together!

Images from Crafty Secrets Creative Scraps and booklets, Maya Road Chipboard album (sold by Crafty Secrets),

copies of my family photos, vintage images found online…and all the trimmings and sparkly things I always love to use…

I hope the rest of your Sunday is a lovely and restful one…and remember…

Love connects generations

…it really, really does…

See you soon with something new.

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,family album,Karen Ostlund Smith,LaPriel Riggs Smith,Louisa Barnes Pratt,Ida Francis Hunt