It's taken a while, but I finally figured out how to photograph earrings. White backround, white bowl, studio lights, one light directly on the objects, one light with the reflecting umbrella. Then shoot on the close up setting from slightly underneath the earrings... and tweak the whites on photoshop. Possibly could still get better, but this is the best so far!(nice reflection on the bowl I think.)

Marbled Paper

Another great thing to do, with kids or otherwise, is making marbled paper. To find out how just search google or go to http://www.about.com/ and search crafts. The great thing about it is you can't do it wrong, (or right either), and you never know what you are going to get, so it's surprising and fun for everyone. It can be a little messy, but a little messy can be a good thing.

I made a some of the best marbled paper into cards, which you can see at my etsy store.

Napkin Art Tutorial

Have kids home for the whole day? Think they've been watching too much television? Are they saying "I'm bored." Well, if you have cheap paper napkins on hand and magic markers, you could have an absorbing activity for the next few hours. Really?

It's Napkin Art. I think I invented it, mostly. I buy the cheapest paper napkins at the supermarket, and crayola markers (about $2, medium point). Put down newspaper to protect your furniture, and with the napkin still folded (see above) instruct the participant to make dots covering the napkin, but not allowing the dots to touch. To be sure the dot goes through all four layers of napkin, I usually suggest that the artist counts to three for each dot made (marker held down). When the napkin is full, carefully unfold it, and be amazed at the designs you get. With a little practice, these can become very complex and begin to look like medieval stained glass windows somehow. They can be scotch taped to windows, or to the refrigerator, for wonderful, and fleeting, decorative effect. They won't last forever, which means, it will soon be time to make more!

The Fabulous New Yorker

This is one of my favorite cartoons from the New Yorker this year. I am only sad that after all my years of being on this planet, I didn't think of it first.
I subscribe to the New Yorker, it is the only thing I read with any regularity. But you might be interested to know that you can read, I think, almost everything in the New Yorker and much much more on their website. I could spend all day there. You should too. Maybe I'll do that now.
www.Newyorker.com free and great.

Super Good Corn Bread

I like to think of myself as a Vintage Foodist. This means that I eat only vintage foods; like if I was living on the prairie out west in 1850 or traveling in a covered wagon. No, I have so far not sampled squirrel, possum or bear. I'm thinkin' more like corn bread, beans, vegetables, and the occasional chicken. Of course, on my prairie, there happened to be the very first Trader Joe's, so I have added soy milk and boxed chicken broth (among other things) to my vintage foods.
What was NOT available was refined sugar, processed foods, aspertame, cows, and other things.
So, here I am going to share with you a Vintage Food invention by me; super duper yummy high protein sugar free cornbread. Here we go.

Corn Bread (suitable for the gluten intolerant)
1 cup Quaker Yellow Corn Meal (supermarket)
1/2 cup Fern Soy Powder (this is NOT soy flour, which I have been told can have an icky taste. It is soy powder and it comes in a canister; see image above. It's in the health food store.)
1/2 cup any flour: millet, barley, rice, etc. BUT NOT BUCKWHEAT. thank you.
1/2 heaping teaspoon stevia powder (any health food store)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup soy milk
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 heaping tablespoon plain yogurt(impt for moisture)

Preheat the oven to 400. If you have a large cast iron skillet put it in the oven to heat up. Then when you put the batter in the hot skillet you'll get a nice golden brown crust. JUST LIKE ON THE PRAIRIE!!
Mix the dry stuff in one bowl and the wet stuff in the other. Put the frozen corn in with the butter while you are melting it. Then mix it all together.
Pour some olive oil into your heated skillet and mix it around, or grease your bread pan. Spatula in your batter and bake about 20 mins or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

This cornbread has the advantages of having no sugar, high protein (egg and soy powder) the texture of actual corn, and is gluten free.

If you are lucky enough to be able to eat cheddar cheese, that would be great with this. Or just with soymilk. I put extra butter and salt on it.

So instead of saying you have food allergies, or sensitivities, or intolerance's, or celiac or whatever, you can just say, "I'm a Vintage Foodist". Thank you Beth.

Welcome Back Juliana

Oops, excuse me, it has been 6 months since I have blogged. Sounds so much like a church confession in the movies.

Well, first off, having CFS is no walk in the park, and has gotten in the way of a lot of things. And also, I was not sure I had an audience here, which I now intend to build, so, hello!

Hopefully the blog will now be a combination of reportage of my creative exploits, recipes I invent to work around various food sensitivities, and any useful information I may come across about CFS that may interest those of you who have it or know someone who does. The more I mention it the more it seems everyone seems to know someone who has CFS.

In that vein, my Mom found a really excellent CFS site, which I will attempt to put a link to here

http://www.nutritional-healing.com.au/content/articles-content.php?heading=CFS%20treatment%20protocol

This link is to the treatment protocol page, which was really powerful for me. It was after reading this page last week that I really felt unequivocally able to say, "I definitely have CFS". This page seemed to profile me exactly. So, that is both good and bad, as you can imagine. I would recommend poking around on the rest of the site as well.

I don't want to make this entry too long, because I know you internet readers in the modern age are in a hurry. So I will just say for those of you waiting for more Art Is Healthy t shirts; they will be coming in a few weeks. I sold out of the first run which is pretty fabulous, so I have to order more and start splatter painting in the garage.

Just for some stunning visuals, the photo on top is a double strand black silk necklace I posted recently on etsy; it seems the best, or more successful photos on etsy involve a lot of foreshortening and a bit of blur. So there you go.

Tune into the next blog post for more pics of fabulous jewelry, gluten free high protein corn bread that is not gross, and more Juliana exploits.