goodies and design trade...part one

years ago, i loved and lived on ebay. i was new on my jewelry junket. i made some(alot of) errors, but i had some great finds too. i was able to sell some very nice pieces to some very nice women. i even have managed to keep up with a few and stay in touch through the joys of facebook. 

over the past years, we have lost many computers and nearly all of my photos went with those hard drives. i have no memory why, but some photos were kept on other servers. Luckily,  a few images of my earlier work.

this one went to a little old lady whose grandchildren went to school with my daughter.

ARIZONA SPRING

this may be my all time favorite...

THE SWEETEST PEA

this one was lucky enough to grace some pages in 

"ALTERED COUTURE"

a Stampington magazine

COY LOVEBIRDS

as time went by, i kept adding to my favorite EBAY stores that i visited often... places i could rely on for pretty and unusual vintage components. one of them was B'sue boutiques. for some of my necklaces, i liked using her filigrees and charms. 

imagine my surprise when i started to look around on facebook and found her again. i always saw her ads in jewelry making magazines. 

 by this time, my jewelry interests had led me to ETSY, where i opened two stores. one was for my jewelry and the other for selling components. i developed a niche for certain components, so i had a lot of stuff that i could use that was already on hand. i no longer needed to buy as much stuff from other sellers. 

BUT...

you never know when you really need something...

something  that you might once have used really successfully. then the head scratching cartoons follow...

 where did i get that from???

it really did the trick... thinking hard ... steam coming from ears...

 hmmm. 

well it was b'sue boutiques more often than not. 

the pieces started to fall back into place. 

over the past couple of years i have followed brenda sue and her wares. she also had followed some of my escapades. she held a "challenge" to have folks post their creations under a "FIVE & DIME STYLE" design. it featured things one might have found in a local five and dime store. 

we had one that was one of my favorite childhood stopping places... i remember it so very well ... so very many years later...

i bet if pressed, i could lay out the store in a legitimate floor plan. 

downstairs was roughly designated for gazillions of little bins, like printers trays on steroids, for the many toys and gew gaws that were sold there. 

comic books... craft supplies... oh heavens, i am getting dizzy thinking of it all. 

upstairs, was where you took your grandparents. it was the center for all the kits and dolls and other more costly delights. you got perfume making or model car kits here. 

this was the serious part of the store. 

back to brenda sue...

now she is hosting the third round, which has the inclusion of an animal in its design.

 there are a ton of very very creative folks that are making extremely interesting pieces  under the umbrella of this constraint.

for the first 5 & 10 grouping, i sent many flowers to her. how could any woman refuse  batches of neck and wrist destined bouquets... 

yes, the wooing of brenda sue had started. i sent some of my best work to try to catch her eye.

  

i sent her some photos of things i had made (quite possibly using her own components from way back).

 she was so very kind to include them in her virtual scrapbooks along with other artisans' pieces. 

anyways, i was looking into participating in her most recent challenge. i kind of had a mini-stroke and thought how much more fun it would be to make something from some of her current components, ala my own style. 

a few very excited notes were exchanged... and we decided to collaborate in a more personal way. brenda sue sent me a huge 8 pound box of findings from her shop and i am going to try to make something for her out of some of these. 

now when i say, that the box was 8 pounds, i know this from the labelling for posting. 

it was a box crammed with metal pieces. plastic fruit. rhinestoned vintage pins. metal she had both colorized (i have no idea how) and then coated with ice resin (again, i have no idea how). some little round doodads filled with pretty girls faces and some protective surface over those. 

i can't realistically list all of the loot in the box, since there was so much of it. so i was careful to take photos of all of it. as i unloaded the things i found in that treasure chest, i had a few ideas for things that might be nice to make with them. 

here is the unveiling of the goodies found within that cardboard  vessel...

raw box shot...and i am filled with anticipation...

everyone needs a trusty assistant. 

considering how many cats live on my street, this was a small miracle that he stayed so calm

peering over the edge to see the contents...

so many small packets of STUFF! 

and i really LIKE 

STUFF!

so many little purple rhinestones... 

and i did not set a single one. 

licking my chops...

some round bezels filled with old fashioned girls and perhaps some of their treasures...

not surprisingly, perhaps my favorite group in the mix. 

some ice resin coated metal flowers, painted flowers,

gilded blossoms with gilder's paste(?).

things with massive potential in my wicked little hands...

 and still my assistant is surveying his street with an unknown calm.

 not everything is on my radar, but the central oval silver thing is to die for. 

just sayin'

 just checking in... is there a walk in this for me?

soon?

these look like candy...

