Marmalade making for the first time

January is a perfect time to make some citrus marmalade.
It’s been on my “to-do” list since early december, but with school and that thing called “Christmas”, I just couldn’t manage the time. I finally did my first marmalade this Sunday afternoon.
Here’s the recipe I took from Conserves maison. (Excellent french blog about canning).

Will give you 7 to 9 marmalade jars of 250 ml.

2 limes

2 oranges

1 citrus

1 medium-sized grapefruit

3 cups (700 ml) of water

8 cups (1530 g) of sugar

Wash the fruits to make sure there are no wax left. If you wash them in cold water, they will be easier to cut.
Cut the fruits in the smallest parts that you can. Use your sharpest knive for this part, it will be much easier.

You first start by boiling the limes for 15 minutes as their peel takes longer to soften.

Add in the other citrus fruits. Boil for 30-45 minutes. Once their peel has soften, you can add in the sugar and boil for another 45-60 minutes.

If you wish to can your marmalade, it’s very important to follow good instructions for sterelization.

SAFETY NOTE: ** The only way to sterelize jars is by boiling them. The dishwasher or oven method doesn’t work. You absolutely need to sterelize them with boiling water. **

You may want to use a large saucepan/canner with a rack to avoid the jars touching the bottom.

Tadaa! You’ve made marmalade.

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Of course, this is not a very detailed tutorial for canning, you may want to check theses ressources if you’re new to this and would like to know more:

The Bernardin guide to home preserving is a good and cheap guide to get you started.

Marmalade tutorial (with lots of pictures!) by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

National center for home food preservation. Lots of information about home canning, in general. (PDF documents)

Golda’s kitchen. This is a very useful online shop to buy kitchenware.
I used it to order a couple of things I couldn’t find for home canning.
French written ressource:

Recettes de conserves maison by Vincent. A must-read  blog about canning.

Vision board afternoon

Last Sunday, I had a “Vison Board” afternoon with Pam, Valerie and some of their friends. They organized it at the place where they have their studio, Le chat des artistes.
We were set in the corridor between the studios, so it was fun to see the locals come in at Le Chat and be surprised to see a bunch of crafty people working on their vision board. :-p

I usually draw my vision board, but since there were -so- many magazines on the table, I decided that I should add some images as well, to make it more interesting.

I almost forgot how much fun it is, just to get together and talk about what we *really* want for 2010 (and the years to come).
And since you’re telling your goals to other people, it increases your chances of keeping up with them.

Just for the fun factor, here’s my finished vision board (with Morgane, of course. :-p)

To give you an idea, the 2009 one is above , top right. It’s mostly drawn and there’s not much color on it.
I cut one  drawing that I liked from the 2009 version to include it on my 2010. There’s some things that I re-drew because I didn’t like the ones on the older board. Plus, I believe that by “drawing” your goal, you put more energy into it and you’re less likely to forget about it. Of course, it’s a personal preferfence.

I really like the end result, it’s a lot more colorful with the pictures. And I just love mixing pictures and drawings together.

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You could always organize your own “Vison  Board afternoon” with some friends.
Here’s what you’ll  need:

• Tons of old magazines/images
• Scissors
• Glue
• Some cardboard or any paper size for to make the base of your board.
• (Optionnal) Fun stickers

Cut, glue and paste the images you like on your board!

Enjoy!

Halloween serie: How to make sparkly shoes

This year, I’ve decided to go as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I was lucky enough to find a very similar blue dress at a local thrift store. As for the top, I already had a white short-sleeves medieval blouse from this Renaissance Etsy shop, Fairest of them all.

The only thing missing was the famous ruby shoes.
I could have bought a pair from The wizard of oz costume shop (Yes, there’s an entire online shop dedicated to Wizard of oz costumes!) , but I had a budjet and didn’t want to spend too much.

So I got a vintage pair of marine shoes, from the same thrift store, that looked very much like Dorothy’s shoes except for it’s color.

The outside of the shoe is fabric, so I decided to paint them with Pebeo’s Setacolor paint for fabrics.

When it dried, I set the color with an iron. Not an easy task as shoes are not straight like fabric. There is probably a better way to do this (or other product to use). So if you know, it’d be nice if you could tell me. :-p

Then, I bought a bunch of red craft glitter and mixed it with the amazing Modge Podge glue.

The consistent of the glue was more “glitter with Modge Podge” rather than the other way around. :-p Repeat as needed.

Once it dried , I re-applied a second coat of Modge Podge to “secure” the glitters.
You don’t want to leave a glittery trail as you walk around.

This is a great tutorial if you need sparkly shoes of any color for a costume.

You could make  a pair for a 30′s era costume.
If you use black glitters, it could be some nice shoes for a lady vampire costume.

And here’s another great tutorial from the Craftster forums to make shoes with real sequins instead of glitters.

Oh, the possibilities!