And the winner is...

...everyone who supports handmade! ;)

Seriously though, I want to announce the winner to my I-am-on-Artfire Giveaway! Bet you thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? I guess that's understandable given how extra flakey (like my pie crusts) I have been lately.

I hate it when I make it hard on myself, but I had to go through all my postings for September and October and count up how many times each entrant for the giveaway had commented.

Wendy (Athena Academy) led the pack with 16 comments, followed closely by Blonde Duck (A Duck in Her Pond) with 14, and Michelle (Chocolate and Marmalade Tea) with 12. Anyone who commented at all during that 2 month period were given an entry, and because Michelle (Blog of the Soap Pixie) had so many comments, I gave her 5 entries just for the halibut. ;) I differentiated between the 2 Michelles as "Michelle Q" for mommy of Quincy (the cutest cat ever!), and "Michelle P" for Pixie!After printing all the names out, I cut them into strips. Boy, do I love my paper cutter:Then, I tossed all the names into our little plastic jack-o-lantern, and swirled them about:I had ds#2 reach in with his tiny hands (at age 11, his hands are still a bit smaller than mine), and pull out the winner:Statistically, you'd think those three with the most comments would have really good chances of winning this. But, here you are. Congratulations, Anne-Marie (Soap and the Finer Things in Life)!! I will be sending you this bone-bead:And just for fun, I had ds#2 pull a runner-up name (alas, stupid me forgot to take a photo), which turned out to be Michelle P! So, Michelle, I will have a little surprise for you soon. :)

Thanks to all for entering, but, more importantly, thanks mega-bunches to you for gracing my blog with your presence and leaving me comment love!! I really appreciate all of you!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

The I-am-on-Artfire Giveaway

Today is the day! I finally opened shop...*drum roll*...on Artfire!

Artfire is having a very special free-listings promotion for the month of October, making it too irresistible. I may still try Etsy later, but for now, the OPEN sign is at Artfire!

To celebrate, I am giving away this very cute (if I do say so myself) doggie bone ceramic bead.It measures about 1.25" (35mm) wide, and about 1" (25mm) high. And, if you're interested in matching paw print beads, they're at the shop!

To enter this giveaway, please leave a comment for this post. As well, because I love my regular readers/commenters, I'm going give everyone who left a comment in September one extra entry for each comment, and will do the same for the October blog post comments.

Good luck!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Food, kids, upcoming giveaways

It's officially Autumn - both climatologically and astronomically - and because the weather is cooling, I'm back to happily baking, starting with Coconut-Cranberry Chews (thanks to Abby for the recipe!)I'm making tiramisu today, using the sponge cake recipe from the King Arthur Flour cookbook, and Lavender Soap's mascarpone topping recipe.

Last week, our friend, Carol, gave us some concord grapes. The harvest wasn't great this year, but there was enough to attempt a juice recipe I saw in Mother Earth News. Since we'd run out of quart jars from canning 80+ jars of tomatoes, I had to make do with other jars we still had left. But, aren't they cuuute? Egassner might recognize the smaller jars as the ones she'd canned tuna in (very yummy tuna it was too!).Here's the recipe by Suzanne Mullins of Charlottesville, VA:
Measure 2 cups of whole stemmed grapes into a quart jar.
Add 1 cup of sugar (more or less to taste)
Fill the container with boiling water.
Process it for 10 minutes in a water-bath canner.
6 weeks later, strain out the liquid, dilute this concentrate by half with water, and you'll have 2 quarts of ready-to-drink grape juice.

Speaking of cuuute, here are the teens (ds#1 is the hunched one to the left...egads that kid has bad posture) doing the biology lab - thanks, Meg for passing along your lab stuff and your knowledge!!! - that I'm running for them this year.
On Friday when dh had a late day, I made anchovy pizzas for dinner (using the dough recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day), and I also made bleu cheese dressing for the salad made with lettuces and greens from our garden. This is a bleu cheese dressing recipe from dh's mom that I've never tried before. It turned out really well! Here it is, in the little blue bowl that used to belong to my dear MIL, and the recipe in her own handwriting:As for the giveaway, the prize will be this handmade (by moi!) bone-motif ceramic bead. But, you'll have to come back mid-week for details. Yes, I'm a tease."I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams