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happy friday, everyone!

this week's been quite the week. in some ways, it seems as though certain aspects of my job are winding down, while others are just ramping up - it's always exciting to start something new.

we're in a time of year right now where i'm not only looking forward to planning the fresh beginning of the leadership development program that i run (yes, it's starting next september but i need tons of planning time), but new developments with the orientation drop-in program that will be starting in may, and then of course everything that comes with student success + retention programming in the university atmosphere. then, thrown into the mix, there's a small conference in june, and a national conference in november. ah, the life of a student affairs professional - it's gonna be a busy few months!

in between meetings today, i busted out this month's martha stewart living and there was a feature in there for a photographic compilation called egg & nest by photographer rosamond purcell. now, i'm generally not the hugest fan of all things bird and eggy - i don't hate them, mind you, i'm more ambivalent about them than anything - but there was something about this book (or perhaps it was the feature on dyeing your own easter eggs that came after it?) that piqued my fancy. i thought, in honour of the spring that's arriving everywhere except for toronto, it'd be lovely to have an avian-themed mosaic to accompany today's post.

and a ring, just because i thought it was too awesome not to include. hey - it could fit, if it were a nature theme. and it could be.

what sorts of things are you looking forward to this mid-march weekend?

above images, left to right from top:

tweet by mamaroots, nesting on the magnolia by hadley hutton, bluebirds nest by adorn jewelry, cherry blossoms by kaku, untitled by meuh, untitled by momo, birds by dawin, egg & nest by wanderlust, bird stack by barking bird art, chickadee eggs by d. s. brennan photography, gather, square moss ring by adorn jewelry

delish

i'm having thai chicken wraps for dinner tonight, and it's gonna be fantastic. i love this recipe cause it's so simple and quick.

they're going to rock your world. seriously. unless i'm really pressed for time, the only tweak i make to this recipe is to chop up fresh veggies - generally whatever happens to be in the fridge. (my favourite combination includes bean sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, carrots, snow peas, and red peppers, but i always tell people to sub in any veggies they like better.)

this peanut sauce isn't spicy at all.. but it's a really nice touch so i'd highly recommend it. anyone that i've served this to has absolutely loved it - and because it's so flexible, it's pretty kid-friendly to boot (provided the kid doesn't have any nut allergies.)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
• 6, 8- to 10-inch spinach, red pepper, or whole-wheat tortillas
  
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 12 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast strips for stir-frying
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 4 cups packaged shredded broccoli (broccoli slaw mix)
• 1 medium red onion, cut into thin wedges
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

Directions

1. For peanut sauce, in a small saucepan combine sugar, peanut butter, soy sauce, water, the 2 tablespoons cooking oil, and the garlic. Heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring frequently. Set aside.

2. Wrap tortillas in foil. Bake in a 350 degree F oven about 10 minutes or until heated and softened. Meanwhile, in a medium mixing bowl combine garlic salt and pepper. Add chicken, tossing to coat evenly.

3. In a large skillet heat the 1 tablespoon oil. Cook and stir seasoned chicken in hot oil over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until cooked through. Remove chicken from skillet; keep warm. Add broccoli, onion, and ginger to skillet. Cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes or until vegetables are tender-crisp. Remove from heat.

4. To assemble, spread each tortilla with about 1 tablespoon of the peanut sauce. Top with chicken strips and vegetable mixture. Roll up each tortilla, securing with a wooden toothpick. Serve immediately with remaining sauce. Makes 6 servings.

six hours til dinnertime. YUM!

zoom zoom

busy day planned for today (meetings, meetings, and more meetings about an upcoming conference i'm planning) but first things first.

hands up: who's got a mild to severe shoe obsession? who likes free art? who would like a combination of the two?

if your hand is waving manically in the air (oo! ooo! ooooo!), then you might want to check out mike's first-ever giveaway. swing by his blog and leave a comment to get entered to win!

also: you may notice that i've updated my left-hand sidebar. (you may also be thinking that it's about freakin time.) there's tons of new links to blogs and other awesome sites that i've been following for the past little while, but have never had a chance to share with you guys. sticking with my organization fetish, i've rearranged them into new categories to explore as well - i like to think that they're pretty self explanatory.

