Moving

This will likely be my last post on this blog, as I am transitioning over to Word Press, where commenting is far easier and doesn't require an account. It also seems much easier to interact with other people and blogs. The URL for the new blog is http://firefly1824.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!

Truffles

Yes, truffles. Chocolate ones. Home made. I've never made them before, but holy crap were they messy! The ganache tastes delicious, but the moment you touch it it just melts. It took a little bit to figure out how to work with it (definitely needed the melon baller) but now I feel like a pro.

Recipe: from the Joy of Baking website. The recipe is simple and repetitive, if messy. I didn't use the optional alcohol

Chocolate: 60% ghirardelli chocolate chips. This make a very nice ganache, and it dark but not so dark that DH didn't like it (he's not a fan of dark chocolate).

Half of it has lavender in it, but it wasn't enough to turn into powder in the food processor, so if you get a whole one it's obvious, but otherwise it's there but won't hit you over the head.

Toppings: confectioner's sugar, almonds, and a hard toffee ice cream topping.

These were made for a church luncheon, and were quite popular. There is no doubt they are worth the mess.

Teacups

Like many people, I enjoy tea, and occasionally enjoy going to tea rooms or using nicer things to take tea. There's something about the tradition that, while very old, is still enjoyable. Once enjoys the company of others and dining with them, among other things. While I enjoy Victoriana, even most people will enjoy a nice cup of tea, no matter what it's in.

Teacups, however, are useful for many other things as well--as pencil or paper clip holders, storage for teabags, containers for gifts or small plants, and my favorite, to design cut flowers in. They're a perfect little spot of something pretty, and I've done a few so far. It's also great not having to throw out those flowers that were cut just a little too short, or fell off in transport.

Cup 1

Japanese teacup with both large and small carnations, alestromeria, and statis.

This teacup is from the floral design class I took last year. The instructor asked us to bring in a mug, teacup, or demitasse cup to design in, and I have a Japanese teapot and cup set--both of which I have used for flower design. The set is a neutral tan/brown color, an all manner of flowers look lovely in them. These cups, however, are quite small, and only so much fits in them. However, the wide top of a teacup allows one to fit many flowers inside, creating the luxurious look of flowers just bursting out.

Cup 2

 

 



Western style teacup with carnations, alestromeria, wax flower, delphinium, green button mum, and lily buds.

This is a teacup I've had for a long time, and is not a very tiny cup. However, it's neutral color and lack of large design work lends it to floral design without distraction. I did this up from some extra flowers with last week's altar arrangement. There was just something about doing it that reminded me how great it is designing in such small containers--especially if you love the having flowers just bursting out.

 

 

 

 

This silver sugar and creamer set (which belonged to a family member) are also great little containers, and they have the same feeling of bursting flowers, but with a little more elegance. The rose on the right has been photo shopped for epic beauty.

 

 



The Cake is Not Lie

But it is an experiment.

Since making the Paula Deen strawberry cake, which I posted about previously, I've been wondering if you can make a super moist, gelish cake by substituting the jello in the strawberry cake recipe with pudding. I have finally tried it, by adding chocolate pudding to a chocolate cake mix. While the cake is very spongy and moist, the pudding didn't have the same effect as the jello, which created a very gel-like, cool texture in the cake (perfect for summer, by the way).

I may use it as a secret ingredient for mix cakes, but it's not a must have.

We had our cake with cream cheese icing. Yum. Sorry, no picture, as the cake is already gone. However, I did see an awesome rainbow cheesecake on facebook that I'd love to try sometime.

Learning Curve

This week, I had to send my dear husband (DH) to get flowers for me, as I was in a long church meeting this morning. So he got them last night and I made the altar arrangement right after the meeting. Today's flowers were 2 dozen red roses, some very spiky white mums (I'm not sure the exact type), a blush colored statis, and some very lovely and dark colored cala lilies. 

I've also been watching a lot of floral design videos on youtube lately, and came across this video last night, in which Mandy Majerik from Mayesh Wholesale does somethings simple and interesting with them, which gave me the idea for today's arrangement. Also finally used the glitter tape I got on sale ages ago. You can't see it in this photo, but the container is just a long plastic container, which I covered in the tape and a black and silver ribbon.