Runts, i am told by in house candy specialists.

well, i have some ideas perking. 

so please check back and see if i have made some progress... 

i think there may be a sun-king influenced necklace ...

perhaps, a nostalgic cabinet photo composition too. 

usually, i like to compose a palette of materials to work with. these take on some structural support system. 

then the game is ON. 

thanks for all of everything... 

goddess of kitch. 

and 

findings. 

who, what, when and all 

will be put into gear very soon. 

in the meantime, this is what 

Brenda sue has put together for her own five and dimer addition. 

i LIKE it very much. 

if you have survived this far, it bears mentioning that brenda sue's website is here:

http://www.bsueboutiques.com/index.shtml

i am not a paid sponsor for this event. i stuck my nose into things and now am getting a chance to play with some stuff that was plucked from the "messy workshop" tables. 

it promises to stretch my chops as a designer... cause that is what i am calling myself these days. do you need an ambulance to get to the ER from laughing so hard?

well in spite of that, i think you are betting that i need some wishes of good luck here. 

i am sure to need as much as you can offer...

as always, thank you for visiting. 

don't be shy about leaving a comment, i really get excited when i see them!

xoxox.

W.

a yen for ice cream

sometimes, even when it is raw and rainy out, you just want something sweet. after a nice dinner tonight, my children dressed to walk somewhere. they seemed to be on a mission. showing that as parents, we were able to house, clothe and feed them nearly adequately. en masse, they stated their need for some ice cream. 

8 pm. dark. raw. wet. a bad choice for walking to our local quik-E-mart. i chose to share the world need for advancement of ice cream consumption. i was willing to drive to the supermarket  or local pharmacy to get some tissues for the one with a head cold as well as the choiciest of creamy cold confections for them all. 

turns out only the boy was willing and dedicated to the dream. he had his coat on. 

we went to the pharm, where the ice cream was easily available, but a lot more costly. i thought that there would be some at the supermarket that was on sale. there always is. of course only off season. during the summer it is nearly the same price as gasoline. this means ridiculously costly. good thing we are not in the midst of the inevitable heat waves coming. so off we went. 

having made all of our purchases, we went to the gas station associated with the supermarket. they offer .05 cents off from their per gallon price, and the discounts get stronger after more groceries are purchased. turns out that my debit card did not want to comply with the general transfer of gas from the pump to my car. so we just packed it in for the night. 

recently, my boy and i have been embattled. usually he is the nicest of the brood. he has a program where he enjoys pretending that all is well between us. if it has not been delightful he acts as if he has been.  he actually tortures his sisters with this. with all sorts of college related events; acceptances, choices and decisions about where to go to college, he has been uncharacteristically stressed out. really stressed out. inevitable separation anxiety has played a role in his moodiness too. and after a extended showing of his mr. hyde, he has revisited his old sweet self again. wha-hoo!

one of the nicer things he does  when in this charm mode, is that pumps gas for my jalopy when we are traveling together. tonight with the debit card snafu i decided to just go home with my ice cream still frozen. i remain baffled about the gas pump issues. it appears that they only work when you make a purchase from the attendant in the boxy office and not directly from the computerized pumps. go figure. convenience interrupted. 

so we drove off into the rain without modest refueling. the car itself takes care of notifications regarding its own belly. for a while its red gas tank symbol was blinking at me from the dashboard. i wanted to silence its insistent "on again-off again" commentary. 

i think of that movement potential, red-line in terms of seinfeldian schtick . i call my husband either "Cosmo" or "kramer" for his ability to drive that car until its last juicy drops of fuel are replaced by hopeful fumes. This is just what Kramer did with a car salesman ... they drove and drove until they finally ran out of gas. it was after all for the thrill of going to the limit. the red line. the very end. luckily for kramer, he has no wife to annoy with phoning in his bail out request. 

i just needed enough gas to get the kids to and from school in the morning. it turned out that the placement of the needle on that familiar line was not done with me yet. there was plenty of gas to get home from the non-compliant pumps to our driveway. 

