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Monday, December 29, 2008

CoCo Cat


You know how at the end of each episode of Inside the Actor's Studio the star being interviewed answers the same ten questions? One of them is, "What sound or noise do you love?" A friend of mine has the best answer ever for that question: the purring of a cat.

She says it's a lovely sound on several levels, not the least of which is that it exemplifies complete and utter contentment. 

This little stuffed cat, from Marjji's Etsy store, is a purr if I've ever seen one. I love the happy expression on his face, and his little button tag on his collar.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Transient Art 2


I found this photo on PostSecret (which, by the way, is one of my all-time favorite sites and an incredibly ingenius ongoing art/social experiment).


Make some art around your neighborhood and email it to me at caroline(at)bloomcreatives(dot)com. I'll feature all I receive here!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Married to the Sea

Married To The Sea
marriedtothesea.com


Very clever comics... Check them out.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Homemade Key Lime Pie

Copyright Bloom Creatives 2008. All rights reserved.

One of the easiest, most delicious desserts you can make is key lime pie. (By make I mean actually breaking out the mixer, not taking the box out of the freezer and letting it defrost.) 

Although not traditionally a holiday dish in most areas of the country, it is the perfect light finish to a heavy holiday meal: not to sweet, not too tart, airy and lovely. The semi-homemade version uses minimal ingredients - semi-homemade meaning using a ready-made graham cracker crust instead of making your own, but you are more than welcome to do that, too. Make sure that you use key lime juice, not regular lime juice. If you're ambitious you can squeeze the juice out of the itsy-bitsy limes yourself, but I would recommend using something like Nellie & Joe's Key Lime Juice instead.

Ingedients:
1 9" pre-made graham cracker pie crust
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup key lime juice
3 egg yolks
1 pint heavy cream or creme fraiche
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 tsp sugar (optional)

Mix together condensed milk, key lime juice and egg yolks (discard whites). Pour mixture into pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

Just prior to serving, whip heavy cream or creme fraiche in mixer. If you prefer sweeter cream, add vanilla and sugar. Top pie with whipped cream and serve.

Some notes: 
Technically, you do not have to bake this pie. The chemical reaction between the key lime juice and the egg yolks actually "cooks" the eggs, killing any salmonella, etc. However, I find that the short bake gives the pie a thicker consistency that I prefer.

Although my mother, the whipped cream purist, would wholeheartedly disagree, I would recommend sweetening the cream. Using the amounts of vanilla and sugar I have listed sweetens the cream just enough to offset the tartness of the lime custard, but is not sweet enough to be cloying.

There you go - a delicious, light end to a heavy holiday meal!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Transient Art



This is so wild...
Designers at ENESS created this art installation at Mount Buller in Victoria, Australia. Giant snowballs, projected light, creepy music and a Snowplow of Destruction. This is art for the sake of art distilled into its purest form - putting so much work into something, not only knowing that it will eventually be destroyed, but destroying it yourself. A dark metaphor for life.

Or maybe they are just boys who like to drive big trucks and break stuff.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Santa Cat

Photo copyright Bloom Creatives 2008. All Rights Reserved.

This is my pussycat, Riley. He is not the most cooperative model I've ever worked with, but at least he shows up on time and doesn't do coke in the dressing room.  He loves Christmas - or at least the wrapping paper - so I thought I'd get him in the Christmas spirit. That lasted all of five minutes, but it was long enough for me to get this shot!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Katie Holmes in NY Times Magazine


Don't get me wrong -- I still think she's a mind-controlled Stepford wife who is going to be very, very surprised when her ten-year contract is up and her "husband" is no longer jumping on couches over her.


But for now, I will give Katie Holmes props for this amazingly seductive photoshoot for the New York Times Magazine. 

Run

One of my most favorite songs ever is "Run" by Snow Patrol...




Now Leona Lewis has released a beautiful cover of the song, which I think is just as haunting... Her actual video for this is on YouTube, but embedding was disabled.


Lovely...

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

iPhone Skins...

Brandi Milne - Tea Party

I finally bought myself an iPhone! We are a Mac family in this house -- our grand total is now up to an iMac, a Mac Book, and iBook, two iPhones, an iPod Nano and various Mac accessories. We might singlehandedly be keeping Apple stock afloat.

Anyhoo, I've been looking for some covers for mine because I know what happens when I toss things into my purse. They become covered with scratches and lip gloss (not sure how that happens, as the cover is always on the lip gloss when I check. Evil lip gloss gnomes?). The ones they had at the Apple store were pretty generic, or made of florescent rubber -- neither of which were my style. There was a beautiful deep red faux croc skin one, but it was almost $60 and I won't pay that for faux anything.

I was checking out Gifts.com the other day at the suggestion of Kristy who Tweeted about it the other day. They had a link to Gelaskins, where I found tons of beautiful, original skins for my iPhone 3G!  Some designs are based on classic artworks, and some are by modern graphic designers. All are way cool. Here are some of my favorites:

Colin Tompson - Blue Willow

Sorsdahl - Spirit of Medicine Lake
Vincent Van Gogh - Almond Branches in Bloom