Since tomorrow is Father's Day, I've also done some more cooking; homemade hamburgers are in the fridge, another apple pie (see the post from last weekend) is in the oven, and I just have a fresh summer corn salad yet to make. Possibly some pictures of that later.

Method of Delivery

While today is turning out not the greatest so far, I realized something this morning about a part of the Lupa timeline I've been working on recently, which I generally (and possibly misleadingly--I don't know the end!) The End of the Lupa. I'm at a part where their species undergoes a sudden decline due to an illness that can actually kill them--only, I have to do it while they're living on a planet with pretty awesome medical technology. The problem is not why it makes them sick, despite their natural super-amazing immune system, but how the diseace comes into their city despite all kinds of medical scans and tech to make sure it doesn't get there.

The planet they're currently living on is populated by many speices--all who are the last of their kind. So you can imagine they take anything of this nature very, very seriously. How is this disease going to get into their city? I do know that the outbreak there is delayed from the main emergency on the planet, so it's going to incubate for a little bit, or possibly mutate, but that doesn't explain why it wouldn't show up on a comprehensive medical scan.

Please comment with solutions, etc., if you think of any. Sorry I don't have any pictures today.

Apple Pie

As one might guess from the pie pictured above, our apartment smells good today. A week or so ago, I was touched to receive a pie plate, unicorn magnet, and some handkerchiefs which had belonged to a family friend. The pie plate even has a recipe for cherry pie right in the bottom of the plate. It's for chat room tomorrow morning, so hopefully I get a bite, but I did use a family recipe, which as far as I know came from one of my uncles. It's rather simple, and smells very good. I don't make my own crust, as I'm not that good with dough, but the rest of it is made from scratch.

There's also a cheese, chive and mustard savory quick bread, but that kind of got overshadowed by the pie. Didn't have to do flowers today, so maybe some on that next week.

Baskets

Memorial Basket

 

It's really getting into spring now, and the trees are blooming beautifully here in the Philadelphia area. For some reason, baskets have been appropriate lately, so I did one last week and this week. The one last week was really lovely, and I'm very happy with how it turned out, especially since the arrangement was sponsored in memory of someone. Below are 3 views of it; 2 have been slightly altered in photoshop, since I was playing around it it a little.

 

 

 

 

 

The flowers used here are pink lilies, lavender and buttery white roses, a type of spiky green leaf, and I'm not exactly sure what the white feathery stuff is, but it reminded me of astilbe.

 

 

Spring Basket

 

This last week I used the little basket again--I keep using it because it's cute and a nice, compact size. Mini yellow roses, pink snapdragon, gerberas (which I hardly ever use), and dark pink alestrumeria (Peruvian lily). Also some greens. I don't like greens very much--they're filler without flowers even, so I tend to design without them as much as possible. If you put enough flowers in, you just don't need them. This one took a little longer--most of the stems are very big and working in a tight space can be tricky. But this one got compliments as well, so apparently I didn't do a bad job.

 

 

 

 

No idea what's up for this week, we'll see what inspires me when I go to the market!

 

 

Roses are red, part 3

So, although dying roses didn't go as planned, they did get some color on then, and an overall blue sheen that you can't really see in the picture (the phone picks up the blame for that). But they did last quite a while and I just threw the last of them away this morning. I will probably try again, with younger, very tight roses, and see if that goes better.





The flowers last week were quite lovely; there were many compliments from what I hear. I worked with the white roses, some lilies, tulips, and greens. The altar got the full production with foam, ribbon, and such. The vase went on the welcome center, and the cute little silver pitcher is on one of the other tables.

One of the beauties of tulips is that if you have the right amount for your container, you can just put them in, and they will drape beautifully. They'll give you a nice, classic look with little effort--just make sure you clean and hydrade them well ahead of time. These cleaned and hydrated these the day before and by morning they stood up straight.

Roses are red, part 2

There are currently two sets of half a dozen roses on my kitchen table. One has neon blue food coloring, and the other regular blue. Although they were set up last night, there were no blue roses this morning. This is an experiment, so I started small. This morning I split the stems a few inches, started with fresh warm water, and added more food coloring. The curtain on our balcony is open for sunlight.