when we got home finding out,that there was no gas cap for the car. 

dang . IT . ALL!!!

so we backtracked to the store. we walked around on the street , we found stuff too. not the right stuff , but stuff that someone might like. a junkist to be sure. 

we drove at a very low speed. as we were ready to make the next turn or pot hole, we jumped every time a shadowy rounded piece was visible anywhere. 

nothing yet. 

as we neared home base, assessing every pothole, every storm drain, each slightly bumpy, hilly and curvilinear turn at 5 miles an hour,  nothing seemed to show up.

neither the boy nor i considered failure to find the locale of the gas cap a good thing. we knew hubby dearest would be displeased. 

our spirits dampened both figuratively and literally, we cheered and checked out the area for progress, the success rate was pretty flawed. our last two turns were coming up. the first a hairpin turn built around a  luckless used car lot was first. it yielded nothing of personal value.  the final turn opened its arms about 25 feet away. it was the one that created the last leg of our journey. it is the entryway to my street.  as i made it, i saw a good sized LUMP on the ground. it was our missing gas cap!!! we had made the trip to the market for no reason. the cap was on the ground at the base of my street .. 5 houses away. we had gone 10 miles out of the way to find what we were looking for in our own back yard. just proving as always, what you want is usually in your own yard. kind of a "wizard of oz" ending right?

SO...tonight we are irish. 

tonight we have luck. 

tonight we have our gas cap in its approved location. 

tonight, we have humanity. 

and yes, tonight, we have Ice Cream once again. 

oh, and we also have gas from another station too.

Y A H O O !!!!!! 

things seem pretty, pretty good!

nighty night. 

xoxo. 

W.

ode to spring

today is stunning out. for this, in spite of the regular crazy fare that i enjoy, i feel some creative juices may be flowering.
(ha ha ha!)
 i went to write flowing, and it came out flowering.
 talk about some kind of freudian slip?

so i think that today i shall be making flowery additions to my world.
 for a few years now, i have admired a lot of different jewelry artisans.
one has led me to purchase some crafting supplies that i may need to try out.
 i have 6 little tubes of alcohol ink which are supposed to be good for coloring metal.
 i think it may be just the time to give them a test.
if i run out of time, it will be attributed simply to getting flowers ready.  

 oooh i got some harvested!

and if my luck holds, there will be earrings to come. 

and even perhaps some necklace(s). 

there are a bunch of different techniques i've been investigating and experimenting with.
i may be able to tie some of these together finally for a new look for some of my jewelry.

there are a lot of copyists out there and for me, the only trick in my arsenal is to try to stay ahead of the pack. 

in this 'madonna' is my muse. 

i must try to stay as far ahead of the pack nipping at my heels and to keep on with personal evolutions and growth as much as i can.

if not, then i can always bake something, sew something or surf the internet.

 regardless of my unfocused plans, i will be reveling in the loveliness of the day.

and some revelry may even be from my front porch.

Road Trip

i am trying out a new trick for me. for unknown reasons, my daughter has finished up her first year of college seemingly earlier in the year than most college students are able to do. we are traveling to pick her and her year's accumulation of crap, i mean academic aids and clothing. it is an hour and a few minutes travel time, yet for my computer driven life at this time, it is possibly a real waste of time if i don't find something to do while going from point A to point B. 

so the new trick is sitting in rush hour traffic around Boston and working on this posting. it seems sort of surreal as i am close enough to the next car or semi to reach out of the window and touch them. also, the musical selections are at best a little fractured and float along near me as if i could perhaps stitch them together into a very wild sounding crazy quilt of sounds. 

as always, it is something that i might like to create cohesion from disparate things. just who i am. 

