in the studio {inspiration, sparklers, & a smoothie}

Today I was inspired while working on a special cake topper order...and by the crisp, breezy day. After a bit of a hiatus from my desk this summer, I spent some serious time today working on new things...getting that excited, inspired feeling again. Perhaps it was the crispness to the air, after several days of heat & humidity, that hinted every so slightly at Fall. Sure I've dabbled here & there on different little things this summer, but only occassionally and never for very long periods of time. But inspiration was flowing today and it was one of those things where there just weren't enough hours in the day. It felt so good, so right. I even forgot that I needed to pick Hub up from work. Oops...

I made myself a triple berry pomegranate smoothie & grabbed some chocolate covered almonds (my new craving!) for lunch and continued working. Hopefully I'll have some new, completed things to share soon! I guess you could say I was "feeling aflutter" today with ideas, creativity, inspiration...just as the rippy on my inspiration board says (in the last photo...a snippet of my inspiration board).

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P.S. Another source of inspiration came from the sweet little white & sparkly gold sparkler things that my Mum just got for me. I'm not sure what to call them exactly (see pictures above), but I can see them working very sweetly in some new creations.

~more soon! ~

scenes from a summer visit...

I had some sweet visitors here last week and their visit just so happened to coincide with all the Tall Ships arriving in Duluth (a very big, overly-hyped deal here). They didn't come up to visit in order to see the Tall Ships...but it just so happened that as we were driving up along the North Shore for lunch (here), some of the ships were coming in. So we pulled over and snapped a few photos.

And although I'm always a bit of a skeptic or avoider of big, publicized, crowded events....the ships did actually look pretty neat to me from our vantage point as they were still out aways on Lake Superior, making their way towards the harbor. Something about all those big sails and tall masts on a sea of blue that does sort of take your breath away, just a bit...

That was about all we needed to see though, and then, instead of standing among throngs of people, paying to see old ships (or replicas of old ships) close-up, we spent our time together on a quiet beach looking for agates or seaglass...taking a couple walks/hike in the woods...and eating some great food together!

So now, a few food photos! Above is the blueberry tart I made for our dessert one night. I drizzled some of blueberry jam on top...the jam, by the way, turned out very good! (And this should be the end of my blueberry mentions until next summer...I promise!)

Breakfast, the next morning...homemade strawberry muffins, vanilla yogurt with fresh berries and granola (oops...there are more blueberries!).

And a first-time visit to a sweet country restaurant in a red barn called "Swamp Sisters" where most everything is made from scratch and bison meat is their specialty...it's in almost every dish on the menu. They have a vegetable garden next to the farm (where the lettuce for the salad I ordered came from) and chickens roaming free on the other side. And it really is sisters who run the place...too cute!

Of course I passed on the bison, but they did have some phenomenal caramel pecan rolls!

And I even wore my red clogs for the occasion too. Oh how love these shoes! And my sweet visitors! :)
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Eek! ~ Can you believe its August already?

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P.S. Speaking of ships, isn't this necklace I just happened to stumble upon quite sweet?

xo ~ L

blueberry bliss...

In case you were wondering, no, I did not get trapped under a blueberry bush for several days...although it almost sort of feels that way to me, yet in a good way! After all my wild blueberry & homegrown blueberry gushing as of late, well...then I went to a blueberry farm with a friend last Saturday. Early in the morning, the berries still fresh with drops from a late night rain, I was in utter blueberry heaven! I realized then that my first 2 blueberry forays were really only precursors to this lovely farm that my friend led me to. I felt like we were on a secret mission, driving out in the country, walking down a path in the woods swinging our empty pails, only to come upon the sweetest homestead surrounded by row after row of gigantic blueberry bushes! There were already several people there, already picking...so much for my secret mission dreams...and we were asked if we wouldn't mind hiking further back, beyond the house to another field of blueberry bushes where the berries were supposed to be great. No, no problem we said.

Well, almost a full ice cream bucket or 6 pounds later, I was hefting my lovely berries back to the car with visions of blueberry bliss! I didn't plan to pick quite so many really, but my friend is a quicker picker than me so she kept topping off my bucket for me, saying that I still had room.

So after freezing a lot of them, giving some away, making blueberry pancakes, and just plain eating handfuls of them every time Hub or I open the fridge...I decided to try making a little blueberry jam today (along with some homemade bread)...and it turned out to be the prettiest plum/purple-ish color...but I learned that using my little mini prep food processor makes all the difference when it comes to mashing up the leathery exteriors, just a tip! And so does topping off the bucket. I'm so glad she did that!

all things blue...

I realized today that there've been a lot of pretty shades of blue around me lately.