This morning wasn't very encouraging, but hopefully they will be more blue tonight. I'd be happy with spots or stripes, even. In the future, I'd like to experiment and try and get it down faster, and with the joyous light blue shade I'm looking for. It might just require quite a bit of color testing to get it.

More tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I did a monochromatic study for church this past Sunday. Ignore the mess on the counter, it was snowing and we wanted to get going before the roads got bad.

Roses are red, violets are blue. Right?

As anyone actually reading this blog knows, I haven't posted in a long time. This is mostly because I am so far behind with the floral arrangements (we haven't gotten past December yet). So I think I'm going to skip all that, and just keep going with what I'm doing now, and hopefully things will pick up.

This upcoming Sunday is the Easter cantata at our church, which, yes, has been done on Palm Sunday the last few years. We have a sermon on Easter Sunday. So like at Christmas, I'm going to do nicer arrangements than usual for both weeks, as we'll have a lot of people in and visitors for both. However, since DH and I are going to be on DC this weekend for an actual mini-vacation, I will be doing the flowers for the cantata Friday night.

What to do for these two services has alluded me for quite a while, but bright blue has always been a very joyful color to me. Of course, there aren't flowers that color naturally, most of the time. The project for this week, therefore, is dying roses blue. A nice, bright, turquoise kind of blue. Many googled sources describe the process as easy: water + food coloring = colored flowers. So hopefully all goes well. I'll be setting it up tonight, and will definitely be taking pictures. And then 1-2 days later, blue roses!

And...edited becuase I just realized I never posted the pictures from the flower show. They are available here.

Look! A Post!

While I know I'm woefully behind on the weekly flower arrangements, a short note on upcoming festivities and likely blog topics.

Our youth group does a Valentine's Day fundraiser every year for called the Sweetheart Banquet. Couples, mostly from the church, attend a nice Valentine themed dinner with games, fellowship, and prizes to support the youth group. We're in full swing preparing for it, and I will be doing flowers, decorations, baking, cooking, etc.

Tonight I will make two strawberry cakes, based on this Paula Deen recipe. While I usually make my cakes from scratch these days, I've made this one before and it was so popular I didn't have any to take home. I also have spinach dip to prep tonight, and will probably do a few other things.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be super busy, so I'm thrilled we have Monday off for President's day. Maybe I'll be able to get some pictures up.


And on a side note, the Philadelphia Flower Show is coming up in a few weeks, and although I don't know what day Mom and I will be making the annual trip yet, I'm really looking forward to it. The theme is England, and today they had several life size cutouts of the Queen in Market East for advertising, as well as a lady dressed up as her handing out roses. It was fun to see, and of course I immediately called Mom to tell her about it--she got a kick out of it too.

And because I feel the need for a picture, here's what's currently on my desktop:

 

Photo was taken by a friend of  mine at the NY Botanical Gardens last year, and I did some Photoshop on it, though you can't really tell at this size.

Hopefully more Monday...

A Thanksgiving Centerpiece

While I have made centerpieces before, as well as dinners, Thanksgiving fell to DH and I this year, as my parents, who usually host, were out taking care of my brother after his surgery. So, she made Thanksgiving for them, and I did one here. I also did a one-shot centerpiece class a few days before, and while not the most elegant one I'd done to that point, it was the largest. We decided to go simple, as can be seen in the table setting above. Everyone had a great time--good company and good food.

Going to the classes, while not always as instructive as what I've seen online, especially from the Floral Design Institute on Oregon (they post a new how-to video every few weeks), it is always nice to get hands on instruction, as well as interact with the others in class. Everyone always done something different with the same materials, and I love seeing all the different possibilities. Our teacher not only provided a good selection of flowers, but also cattails and wheat stalks, both of which I used. 

Here's a closeup of the centerpiece. While at first I thought I might stick to autumn colors, I can never get enough flowers in without branching out, and so went for saturated colors such as the dark mums and the purple status, which really stands out here. 

Up next: Do you like that British blue and white china that so many people like? A blue and white arrangement even minimalists can appreciate.

Finally, a writing blog!