I am addicted to

 MISSMUSTARDSEED.blogspot.com.

there, i said it.

perhaps i need a many stepped program to lessen my overwhelming attachment to what she has to offer. 

 it is all about painted home furnishings, slipcover applications, how to create the looks of distressed, comfy usable furnishings.  i know i am in good company, since her followers are not just a few, but a few thousand and more hop on the miss mustard see train every day.  

 i have watched my blogging statistics go from 3 visitors to a whopping 32 followers. in this time, i have promised myself to improve  my frequency of posting and hopefully not bore you to tears content-wise. i am realistic about how much further i have to go to be a bigger & better force than i am in my own mind. this blogging phenom is just too fantastic to ignore. she really speaks to a lot of issues and makes it all seem like it is possible. i like that kind of encouraging spokesperson. 

also, i really love all of you guys that are visiting. more than you might know. sincerely and thoroughly. i have two teenagers (AND SOON TO BE 3 in a few minutes) that i live with. it is unusual that they solicit any information i have other than to shorten some homework issue. in the light of the larger picture and much more self absorbed issues, rarely do i feel like they listen to me or pay any heed to my ideas, suggestions, or demands. it is a natural condition, where the parents are totally insignificant. the adolescent mind falls prey to believing that they know it all, except for what they don't know. what i want to say, is that if i can' t be a significant leader, i want to be an invisible admirer of a kick-bottom blogger . one who soaks in all the intelligent juices the others have to offer up. so i am a groupie. and at the same time, i am trying to grow too. this is a wild frontier and offers a lot of very interesting possibilities. i may even be working on some of them right now...

anyways, i thought you all should know that you are rocking my world. i appreciate that you visit. 

as for miss mustard seed...

 i also can now see the immense  need for a swell camera. not just a point and click idiot-proof model... i see the beauty of a digital single lens reflex kind which has nice additional lenses to help with glare, poor lighting, and fuzziness. after all, my goal is to do a good job with every thing i try to do. 

my eyes have been opened to how to do create some  nice furnishings or  to finish up ridiculously unfinished things in my house.  my kitchen falls into this category. that is a loooong story. i dare not tap for now, but it will have more value in a few weeks. i have been percolating and finally have a plan!

i am crediting miss mustard seed. she is a genius. she has a ton of things she does. and she does things without being all kinds of nervewracked. when she does a slipcover, she just measures the places she wants to add cording, then pins her fabric to the chairs, no fussy patterns or freaking out for her. she pins, cuts sometimes, sews and within hours, voila! a fresh slipcover is made. no fussy measuring of skirt pleats, just finger-measuring of the finishing touches is done. what i like more than her style, is the ability not go nuts trying to make everything just perfect. who in life can handle perfection? i want to know why i can't take a lifetime of making, creating, blending, mixing, contrasting, etc. into perspective and just jump in without all the anxiety ?  it is not hard to make things happen creatively. i am pretty sure most of us get dressed each day. this is a way to display your taste and creatively configure some things to get an outcome. so i am on a mission for things at this bungalow. i want to change! i want to be less messy, live with easier solutions to  my own nearly critical mass of clutter and be more like miss mustard seed. 

she is one of several goddesses of change and influence. i shall ramble on about some of the others in upcoming days. 

meanwhile back at this ranch, i have been looking at stuff for about a year. i had a plan, but was not able to formulate a solution yet. i see in so many artistic rooms, studios, homes etc., that folks have bulletin or inspiration boards to hang things on. 

i never felt like i needed one particularly before. as i draw closer to cleaning and organizing space to work in for myself, i am feeling a little more inspired about having one. 

my love of vintage items, continues to pervade my daily experiences. i seemingly start more collections than a reasonable person might. about a year ago or maybe longer, when i started to move into my studio space, i inherited a hunk of homosote. i also found several picture frames in local trash. one such frame had a beautiful detailed surface that was halfway knocked off. it was made of cast plaster and was lovely, in a vestigial kind of way. i also was in spray painting any and everything in the back yard mode. so i painted the frame.  now with yucky looking homosote, a fragile frame painted in turquoise, and a recently unsorted collection of fabrics... i saw my board coming into focus. YAHOO. AND FINALLY!

a random collection of curtain tacks made a debut. i had been collecting these for a long while and had not sorted or applied them yet. (ok, i used one on a necklace after i removed the sharp end,grinding its stub into smoothness).

baby bee, the necklace. 

i hope you like the board that i made. i am pretty excited about it. 

and it is just one more thing getting me closer to hanging in my studio more often. 

who knows, i may even start making things there soon. i have a lot of plans to put into play. 

 my board and curtain tack pin collection

...now it just needs some pics. 

