Lemon Tart

I made a Lemon Tart...

It was heavenly.

The only thing that could have made it better for me would be if I added a layer of Strawberry Jam under the lemon curd...

I think I'll make another....

with Strawberry Jam.

mmmm...

The lemon curd recipe I used can be found here.

The crust was a buttery, delicious, shortbread-ish, layer of goodness.

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 cup cold butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp water

In a bowl sift flour with sugar. Using a pastry blender, or two forks, cut in the butter until it's in pea sized crumbs. Whisk egg yolk with water and pour over flour mixture, tossing with a fork until the dough clumps.

Pour the dough onto a floured work surface and press into a disc, roll it out large enough to fit into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom (roughly 11 inches). The dough is pretty loose and may be slightly difficult to work with, if areas fall apart just push the dough back together or patch with other dough pieces and some water.

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

Prick the bottom of the crust all over, line with foil filled with dried beans and blind bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are golden. Remove the beans and foil and continue baking 10 minutes until evenly golden.

Let the crust cool completely before you fill it with your (strawberry jam and) lemon curd.

Seriously.

So. Good.

**crust recipe found in this book**

Musical Monday: Jill Barber

I couldn't decide which song I liked best, so I'm sharing two songs today!!

Fishing

Earlier this week we took the boys fishing for the first time.

Our church organized everything and all we needed to do was tag along, so really how could we pass it up?

We got to ride on a bus and Zac just about died! He was so excited.

We had a picnic,

stacked rocks,

poked at worms,

looked at bugs,

relaxed in twigs,

fished,

and slept.

While I'm not exactly an outdoorsy person, and thought of my knitting most of the time, it did make for a good day!

Bathroom Update

Our house is an older house and the decor when we moved in was a little... dated...

So for the past 8 months or so we have been re-doing our basement bathroom.

Yes, it takes us 8 months to finish a room this small... don't judge!

Now that we are finally finished I'm so happy!! I think the room looks so good!

I'm really hoping that seeing the finished product of this room will help motivate us to get on with the rest of the house.

Before:

After:

This room was a little more time consuming then expected because we had to dry wall the room (it was this wierd panelling before) changed the toilet & sink in addition to all the basic work of laying the new floor, painting and hanging pictures etc.

I think it looks so good now though!

Silk Screening Method 3

Another Wednesday, another method for silk screening!!

This one is my personal fave! This is the way I was first taught and I find it to be the simplest. I don't think it actually is the simplest... but in my mind it's less work...

To do this method you need the standard:

A Screen to push the paint through, if you need to make your own build a frame out of wood and cover it with a silk or meshy material (as mentioned in method 1 and method 2).

Stiff tool to push the paint through

And the not so standard:

an overhead projector

a transparency of your image

Screen Printing Photo Emulsion and Sensitizer

(you should be able to get both of these, they'll be sold together, in a craft/art store)

a towel that fits snugly inside your frame when it's folded up

To make your screen, mix the photo emulsion and sensitizer together per instructions on the bottle (usually 4 parts emulsion to 1 part sensitizer), and spread it over your screen using the same method mentioned for pushing paint through in method 1 and method 2.

Allow to completely dry in a dark room (keep in mind the sensitizer "paint" is going to be light sensitive so it's important it dries in a dark room, I usually put in under a box covered with a blanket as well... cuz I'm paranoid like that...)

Once the paint is dry you'll need to work quickly to expose the image on the screen which means it's a good idea to have everything set up and ready to go before you take your screen out of the dark room.

To expose your screen and create your print, tape your transparency to the overhead projector, place your screen, with the dry light sensitive paint on it, on top of the transparency, fit your towel into the frame and turn on the projector.

Any area exposed to the light will basically cook and fill in the material and the areas blocked by the lines on the transparency will stay empty so you'll be able to push paint through those areas. The tricky part when exposing your screen is to make sure you don't overexpose as this will also burn your image into the screen, making it unusable. Try a couple of tests to figure out your timing as each machine will vary, I exposed mine for roughly 5 minutes.

When you are done exposing your screen wash it. All the areas blocked by the lines on your transparency will wash away!

And if you have a couple little boo-boos like I do in the above pic, just grab a paint brush and fill it in with the screen filler you used in method 2.

Once your screen is dry you can go crazy printing! (same painting methods used in 1 & 2)

Hurray!! You have now learned all my silk screening knowledge. I love making prints and then using them but still have a lot to learn.

I hope you try either this method or method 1 or method 2!! Let me know if you do and send some pics of your finished project(s)!

Happy Printing!

Shopping!

A friend and I went shopping today!

With. No. Kids!

It really was the best time ever.

Filled with laughs, french fries, frapachinos, cookies and shopping!

I love my little guys, but a day away was definitely long over due.

Thanks Ms. K! I had a blast.

I'm going to share a 3rd , and my personal favourite, method for silk screening tomorrow!

Crazy stuff I know!

Stay tuned, I know you're as excited as I am...

Musical Monday: The Honey Trees - Through Your Eyes

Katie, over at Skunkboy Creatures, is one of my daily reads.

I thinks she's too pretty for words and I love reading her cute little posts about her life and the things she makes.

A few weeks ago she did up a Musical Monday post with The Honey Tree's singing Moon River and I fell in love!

I spent the next few hours searching them on YouTube and listening to everything I pulled up. Choosing just one to share was SOO hard but I settled on this one...

and of course I had to share Moon River as well.

Happy Monday!