First off, my lovely Delphinium plant which was in full bloom, welcoming us when we came home from the cabin last week. These flowers always remind me of little flower fairy caps and I love this particular blue color. (This picture from Anthropologie's July catalogue almost, almost makes me want to cut a bunch and wrap them up in brown paper, just to cart around like that...so lovely!) And I mentioned in my last post about picking wild blueberries at the cabin, but we came home to find our own plants chock full of ripe berries just waiting to be plucked! And I've been eating them every day since. Such a tasty blue! Yesterday, I spent some time repotting many of my indoor houseplants. They sorely needed it and I'd been meaning to do it for a long time. Some had simply outgrown their pots or needed fresh potting soil, and others I wanted to switch into sweeter pots...
...like the lovely blue McCoy pot (left) that Hub gave me for my birthday!
And finally, the blue-ish background to a new little paper & thread collage piece I recently did. Now I just need to find the right sort of vintage-y, shadowbox-y sort of frame. Then I'll take some better photos of it too.
~Happy BLUE Thursday!~

summer mode {+ cabin-ing}

It appears I've slipped fully & thoroughly into summer mode...the place where I'm simply enjoying all the wonderful things about summer. Living in Minnesota all my life, I can't imagine living somewhere else that doesn't have 4 very defined seasons. There are things I do love about each season yet I prefer spring & fall since I'm not particulaly fond of extreme hot or cold weather, I guess. But the summers are uniquely special since they always seem to go by too fast, whereas the winters seem to drag on forever. So I've really come to relish the long days of this season...the lingering & intense sun, the bounty of wild berries, homegrown herbs & tomatoes, trips to the cabin, hours spent fishing, working in the garden, flowers everywhere, watching the hummingbirds, and all the other summer traditions, excursions, and activities that go by in a blur.

Hub & I spent last week vacationing at the cabin and I know I've likely said this before but the cabin has the best sunsets right across the lake without much to impend the view (as there're no other cabins on that side of the lake) and often glorious clouds that only enhance the sun's departure. I took a photo of the sunset each night we were there...and I think the one above was my favorite, but its hard to choose.

We spent most evenings out on the dock or boat until the sun went down...and come morning, I'd find myself on the dock again with my book and a cup of coffee in hand. We also had these daily visitors...a little duck family always looking for a handout.

Another thing I love about going to the cabin is all the little tiny towns nearby. We visited several during this week there...a drive to Dorset one day to browse around, followed by a fabulous lunch at a little cafe we found in Park Rapids, appropriately named "The Good Life." The food was so good! We must remember this spot.

Another day we golfed in Pine River then antiqued in Jenkins. And the following day we parked in the downtown of Hackensack and biked the Paul Bunyan State Trail heading north. (Me, resting on bench along the trail by Ten Mile Lake.)

These little towns are always fun to explore, but it's also good to get back to the complete quiet of the cabin...and wander off to a patch of wild blueberries.

I'd made note of this patch in previous years but it seems we never were there at the right time when the blueberries would be ready (last year we went later when the blackberries were ripe)...but not this year. We picked a little cupful of blue gems.

And on our final night at the cabin, we made use of another wild resource, fresh fish! Somewhat suprisingly, we'd never done a fish dinner at the cabin before, but this time we were determined to, even despite the so-so fishing. So we improvised using what we had on hand to put together a little fish bake and side pasta dish...

Hub filleted his fresh catches and I promptly washed them up and put them in little tinfoil packets...layered first with thin slices of lemon, then the fish fillets, topped with dabs of butter, salt, pepper, and dill seed (we couldn't locate fresh herbs at any of the nearby stores...hence the dill seed.) I folded them up tightly and poked a few holes in the packets. Then Hub slow-grilled them for maybe 12 minutes or so?

Meanwhile, I made a quick little tartar/dipping sauce (consisting of mayo, a dab of dijon mustard, lots of fresh lemon juice, and a bit of diced dill pickle...more improvising here!) and a whole wheat pasta side dish which consisted of sauteing up some green pepper, onion, and garlic in butter...then adding the cooked pasta to the veggies, seasoning, and topping with parmesean cheese. Mmm...this may have been one of my favorite cabin dinners yet!

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More soon! ~L

{strawberry} red, white, & blue

Summer is really never quite complete for me without a trip to the berry patch. Hub and I continued our new little tradition (started last year), with a trip to the nearby farm and a stop at Gordy's afterwards for hot fudge malts. Because I also believe that summer is never complete without a few ice cream delights too!

So the long, hot weekend ensued with much berry bliss...strawberry smoothies, strawberry pancakes, fresh strawberries on vanilla ice cream, batches of strawberry freezer jam, and several more sweet strawberries were frozen to use all year long in fruit smoothies.

Oh, and a few festive sparklers were lit too. I love low-key, berry-filled, summer weekends.

Off to make strawberry muffins now!
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Happy Summer!

garden in the woods {early summer}

{Irish Moss}

This little mound of bright green moss was nothing much this Spring. And honestly I couldn't quite recall why I'd even bought it from my local nursery late last summer. I mean, we have moss growing everywhere around here...

...until a few weeks ago, when the sweetest little white flowers started blooming. Ohhh yeah!

{Flax}
Mum gave me this plant late last year, far past its blooming timeframe. So I was very happy to see it's flowers this year! Such a pretty, periwinkle-ish color...almost surreal!

{Flax flowers + sunlight streaming in}

{Coral Bells, foreground}

{Chamomile flowers, planted from seed}

{Chamomile & shadows on rocks}

{Dianthus}

{Dianthus & Lady's Mantle}

Aren't fuschia and chartreuse such complimentary colors?

{little bit of garden view, from above}
My garden in the woods is a bit hodge-podge, but its a vast improvement from last year I'd say!
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Happy weekend...I'll be in the garden!

~L