&&&&&&&

MY  TO-DO LIST... sorta

• a space dedicated to wrapping and shipping... i am desperately looking for a red wax paper dispenser somewhere in this house, that i wanted to mount and add architectural trace rolls in. do you know where i left it? it is here somewhere....groan. 

• refurbishing my sewing table ala miss mustard seed. i am considering robin's egg blue, pink, pale yellow or even white! 

• perhaps refurbishing my card catalog with a whole lotta fancy tissue and modge podge

• sewing some cute dresses for summer

• starting as advised against, by making a slipcover for my couch as a first project as this kind. 

• reworking some lamp shades from vintage fabrics

• finishing my kitchen about 16 yrs after it had a renovation. my son was a little over a year, and now is heading off to college in the fall. (warning... this is what happens when you marry a carpenter. your house is never done!)

• finally getting back to making my jewelry as it is my choice of generating  income .

• ok, as always, it is rather late, my spelling and grammar could use a good buff and polishing,

• instead, i wish you adieu for now. 

xoxo.

W.

time to tally the day

i am a woman of a certain age. i delicately try to live my life in good spirits. unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, sometimes this is NOT possible. it is related to my father's X chromosome donation. pretty much all of my girlie issues i can lay at his feet. i only know this because i have a half sister and she has all the same weird things go on. 

please, do not misunderstand my statement as anything other than i am getting older and just a little weirder. it happens as folks age. so here is my line-up for today:

1}hot flashes happened. i was sweaty and uncomfortable. it was only 76 degrees out and i  wasin a t-shirt feeling WAAAARM. 
2} i am on day 7 of a cold. it has been doing odd things to me all week. i had no visible symptoms for days, but wanted to itch both of my ears simultaneously with drill bit shaped cotton swabs that could easily meet in the middle of my already scrambled brain. (last summer one of my ears got clogged and i had to go to an ENT. i seriously considered running away to the bahamas with him. not that he asked. ok, not that he would have even noticed i was considering this either.) 
in addition to the itchy ears, the sore throat, the watery eyes, the snuffling, etc. all are making me pissy. now the past two days have held me hostage with nose blowing and the obvious signs of extreme x-game gale force winds moving through my sinuses. my face center area is red from all the blowing. frick. 
i want this gone, cause the only thing left to gift me with is more significant dry skin and chapping of lip/nose areas. i am not all that pretty to withstand these inflammations well. 
i am realistic about this. 
3} while making dinner pasta, i poured out the extra boiling water over the colander. having done this task a gazzillion times before, i managed to have a small tsunami flow up and out of the deep sink to hit my abdomen. i actually burned the front of my belly. this totally insulted me and hurt like hell. my son took pity on me and made an ice pack for the spots affected. i was so taken with his speedy kindness, that i bought him some overstock marshmallow peeps when i later went to get my long suffering, hungry dog some food at the supermarket. 
i just want to say, pink peeps have an aftertaste. i think i like yellow ones much better. i actually prefer the idea of making my own marshmallows and dunking them in raw sugar to fully rot my teeth out of my head. at least they will taste really yummy. and by now you know i am deeply and profoundly interested in yummy. 
4} i have to blow my nose again. dammit. 


on the other side of stuff.... several superior things happened. 
5} i made a deal to make a necklace for a woman that gives me free and gorgeous press on her blog. i do not really think my jewelry is all that, but sometimes others do. and i am most grateful for that when it happens!
check out her blog posting in which she says really nice things... i am not all that immodest, but i really appreciated that she did such a kind thing for me. 

http://networkedblogs.com/h7rzr

she included these two necklaces 

Angela Rose

Brandy, you're a fine girl...

 so brenda sue and i are gonna collaborate on a nifty necklace design. she will send me some of her coolio  metal findings and perhaps some ice resin poured stuff. i will see how i can best put them together into a crazy necklace for her. it promises to be quite a different look for both of us. 
i will keep you updated on things as the happen. i am totally psyched!


