Good Egg...by (Angela Jean)

In an earlier post I came clean about my hoarding collecting and showed you some of my tea towels. Since it's Easter I thought I'd share another one of my collections. Eggs. Fancy ones.

 At this time of year I have little baskets of eggs all over the house. 

These ones are not as much a part of my collection as they are a little snack.

These are my favourites. I made them a few years ago. They are real eggs, with the goop blown out and covered with thin strips of Japanese Paper. I saw them in a Martha Stewart magazine article and as a Japanese paper fanatic, I thought I'd give them a try. The detailed instructions are on Martha's website, here.

I was a bit obsessed at the time and made dozens and dozens. I gave most of them away, intending to make more. These days I don't have nearly the same amount of time for crafty endeavours, and the crafts we do around here now have to be kid-friendly.

Today, while the boys were napping, Amelia and I decided to decorate some eggs. I had never dyed eggs before so I thought we should give it a try.

Armed with instructions from the ever-helpful internets, we boiled some water, added vinegar and liquid food colouring.  (3 cups water, 2 tbsp vinegar, 3 drops liquid food colour)

As an aside, am I the only one who is amazed at how long those little bottles of food colouring last? I bake all the time and those tiny little bottles have lasted for years.

We dunked our eggs. And let them sit for about 5 minutes.

I had no idea how dark they would turn out, but we were pleased with the results. The ones in the green dye ended up being more yellow than green, but still quite pretty.

Amelia and my tastes lean a bit more toward the fancy side, so after the eggs were dry we busted out the glitter and got busy.

The final results were not exactly magazine-worthy, and I'm pretty sure I'll be finding glitter everywhere for weeks, but hey, we had a blast.

Happy Easter, everyone!

My Collection of......by (Angela) Jean

Tea Towels.

I have a confession. I'm a hoarder collector. It's a fine line, isn't it?
I can't remember how long I've collected tea towels....ever since I've lived on my own, I guess. I have a deep love for textiles of all kinds, but to me, there is something special about the tea towel.

I love the way mundane tasks like drying dishes or mopping up spills are elevated by using a cheerful tea towel. I love the way a bold graphic print catches my eye from across the room. I love the way the thick cotton feels in my hand. I love the way a stack of tea towels looks, freshly laundered and ironed. I love rotating my collection with the seasons, getting out the Christmas favourites, the Halloween and Easter ones. I love bringing a pretty tea towel with my contribution to a pot-luck and leaving it behind for the hostess. I love wrapping wedding shower gifts in tea towels. My little brother is getting married next year, but I've been saving tea towels (ones for every season) for them for years.

I have many, many tea towels. I just counted....drumroll please......287. Ludicrous, right? But wait! Let me explain....I have categories (seasonal & non-seasonal), and tiers (1,2,&3). The categories are obvious, but the tiers go like this: When I get a new tea towel, one that is special, it is kept as a Tier 1. These are my beauties, my most prized. They are ironed and neatly folded and kept in the bottom drawer of my buffet.

But it's full, you see, and so when a new towel comes into the fold, it's time for relegation. Which brings us to Tier 2. Tier 2's are my worker bees. They get ironed too, but they are the tea towels that we use every day.

If you came to my house right now you'd see a couple of Tier 2's hanging on the oven door. Once a Tier 2 gets a nasty tumeric or tomato sauce stain, he gets retired to Tier 3. Tier 3's are kept under the sink in the kitchen and in a cupboard above the washing machine in the laundry room. These unfortunate souls do the dirty work: scrubbing floors, washing cars, cleaning various bodily fluids off of...well....you get the idea... Tier 3's often get tossed after particularly ugly jobs.
To get your mind off pee and poo, let me show you some of my hoard collection.

I have a thing for stripes. They make me happy.

And fruits and veggies. They make me hungry.

I have some kitschy, touristy ones that I love.

Who wouldn't love to dry their dishes with Bill or George?

But my very most favouritest of all? MAPS!

You might remember from this post, that I don't get to travel very much, but I have friends and family that do, and they often bring me back beauties. Like this.