hey - if they're not, click on one of the links in that category and think of it as an adventure.

things that i'm loving today:

• this kick-ass yellow chair
• sweet new vector graphics over here
• staying organized in style

and that's it from me today, folks.

courtney OUT!

for the days when... (part deux)

for the days when you're not quite feeling it:

if nothing grabs hold of you when you sit down to create, don't force it - quality is better than quantity. lighten up.

the value of play is often underestimated - it's not only a great way to have fun, but it's good for your health and stress levels, and exercises your brain in terms of flexibility. remember when creating something first took hold of you? you'd take some time and genuinely just dabble in your craft. you'd try various techniques and approaches and eventually, you found a way that you thought worked best for you.

keeping this in mind, on the days when you're not quite feeling it, try switching it up.

(penicillin was discovered purely by accident - you too could come across a new favourite colour combination, inspiration or technique purely by changing your routine.)

are you a painter who plans? plan less. just put paint to canvas and see where it takes you. mixed media? put together two textures you haven't worked with before, and that you're not sure will work. writer? just write. don't edit.

too often we censor ourselves in the interests of time, expediency, fear, or convenience. remember: fortune favours the bold. take time for a creative stream of consciousness, uncensored and unhindered by expectations.

and hey - if it doesn't fly. it's ok. you were just playing around anyways.

image by kal

point-and-shoot product photography 101

hello monday!

what a productive sunday i had. not only did i get rolling on my chair reupholstery project, but i got a bunch of new product shots done for my shop despite the extremely overcast day on sunday.

to that end, i've had a few emails with questions about my photo-taking process, so i'll answer them here today for you all to see.

now, i don't consider myself anything close to a pro photographer but i do know that some types of overcast days can be pretty good for picture taking, cause it eliminates harsh shadows in the picture that are caused by the bright bright sunshine. sometimes, though, it's a bit too much and it casts a bluish tone in the shots which really affects the colour of the photo.

what i do to remedy this is to arrange my photo setup as close as possible to a window and get the product to face the light source (i find that backlighting is a pain in the butt to digitally correct and is super easy to avoid witha little forethought). all of these pictures were taken just with natural sunlight; no inside lights whatsoever. they cast a orangey-yellow hue - even if your primary source is natural light - so i just avoid them whenever possible.

(for the record: i've tried using full-spectrum bulbs before, but i found that instead of the yellow hue that the tungsten bulb gives, pics taken with this type of lighting often need to be colour-corrected for the overabundance of magenta. i try my best to avoid touch-ups from the get-go, so i'd highly recommend using natural light, especially for beginners. it means less "post-production" work.)

with these paintings in particular, i was having some troubles with glare from the glass in the picture frames, so i took the glass out. from there on in, i experimented with a few props to add some visual interest - i try to have varying heights, textures and colours in the shot, and generally try to avoid straight-on shots since i find that they look somewhat flat. angles are where it's at - and besides, people can see the simple 'head on' shot with the scans that i use as alternate images in my shop.

something else that i always do when taking product photos is take a slew of pictures with different setups, props and angles. really, i do this for a variety of reasons, but mostly because what works in my minds eye doesn't always translate the same way on the camera lens; little details jump out at you more when you're seeing the enlarged photo on your computer screen rather than your viewfinder. for this particular photoshoot, i took about 15-20 pictures. i've no clue if this is bordering obsessive and just plain weird or not, but it's what works for me.

(plus when you're taking pictures with a dinky lil point-and-shoot with no flash in overcast lighting and no tripod, sometimes your pics end up blurry. you've gotta plan for this.)

anyhow, once i've got a few pics that i like, i'll touch them up a bit with photoshop adjusting a mix of the levels, colour balance, curves or saturation. once i've got their colours looking as close as possible to real life, i post 'em up in the shop.

finito!

ps - another weekend highlight: i got my triple the teal necklace featured on etsy's front page, and wouldn't even have known it if it weren't for sweet miss holly of winklepots letting me know. (did you know there was a front page flickr group?! thanks to holly's inside scoop, i was able to experience the moment in retrospect, which was awesome.)