6} one of my earlier customers, izzy, is a personal chef based in Malaysia. she sent me a link to her website that she recently updated. her update included a copy of her advertisement in HARPER'S BAZAAR.... the Malaysian edition. 
she is a gorgeous woman inside and out, who has a career as a personal chef. when not cooking for high end clients and royals (i think i need to fantasize this one in, if it isn't true...), she is tripping all over the world. she might be a new heroine for me. 
anyways, her interview for an advert in the magazine is for H.MuMM champagne. 

check this out:

http://www.isadorachai.com/The_Press_Room.html

this stunning and talented woman is sporting a necklace that i made for her. 

i am so verklempt. 

ok, so the good over whelms the crap today. just thought i could let you know that as miserable as i am personally and to be around, 

I KNOW... that i am extra lucky. 

in almost every way imaginable. 

nighty night  all...

xoxo.

W.

tradesies? brownies for a sandwich?

tomorrow is a field trip for my son's APES class. APES is short for advanced placement environmental science, a course for upper class-men in his high school( you know, the ones with one foot out the door already). he took the course to load up his transcript with sciences and at the same time get to take some courses that allowed him to leave the school building. i accept that he is into this, even though it is not nearly as hard a course as AP physics or biology.

for him, it is a huge win-win. he is not the kind of kid that can thrive while in classrooms exclusively or without lab-style educational experiences. he needs fresh air and to keep on point when his school year is winding down. also he has a wicked (as they say in these here parts) case of senioritis.

if he can stay in the game of school for a few more weeks, i am really happy about that.

in conjunction with this Spring(fever) weather and his getting out of school for the day, he needs to bring a lunch along. this is not a problem, but on occasion,i am neglectful of the whole timely shopping for appropriate foods. this seems to be one of these times. so there are no cold-cuts in my house? should i freak out? no. no real time or money for fixing that. i live with locusts, you know, teenagers. they can mow down $200.oo worth of food in a few days. so getting the right food for perfect timing is really a challenge for me. i stopped trying to get things right. we have peanut butter and about 4 kinds of nice jams. if push comes to shove, i feel alright about letting him eat this for a day. it is novel at this time in life as well as delicious and nourishing. i think he will be ok , even if his heart is set on ham and cheese.

sorry, tough nuggies.

i found him texting someone on his phone while i was asking him to clean up his room. that is a repetitive, crummy, constant request on my part. i am not kidding when i ask. there are clothes at least a foot deep on the floor. and his shoes are HUGE. all the better for me to trip over.

i need not express how much i detest doing that!

the tripping, repeating myself and living with his messy style, i mean. when i finally got his attention, he admitted that he was trying to get a friend of his to bring him a sandwich for the field trip.

i give up.

i have tried to teach him not to be so rude, but he has finagled it into being one of his life gifts.

somehow he comes off as being very charming.

he has girls anxiously waiting to help him out in any imaginable socially acceptable manner.

his guy friends would not in a bazillion years consider making him a sandwich or full breakfast burritos as some sweet girl did recently. he is very smooth. i have no idea where he gets it from.

his father is a wiseass alternating with a grumpypants(i attribute that to being a morning person,which i am not). i am not always known for unerring diplomacy. however, since both dad and i are aware of some personal shortcomings, we have really tried to influence him and his sisters to be better than we are.

seemingly,it's working for him. much to my embarrassment.

since i was a more than a little horrified, i suggested that i would make brownies for him to trade for a sandwich. thus i would alleviate the guilt trippiness he'd laid me out in earlier this week. (he told me that he never gets pancakes for breakfast, but i make them for his sister all the time. of course this not true. he was "messing wit me" in his words.).

he got no bites on nagging some poor girl into making him sandwiches.

he did get me to make his brownies though.

brownies are one of my gifts from heaven. since i am an unabashed fan, i am always trying to improve on my baking techniques or tweaking recipes.

i started making them in my easy bake oven when i was 5.

when my mother was hospitalized and i was 6, i used the big household oven to bake things in.

no one was looking or paying attention to me in those days. it was as they say, a case of benign neglect.

being supervision-free can allow for Dickensian results.

you know, the ones where relatively small children participate in inappropriate age related tasks?

especially without anyone keeping them safe?

happily, i survived neatly, and with much larger portions of chocolatey goodness than my easy bake over could render after baking off with a light bulb.