Or THESE!

The London Tube map. Awesome.

I have one special friend who is my dearest enabler contributor. She brought me these two last week which inspired the writing of this post.

scenes from Firenze

Habit de Parfumeur, Museé Carnavalet, Paris

The best thing about my collection? They can take me to Sorrento, Paris, Germany, London, Florence and St. Lucia...all while standing at my kitchen sink.

My Collection of... by Barbara (Ruth)

Thank you Angela for picking this week’s joint-post topic! At first I was a bit flummoxed (GW) by the topic, as I am not a collector of things. I don’t collect silver spoons from around the world, or shoes, or handbags, or teacups, or stamps, or coins, or beer steins (although I used to collect beer mats). I have a box of childhood mementos, and a few teddy bears that were important at the time, but that’s not a collection, really, as I can’t add to it. I have a bunch of candles, but I burn those when I think of it. In general, if I’m not using it, out it goes. 

My Grampy reading to me in 1967 or 8

My friend Beth is a writer and has a blog of her own that combines baking with any number of things: travel, movies, holidays and this week - literature. She inspired me when she linked food with books, and suddenly I remembered my only real collection. Books. My lifelong obsession. 

When I really like an author or a series, I get every book and read it over and over. The better the book, the more cracked the spine looks and dog-eared the pages become. I simply can’t imagine having an eReader these days, although maybe one for travel would be practical… The heft of a book, the smell of the pages when it’s new, or even when it’s old and dusty, the joy of browsing in the bookstore or the library – these things you can’t get electronically.

Being a process person with a bit of OCD, you can appreciate that my books are organized. The more “pop” books are, once read, sorted by “keepers” (Maeve Binchy, John Grisham, Richard North Patterson) and “mistakes”. The mistakes go to the library, the yard sale, or the recycle bin, and most of the keepers go to the cottage. Some of my very favourite keepers (Diana Gabaldon, James Michener) stay here.

The second grouping of books are my “rarities”. These are the books that I got from my parents' house when it was sold. I actually wanted the bookshelf itself, so before I moved it, I set about going through the books in it. Lo and behold, there were some real treasures in those shelves! Among them, a complete set of the leather bound works of Victor Hugo published in 1888 , copies of my grandfather’s high school Hamlet and Macbeth texts from 1905 and 1908 (with his notes in the margin), an 1878 copy of Shelley’s poems, and a 1901 copy of the Song of Hiawatha (that’s a lovely thing to read aloud). I’ve had everything valued by a couple of antique dealers, and they really aren’t worth much. Except to me!

My collection of childhood favourites.
Over on the left, incidentally, is the old
Henderson family Bible, c.1881.

Finally, the third group in my book collection. My childhood books. These are, perhaps, the most precious to me as they hold so many memories. I have the full series of the Little House books, all 13 Oz books (you didn’t know there were that many, did you), the four Mary Poppins books, the Narnia Chronicles, the Mother West Wind series, all of L.M. Montgomery’s books (including my favourite which is NOT Anne of Green Gables, but The Blue Castle), 9 Bobbsey Twin books, 12 Nancy Drew books, and my mother’s childhood series called “the Honey Bunch books” from the 1920’s. Then there are my single favourites like “The Jungle Book”, “A Little Princess”, “The Swiss Family Robinson”, “The Trumpet of the Swan”, and of course, “Are You My Mother?”

I think if you asked me to pick a favourite it would be like Sophie’s Choice and I just couldn’t do it. Between the covers of these books are snippets of my Dad’s voice as he becomes Baloo or Aslan or Reddy Fox or Fitzgerald Fieldmouse. There is magic, and talking animals, and triumph over tragedy, and even a little romance (Nancy and Ned, of course). These books are my friends, and took me on journeys and introduced me to history, fantasy and eventually "grown up" literature.

I guess this really isn’t a book collection then. It’s a memory collection, as strong and vivid as any photo album. I’ll happily loan them out and you can make your own. You can even fold down the corners of the pages - I don't mind.