Three Thursday evenings in July, at Government House, are live concerts...The first was Ruckus (the best R&R Band..great guys!), last Thursday was Valdy (in photo with me) and next week is Belvedere Broadcasters 20's 30's Jazz.. We are so fortunate to have all this amazing free music bestowed upon us. Remember that Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are free concerts in Beacon Hill Park. Yesterday was a Hawaian group (in full costume!).. you can always find me with my knitting at these concerts and Tuesday evenings at the Fernwood Market....
Last night at Folk Music at the Norway House on Hillside Ave...THE BEST ...a fellow names Morgan Davis..take time to google his music... beautiful blues music...I am overflowing with music from these past few days... a perfect weekend for me.

Time for Jam!

One of my favorite parts of summer is picking berries and with that comes the making of a favorite treat: Jam. After picking strawberries I made a batch of Strawberry jam (one of my top favorite jams) and then I thought I would be fun to try making Strawberry Rhubarb Jam as I like those two flavors together and the free rhubarb would help to stretch the "expensive" strawberries. The jam turned out quite good and so I am sharing the recipe with you.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

3 cups Strawberries, sliced thinly

2 cups rhubarb, sliced thinly

5 cups sugar

1 box dry pectin

Combine fruit and pectin in 6 qt pot and bring to a rolling boil. Add sugar and then return to a rolling boil and then boil one minute, stirring constantly. Put in jars and seal. Here are instructions for the water bath method. I personally use the inversion method where you fill the jars (that has been just washed in very hot water) up to 1/2 inch from the top, wipe the rim to make sure it is perfectly clean, place on sterilized canning lid, put band on tightly and then flip over on a towel for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes you flip back over to right side up. After the jar has cooled test the middle of the lid to make sure it has sealed (It should be tight in the middle not be able to press in and then pop back out). If it hasn't sealed you need to put the jam in the fridge and use soon. The inversion method is not what is generally recommended but it has worked well for me and it saves a lot of time and effort.

Before long I hope to be making raspberry jam too and maybe some juneberry and chokecherry. What sort of jam is your favorite?

Black Magic Blog

There is a new challenge blog that is about to start up. You have to use the colour black as the main colour and then they give you two other colours to team it with and a sketch to interpret. Recently they had a Design Team Challenge and I gave it a go. I didn't make the team (just as well as I am a bit busy at the moment) but here are the layouts that I did for it. This is the link if you would like to see more; http://www.blackmagicsketches.blogspot.com/

I must admit I had a lot of fun doing these pages and I think that a album full of mainly black pages would look stunning.

Game On - Mystical Scrapbooking

I am still doing the Mystical Scrapbooking Game On Competition. My first three layouts are down below so scroll down to view them. These are my most recent ones;


If you are interested to see what everyone else has done than click on this link to have a look; http://www.mysticalscrapbooks.com.au/photos/showgallery.php?cat=644

Trivial Pursuit

For this challenge we had to use any colour combination of the pie pieces from the game, we had to have three or more sentences of journaling and the title had to be a question. This is what I came up with.

Who's Walking Now?

Scrabble

For this challenge we had to have at least six 1 inch squares, the title had to be in blocks, we could only use two photos and three different colours.
Cupcake Queen

Checkers
For this one we had to use the colours red, black, white and cream, we had to have our embellishments layered and we had to use a crown.

You Two

Lucky I don't mind mess!!!!

It's a good thing that I am not a neat freak, with a daughter who loves to jump right into the middle of anything messy with gusto I am bound to have piles and piles of washing for years to come. What age can I teach Bronte how to do her own washing and ironing???

These photos are Bronte having a late birthday cake. I made up a packed mix carrot cake as it was in the cupboard and had a bash at trying my hand at making it into a lady bug ..... I should have waited until it cooled a bit more. Anyway I gave Bronte the whole cake to see what she would do with it. And she dove in - face first.....soon followed by hands. It was funny to watch, just a bit messy to clean up.

We ducked up to IKEA on Saturday for a look around and I ended up buying Bronte a painting easel, see needs more outside toys to keep her entertained and this was only $30 with a huge roll of paper attached, it also has a whiteboard sided and a blackboard side - it is great. Gotta love IKEA for bargains. Anyway the weather on Sunday was lovely, not a cloud in the sky and no wind - so we ventured outside to paint. I turn my back for a second and a wind gust blows up and knocks the easel over landing on Bronte face first, she then turns herself over and tries to get out. Mind you Tiara is laying beside Bronte (Tiara is Bronte's watch dog, she doesn't leave her side when she is outside) so both Bronte and Tiara are under the easel - I could only see feet and a tail sticking out. Bronte mush have managed to roll herself over because when I pulled the easel off she was coated in pain - front and back, and Tiara had a blue face. Bronte was fine with the whole incident and continued painting. Tiara is still trying to get blue paint off her face.