Author: susanmwb

Multi-passionate artist living each day as creatively as possible!!

Best Laid Plans

Son is forced to wear flower hat at art show

Well, as life would have it, things between my last post and this one didn’t go as I had thought it would. UGH.

Last fall I got through show season and that was great. Lots of fabulous customers, some laughs, a lot of serious conversation, and many more ideas for the future. Then we had an election (we could talk about that for a month)and we headed into the holidays. We’re a small family so we had lots of time together. As is tradition we cook together for each holiday and choose a different category each time. Thanksgiving was Indian cuisine and Christmas was Asian. Such fun to create things we’ve not done before…and delicious!

Then right after the first of the year everyone got sick. My son came down with the flu. My husband came down with the flu…and my daughter came down with the flu. And just when everyone was starting to feel like they kicked it…it all happened again! My son and husband both got hit by the flu twice! They tried very hard to give it to me but other than a couple days of feeling lazy and tired I didn’t get sick.

The worst part of all of this was our lovely 16 year old dog was getting more and more feeble. She had lost the use of her hips so couldn’t get up and down by herself. That meant that for many months we were up at all hours of the night helping her get outside to go potty or eat or just get some exercise. We tried getting her into a little wagon for some trips around our block but she hated it. As February approached she was more and more miserable. She began howling in the middle of the night, every night.

We had a wonderful vet that came to the house only to tell us she had lymphoma and wouldn’t be getting any better. With lots of discussions and heartache we made the decision to help her over the rainbow bridge. So during the second week of February our lovely vet came to the house and we said goodbye to Sunny. To say it was hard would be an understatement. Losing a furry family member is the worst.

So all of this to say that I messed up my application to Irvine this June. First time in something like 18 years. In the midst of my emotional distress I got it in my head that the deadline was April 1st (after as long as its been you’d think I’d have the deadline memorized) but what it really was was March 1. And I totally missed it.

Now it’s July and here I am in my studio surrounded in my art. There are literally 100’s of pairs of earrings, necklaces, and bracelets in this studio. I was contemplating applying to a couple other shows but I’m on the fence about it and feeling like I need some mental break time to refocus and reinvigorate my creativity. Everyone needs some down time right?

Stay tuned while I figure out what’s next…

Thoughtfully Yours,
Susan

Posted on by

Website Work

the real me as a clown

Working, working, working…why is computer work so time consuming? Blah…

I’m attempting to make this website prettier and easier to get around. New pages for all my jewelry and creations. New pages for my portfolio and all my cute clients. Updated event page so you know where to find me. Please take a tour around and see what you think.

More to come…

Life is short. Believe in fun.

Posted on by

New Things Coming!

Jack O'lanterns that look like cherries!

I’ve been working behind the scenes to create new things and, thank goodness, Halloween is on the way! My favorite time to design scary stuff.

The picture above are some new pieces of Jack O’Lantern cherries…aren’t they fun! Lots of new things are being put together behind the scenes so stay tuned for a release date!

Always believe in fun!

Susan

Posted on by

The Virus Chronicles Part 3: Navigating Change

So here we are about a year into this pandemic. There seems to be a glimmer of light towards the future but boy oh boy I am tired.

Rationally I know there’s a plan but I’m tired of staying home. Tired of wearing a mask…now recommended we wear two. Tired of not seeing friends. Tired of hearing about friends dying from the virus. Tired of hearing about the massive number of deaths around the country. Tired of plans made and not coming to fruition because of this damned virus. Tired of people not taking it seriously. Tired of health emergencies being treated as political (I won’t go there but you know what I mean). I could go on and on and on…

I’m sure you feel the same.

I feel like I’ve aged 10 years since this started. How about you? There isn’t enough retinol around to cure what the past 12 months has done to our faces.

I go from okay, happy productive one day to depressed, emotional, and paralyzed the next. WTH?

So what now? How do we go from all this chaos, change, emotional overload, pandemic…to continue into the future?

I wish I had an easy answer. I’m working on what that looks like for me. Staying creative has helped but it’s hard to keep creating when the world feels so heavy. But I keep trying. And I am thinking about circling back to the ideas and projects I was in the midst of last year at this time. Maybe plucking some creative gem from things that were lost to bring them forward. That might spark some joyful movement.

I feel a lot like the little viruses in the video above. Bumping into things, bouncing off, not really sticking to any one thing. But I need to find cohesion. Something to bind me to the future so I can stop wallowing in the past.

I will promise myself only to keep working and give myself some grace as the next few months unfold.

Stay tuned…

Posted on by

Veganuary 2021 Easy Condiments: Vegan Ranch Dressing

https://youtu.be/AS4nrVHpJ2g

The vegan ranch dressing recipe here builds off my last post where we made mayonnaise. If time is of the essence or you just don’t want to make your own mayo substitute a store bought vegan brand of mayo.

Here we go!

Vegan Ranch Dressing or Dip

1 1/2 cups of mayo, hand made or use store bought vegan
3-6 tablespoons of unsweetened non-dairy milk. I prefer soy milk but others work too.
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoons dried dill
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste

Add all the ingredients together and stir well. Taste and adjust the flavors to your taste. It’s that easy!

A couple notes…you could make this with all fresh ingredients. In all honesty I haven’t tried it that way but I don’t see why it wouldn’t’ work. There might be some adjustments to make. As an example fresh garlic is a bit more pungent than dried also a tablespoon of dried parsley is quite a bit more than fresh so you’d want more. But give it a try…I bet it would be delicious!

Also I start with 2-3 tablespoons of the non-dairy milk and decide at the end how much more to add. If you leave it at that it makes a great dip consistency or is much more liquid for salad dressing if you add the full amount.

As I said in my mayo post this is not only super easy to make but also will save you some money. A bottle of vegan ranch dressing around here is about $5. Making my own mayo costs me around $3 then the herbs here really cost very little and I always know what’s in my food. Food for thought…:)

Place it in a covered container for the fridge and the next day it really sets the flavor and is better than the first day. This keeps at least a week…if it lasts.

This is one of our favorite recipes and it disappears in a very short time. We use it for salad, chip dip, dipping vegan chicken fingers or hot wings, carrot sticks, celery dip…etc. You can see why it doesn’t last long.

Enjoy!!

Until next time,

Susan

Posted on by