DISCLAIMER:

{a moment of honesty}

i did NOT write this recipe.

i want this known up front. my luck came about after making the same recipe for years and years... decades and decades to be specific. my fave way to make brownies included melting baker's brand unsweetened chocolate and butter. this combination was added slowly to 3c. white sugar and 8 eggs which had been whipped into genoise style airiness. a little flour and some vanilla along with heat yielded a smashing light and deeply flavored confection.

i lived on these while i was a new mom. i needed the extra zip in my world to maintain my wakefulness.

it worked a treat too.

i am still trying to kick some calories to the curb twenty years later although,not admittedly too hard.

i have little self control obviously.

a male friend of ours used to drop in kind of regularly for a meal or a snack. he asked if i wanted to bake for a coffee house component of a space he was developing under his architectural hat.

long story made short... i needed to look for a less expensive way to make some brownies. although these were heavenly, i found a fresh recipe that used cocoa powder. i needed a rich and dewy replacement and while on my journey, i stumbled across this variation.

i am in love. it does all the things i need it to.

it is less costly, unless you buy the world's most costly eggs, sugar, and cocoa.

i am too frugal in many ways, but fresh eggs are essential. that applies to all of the best baked goods. that and unsalted butter. anyways... i shall share with no more special or self aggrandizing claims.

this is just a wonderful and easy recipe .

the only heating required is from melting the butter or margarine and from the oven itself. i find the microwave suits the melting phase pretty safely.

and yes, basically any 6 year old could do this safely with minor supervision.

the only real worry is if Fagin is around the corner looking for lifting a little snack for later.

kkk

INGREDIENTS:

my smudged up recipe card... which i adjust as my mood directs

to get my fave tasty results.

preheat oven to 325 degrees

and prep pan with parchment paper.

2 1/2 sticks of butter, margarine or a combination of the two

1 1/4 c. of packed brown sugar

1 1/4 c. of white sugar

1 3/4 c. cocoa powder

1/2 t. kosher salt

4 cold eggs

1 T. real vanilla extract

1 c. flour

1 1/3 c. lightly chopped walnuts (optional)

1/2 t. instant espresso or coffee powder (also optional)

1 c. chocolate chips... (my preference but also optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.} prep the pan with a sheet of parchment paper as shown here

http://wendybakerdesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/macaroons-foodies-version.html

skip the step for greasing the paper, just line a 13"x9" pan.

2.} melt butter in a heatproof glass measuring cup, in one minute increments.

i also like to put one of the empty wrappers on the top to keep it from spitting and such. it sticks to the rim and prevents anything from jumping the rim.

getting the shortening ready to be melted

3.} crack 4 eggs into a clean cup and make sure there are no shell fragments . set aside for now.

mise en place: everything in its place.

ready for adding into the bowl.

4.} measure out a cup of flour without tamping it down.

ready...?

5.} in a large bowl, sift the cocoa through a sieve to eliminate any lumps. add the white sugar, packed brown sugar & salt. mix so it is evenly combined. often there are little brown sugar lumps, so try to work these out into the dry ingredients if possible. (coffee can be added now if it seems right for your dream brownie).

dry ingredients all together

breaking up brown sugar lumps and blending all dry ingredients

6.} add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly, then add the butter carefully. it can splash if you are too vigorous in the mixing. add the vanilla too, again carefully so no splashing.

you can see how granular the sugar is still

7.} everything is in now,except the flour. add this in with as few strokes as possible. that way, the gluten won't have enough of a chance to develop. it will toughen your pastry if you do.

if nuts are desired, now is the time to add them in. gently.

addition of flour.

flour added...

8.} put the batter which may look too stiff, into the pan. spread it neatly with a butter knife or offset spatula. bake at 325 degrees until the surface springs back after lightly being touched. or if the edges of the brownies are just starting to pull a hair away from the sides of the pan. i usually can tell by smell ... when i smell them, they are done. basically, this is a baked flat souffle with a little flour holding it all together.

don't say anything... it is very stiff batter.

please do not act like my goofy 17 yo. son.

batter spread in the prepared, lined pan

9.} let cool completely. if you have time, you can freeze the pan a little and using the paper liner to lift out of the pan onto a cutting board, this way you can cut them neatly. if you choose to cut without the freezing part.... use a hot knife and wash with hot water,drying in between slicing the big bar of chocolatey yumminess.

these are very rich brownies so i cut them into 2 dozen servings

i hope you like these as much as me and the boyo.

and the rest of the family.

thanks as always,

xoxo.

W.