Beeswax collages, peanut butter eggs and spring!

Happy Saturday everyone! I bet you are getting ready for Easter tomorrow! Lots of things to do! It's a windy but bright and sunny day here in Pennsylvania today. The grass is getting greener, the birds are singing, the sky is oh so blue....just a beautiful day. I'm cooking Easter dinner tomorrow but I went to the grocery store early yesterday morning to get everything so today I can play! Gary and I will go to his mom and dads for lunch to have Easter pizza, it's an Italian tradition. No it's not like the regular pizza you're thinking of.....it has a top and bottom crust that is a cross between pie crust and pizza crust and the filling is a mixture of eggs, romano cheese and pieces of ham which has been baked. It is sooooooooo delicious and I look forward to it every year!!!!!

I've been so inspired by spring this year, (probably because it was such a hard winter) that I created these beeswax collages which I just listed on Ebay.

The Lavendar Spring Fairy Collage

Blessed in a Nest Collage

Rabbit & Moon Collage

Nanny's Peanut Butter Eggs

Lastly, I'm going to leave you with the recipe for my mom's peanut Butter eggs. They are soooo good and I post it every year. Very easy to make and even easier to eat! Enjoy!

Nanny's Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Egg Recipe

Melt 2 sticks of margarine in the microwave and let cool. In a large bowl add 2 cups of smooth peanut butter, and 1 lb. of powdered sugar and begin to beat with an electric mixer. Slowly add melted margarine (you might not need all of it so don't get wild and crazy and just dump it!), into the peanut butter and powdered sugar mixture. Mix until it holds together when you form an egg shape. Now's the time to use some problem solving skills......if it's too crumbly, then add more margarine; if it is too sticky then add more powdered sugar. Cover a cookie sheet with waxed paper, form into egg shapes......your choice...tiny (bite sized), medium (just enough) or the super honkin' egg size as big as your face (warning: eat all of this size of egg and YOU WILL HAVE A TUMMY ACHE!). Place on waxed paper and put in fridge for about an hour. Melt a chunk of chocolate in the microwave and dunk the egg into it. Spoon additional melted chocolate on top of it and place back on waxed paper and place back into the fridge to chill. These are rustic looking eggs, not perfect looking but delicious! Mom gets her chunks of chocolate at Giant Eagle in the produce section of the store. It's about $4.50 a lb and you'll need about 2.5 lbs of it to cover 20, 4 inch eggs. Store in a zip-lock bag and keep in the fridge.

Happy Saturday!

Ahhh Saturday, don't you just love it! It's pretty windy and cold here but the sun came out and the sky is clearing so all is right with the world! I spent a good portion of the day at the Time and Again Shop Spring Open House and it was a smashing success! My friend Tracey came over from Akron and we had a great time. She's a very talented altered art artist and you can see Tracey's works on Flickr. I got to meet a super fiber artist at the open house whose works you can view in a few posts before this one and her name is Chris. I'm fascinated by the detail and devotion she has to her craft.

Below you'll find a few new works (poker chip pendants, bird pendants and beeswax collages) just completed this week in the studio but rather than just show you the pictures I've decided to turn them into illustrations for a little story about life.........

Life is not always a day at the beach.......

or a bowl full of cherries...........

and somedays if seems like everybody wants you to fetch something for them......

And I know there are days when you feel like you don't want to leave your warm, safe nest.....



However, life is a long race and in the end, it's only you that you are racing against, so be original and........

Shoot for the moon because you just might land on it or at least fall among the stars!

That being said, continue to do these things for a happy life........... LOVE......

Be FREE.........

And sock away a NEST EGG for the future!

THE END

I'm Dream' of Green.........and Irish Coffee!

Even though the snow is flying here and it's very cold and extremely windy, I'm dreaming of the vast expanses of vibrant green grass, tulips and warm fragrant spring winds. The green grass made me think of March and March made me think of St. Patrick's Day and......well, you get the progression to this little collage I created......

It's available on Ebay starting today.

Her name is Fiona and she's the Shamrock Fairy! She'll bring you Irish coffee if you're good!The shamrock label is a copy of a vintage fruit crate label and the "Old Underoof" label is an advertisement for Irish whiskey. The collage has been created on 1/4 inch baltic birch wood and measures 4.5 by 6 inches. The entire collage has been sealed with a thin layer of 100% beeswax which has intensified the colors and given it a slight sheen.

Beeswax Experimentation

After watching YouTube video on how to use beeswax to seal collages and reading about 500 article on the internet I decided to jump in and give it a try! I created collages on 6 inch by 6 inch pieces of wood. One is entitled "Friendship is a Sheltering Tree" and the other is "Beauty is All Around Little Red".

Here's what's needed: I bought a small pack of 100% beeswax pellets to melt in the.....

crockpot......

and this little gizmo is used by quilters....its a mini iron but great for smoothing out the wax after you've brushed it on the collage. Oh, yes....you'll need a stiff bristled brush to apply the wax.

These are the 2 collages I did. This is before I applied the beeswax.

Here they are with the wax applied. They are a still a little cloudy but that will clear up as the wax cures. I have to wait until tomorrow to buff them with a soft old t-shirt. Can't wait!

I did better applying the wax with the brush on Little Red than the other one. The trick is to do it quickly and not to get too much build up wax on the collage.