Got a little bit of snow here this week!! I love it!!

My friend came over today & we sewed on our different projects together. Lovely day. So grateful for the wonderful friends in my life!

Photo Shoot

Maybe you didn't know this about me but I have a daughter who has just happened to work as a professional photographer. How handy. She's got this super duper camera & lighting things & edits and.... she didn't use any of that in these photos. Hmm, so what are the benefits of having said daughter take photos of me with my very un-pro Canon Power Shot A540??? She can make me look pretty good even with that.
Photo above-My thoughtful, serious pose. You know, the one you wear when your husband comes home starving & you have no idea what you are making for his dinner.

My normal look when not laughing, eating or talking. Also known as the pose where my daughter askes me "has my smile always been that crooked?" !! Yes, Summer & I have one squinty; shifty eye also-thanks for pointing that out sweetie. It's very handy when the sun is only shining in my right eye. Where Summer makes, ahem, extra sagging facial areas disappear. The pro knowledge really shows up in this photo. I'm now feeling much better about my lopsided grin & squinty eye.

Well, golly, I'm feeling pretty glam here-for a woman of my age, of course! It is hard to walk around like this-oh, shoot! This is my favorite. The one I wish my license photo looked like! And that I would wake up looking like!

She's good.
I think she should always take my pictures, don't you?
Don't worry, I'm coaching her to not tell her subjects about their very,very,very subtle flaws. Love you, Sum, thanks for the great job you did!!!

Jill Bakes

How does "Tiny lemon Gem Tarts sound to you?? Yeah, me too. I think we need a pop of bright fresh citrus to go with our sunny winter day. How about you & I & the Pilsbury doughboy meet in the kitchen??! You can get the recipe here:

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/tiny-lemon-gem-tarts/02477009-6aea-49fc-b722-d0ae04bcaaab/ Wow! That ought to take you right there! I decided to use my nifty-nifty Kitchen Aid food processor to whip up the recipe. You can add your butter & sugar first & process till they are creamed, then add your flour. . . or do like me, dump it all in together & process till the dough has formed.

This is where my talent really shows up or in other words how to make sure you have 24 dough balls for each mini muffin cup. Divide your dough in half, each half would be enough for 12 muffin cups. Are you following me?? Then take each half & halve again. Now, each piece will have dough for 6 muffin cups. Divide these in half again. You should have 8 semi- equal amount pieces. Now divide each of those into 3 pieces each. Roll into a little dough ball & you should have enough for each cup of your 24 mini muffin pan.

You place a dough ball in each cup. With your scrupulously
clean hands, you press the dough into each cup to cover the sides & bottom. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes- in my oven anyways. Yours might be different-Hey,read the recipe!! I'm here to just help you, not do it for you. You, know the great American spirit and all that!

While the tart shells were catching a tan you were making the filling, right? You industrious little baker,you! I, again, threw all the yummy ingredients into the food processor bowl & whizzed it around till done. The filling has fresh lemon juice, grated lemon peel,sugar, eggs, baking powder & salt in it. It is very good. It smells incredibly lemon-y. Mmh! Fill your little tart shells.

Bake those till the lemon filling is set. And let them cool 15 minutes in the pan. . .

Did I read that right? Because in my bloggy world of truth only 2 of the little gems came out easily. I had to figure out which tool to use to get my gems out of the pan with the least damage to pan & tart! ( The bandage came from grating me while grating the lovely lemon). Yes, it ended up being the mini rubber spatula.

I placed the cooling rack on top of the pan to shake my confectioner's sugar over. I will save a little mess from my counter top.

All done!! Aren't they lovely? What? What's the space for? Don't you eat the ugly one's too? I think it is an unwritten food rule somewhere...They are luscious & lemony & melt in your mouth. I hope you'll give them a try. I'm glad I did!

Card Party!

I love the creative process! A little glue, a few bits of paper, a stamp or two & viola'- a unique treasure in a short time.
This will be for my very special Valentine. . .
I love how this came out! It was a really fun challenge to throw in the green on a Valentines card! Isn't the little girl image just adorable?!

I still like a very clean look with lots of white background- classy & classic.

This card pops with texture though, it doesn't show up very well on here. Mmhhh, makes me think of dark chocolate & strawberry cream!

Another very simple design. I would use this design over & over, you really can work this one up fast also.

What's your favorite??!