Lately, I've been reflecting a bit about the horrible things one does to characters for the sake of plot, character development, and other such things. As mentioned in a recent post, I recently ran a plot for an RPG character in which bad things happened to her. I had started writing a completely different blog about it, but didn't like it, so that got deleted. While the first two events for this plot are over and seemed to go well, and the two things I wanted done are done, I'm not sure now how to complete the last thing, which is confronting the big baddie. Since I pulled him from main Lupa canon, I'm not sure how to go about structuring an even in which he can't be killed, or in which one of my main characters doesn't cease to exist (why yes, there are copious amounts of timey-wimey involved, for you fellow Whovians). I keep trying to write about this here, so that's probably a very clear sign that writing about it will help me think it through, so here goes.

So, what's happened so far? 

In part 1, Eiry, the florist who lives in Tokyo and became infamous among the Lupa for moving there, was abducted. Due to certain facts, time travel was necessary to achieve the goals. So for a about an hour or so, she was out of time, and no one, not even the other parts of her bonds (the short version is "Being bonded is a condition in which one's soul is literally and irrevocably joined to and enmeshed with another's."). A search was mounted, headed by Miara, one of my two big main characters, Sali (Eiry's twin), and Guyver (her husband/mate) along with several other characters. There wasn't much action in this event, as Eiry quickly reappeared and was found, although much worse for wear, and with a surprise. A message aimed directly at the Tokyo Lupa was found on the scene, but I have failed to carry out much of a response to this. That's on me. Eiry, however, was beaten up by her captor, and was later found to be pregnant, which was the reason for the time travel bit. 

This is highly important, for two reasons. First, as this is how I've introduced the big Lupa baddie to the box, which was explored further in the second event. Eiry was not raped, but an embryo was implanted, and this created many new questions, rather than answers. Who would do such a thing, and why? Second, this was a plot point in which will cause numerous questions, and shake up Eiry and Guyver's relationship a bit. As Eiry is Lupa and Guyver is Human, any Lupa who knows or sees that Eiry is pregnant, or that the pair have a child, will know that Guyver isn't the father. Anyone who knows that Lupa can't interbreed with other species will know this. However, the child isn't technically Eiry's, either. 

Overall, apart 1 left many more questions than answers, and some very angry or depressed characters.

In part 2, Miara had tracked down the person responsible for Eiry's abduction--Danus. When interrogated and questioned, it was revealed that he was one of the people who despised the Tokyo group. Many Lupa dislike unpacked Lupa, viewing them as persons of shady and suspicious character, and those who invite trouble. Further, it's no secret that they fraternize with not only Human, but openly with other aliens and species, and thus information about their species and society is easily available to others, including Hunters or any other enemies who know where to look. Danus, who was already slightly crazy, hates this group with a passion, and when none of the Leaders would act against this group, he took it to a higher authority-- Urvenis, one of the Lupa immortals. 

Urvenis is the main bad guy in Lupa history. They think of him like we think of Hitler  most of the time. Not someone you want to be associating yourself with. The fact that Danus went to him for help shows his desperation in the matter, and how desperate he is to silence this group. Unbalanced, but desperate. It was from Urvenis that Danus received the orders to implant the embryo, but to what purpose? The two seem to have struck a deal: If Danus carried out a service for Urvenis, Urvenis would help him with the problem of the Tokyo Lupa. While Danus became one of Urvenis' followers, he learned relatively little of Urvenis plans or anything else. He was solely focused on his own problems.

Now, I need a third event, but due to things already in place, threatening or trying to kill Urvenis will end in a no sell, or his total pawnage of whoever tries. To make a trip into his labyrinth viable, I will need some kind of goal or reason for them to do so. While he could appear in Tokyo for a chat, that would open another can of worms I'm not sure I want to get into. He would have access not only to various technologies and information, it's likely he could find out the future, and play around with it. And that's exactly where I don't want him.

I've got to start planning this event, so hopefully something reveals itself. While I certainly know the reasons behind Urvenis' plans, I won't be posting there here for spoiler purposes, but it will take some work getting that into a satisfying event.

Next time: back to your regularly scheduled programming with the Thanksgiving Centerpiece. Yes, I know, so far behind...