Coconut Key Lime Pie

Key limes are the cutest. And bonus, they make a fabulous pie. Especially when you put some toasted coconut in the mix. The not so fun part is juicing all the tiny limes, but oh my gosh you won't regret it. This is seriously the best key lime pie I've ever tasted. We found the recipe here.

KEY LIME COCONUT BARS

Crust:

1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs 

2 T. sugar

1/2 c. sweetened, flaked coconut

1/3 c. melted butter, melted

Filling:

3 cans sweetened, condensed milk

1/2 c. sour cream

3/4 c. key lime juice

1 Tbsp. grated lime zest

Topping:

Whipped cream and toasted coconut for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line an 8 x 8 square baking pan with parchment paper, overlapping the paper over the sides to create handles for later.  Mix crumbs, sugar, coconut, and butter in a bowl and press into the pan; bake for 8-10 minutes.  Remove and cool slightly.

While crust is cooling, make the filling. In a bowl, add the remaining ingredients: sweetened, condenced milk, sour cream, lime juice, and lime zest.  Whisk to combine until smooth and creamy.  Pour on top of crust; bake for 8-10 minutes until firm to the touch but not browned at all.   Cool at room temperature, then chill completely.

Top with some homemade whipped cream and toasted coconut.

(to toast the coconut, line a baking sheet with parchment paper; spread a thin layer of sweetened, shredded coconut on top, and bake at 350 degrees for 3-4 minutes until it's lightly golden brown)

Even these tough critics agreed that it was a-mazing. 

Art School: The Crowns

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9

Now that your Art Girl is coming along she needs a few finishing touches. As a member of a royal priesthood, every girl needs a crown! Absolutely all my art girls have some sort of crown. The techniques are pretty self explanatory, but I'll just run through some of the things I've tried.  

The girl above is sporting sticky backed rhinestones and a gold painted tiny starfish. Below, the middle gal is wearing paper flowers. The girl on the right, a feather and a simple painted gold headband.

Sometimes I really like to sew on canvas. This one is a piece of ribbon stitched on with embroidery thread.

This one has tiny glass beads embroidered onto it. The big blue one is just a sticker. 

I find myself being drawn more and more to the simple flower crown these days, though. To achieve this, start with your greenery. I do a simple two-stroke leaf, like a pointy oval. Then I just do blobs of color for the flowers. When it dries, I doodle a bit. 

The sky is absolutely the limit. You can be so creative with these! I hope you are having fun with this series. I can't wait to see what you guys are coming up with. Anybody giving it a go?! Be brave. It's just paint! You can even paint over it. 

Art School: Painting Faces

We're getting close to wrapping up our girls. Today they'll be almost done and will look like people. Yay! We starting from our sketch from yesterday.

Ok, so we start out by painting the whole face and neck. I use Americana buttermilk for caucasians. Fawn is great for oriental or latin ladies. Milk chocolate for lighter skin Africans and Raw Umber for darker tones are good colors to go with for beginners. Mix 'em up a bit if you need to. Go really easy on this and leave it thin enough that you can still see your sketch through the paint.

Next I sort of eyeball where my shirt goes and cut it out, coat it in Mod Podge and smack it on there. Most of my papers come from Paper-source. They are pricier than regular scrapbook paper, but they have such a beautiful selection and the quality is really special. Plus, you only need a little bit so it lasts forever.

Then we paint in the hair.

Sometimes I bring in another color for some highlights. It just gives it a little something. 

Next we bust out the Faber Castell artist pens. They are cheap. You can find them at your local craft store. And I use them like crazy on my faces. So let's get to it.

I turn it upside down (why??) and out line the chin in raw umber. 

I traced my eyelids with a dark brown faber castell pen. 

Same with the eyebrows. Use short little dashes just like little hairs.

Next I outline the lips in a pinkish faber castell pen.

Fill in the lips using a watercolor pencil. It goes on like a colored pencil.

But when you get it wet with a touch of water (or spit if you're a little gross, ha) it turns into a watercolor. Very pretty effect. 

So I do a bit on the cheeks too. 

And once I get them a little wet she's got a lovely rosy glow. It's like my favorite part. 

Then I paint some long black lashes on. I like them a bit unrealistically long cause I have a weird thing for fake lashes. I don't know what's up with that. 

Then we trace out the little nose.

And she seemed like she wanted a few little freckles, didn't she?

And then a few doodles around her shirt. My favorite pen is from Scarlet Lime. 

And we wrap it up with a few streaks with your markers in the hair. I used a walnut brown faber castell for all of her dark bits (hair streaks, eyelids, eyebrows) and raw umber on her nose, chin, and neck. 

That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll talk one of my favorite bits, THE CROWNS!

Art School: Sketching Faces

Hey guys! Let's get on with our art girls. Today we're just playing a bit with faces. Get a pencil and remember one thing... the eraser. When something bothers you, just erase it. I have no idea the proper way to draw faces. I did not go to art school. I am a housewife with an eraser. So here we go...

So we start with something like a pointy U, but not quite a V.

And a little neck

And then a shirt/dress. Straight across the neck, then down. This can be painted, colored, or you could use a patterned paper. We'll get to that just a little bit later though. 

So pretend there's a plus sign in the middle of her head. Half way down we do the eyelids. Just little curves for right now. 

And now she needs eyebrows.

Ok, let's not over thing the mouth. And remember your eraser. Remember? Ok. From the eyelids to chin there is another imaginary plus sign. Half way down is our nose. We'll do that in a second. A little below that we do a straight-ish line.

And then a little smaller line underneath.

And now a tiny little mountain range on top. Then connect the lines horizontally. Look! She's shaping up like a person now. 

For the nose, we start a bit below the eyelids and go a little diagonal. Then a little comma on the side. Noses are tricky. Don't go there.

Now let's pick a reasonably part in her hair. Hair covers a lot of forehead, so bring it down. Let's keep it a little free form. Hair is a bit messy too. 

And then the other side of the part. 

Then I bring the hair down a bit. I like to leave some pieces down.

Now from here just practice until you get to a face your happy with. Then go ahead and draw her on the canvas. 

I changed my mind and gave her a braid. :)

See you tomorrow. We'll start painting her!

Art School: The Background

Hey you guys! We are getting all settled into the Farmhouse, but I'm missing you, and ready to get back to blogging! So this week I'm teaching a little art class. I've been selling my art for a few years, but I think I'm mostly done with that. Out here in the country it's hard to zip out to the store if I run out of something (and the post office is torture!). Truth be told, I don't make anything on these since I'm dreadful at pricing! I decided it's time to just do them for a hobby or an occasional fundraiser (nativities are going down in November). And I'd really love to share how I make them with you so you can make them. I can't wait to see what your spin is on them.

So, here's a little background. I wanted to take a simple online art class that could teach me some basics. I'd never been particularly gifted with art, so I really needed some hand holding. I signed up for Christy Tomlinson's She Art class. I really liked her style and how she's so open with her techniques. These days my style is completely different from hers, but that's what I'd encourage you to explore here. She would teach how to make a background and I would copy it. Then I would try and touch base with what I didn't like about it and get brave going down my own path.

The heart of my girls is the scripture. I started painting them so that I could be more familiar with scripture. Choosing the verse and writing it would help me memorize it. So start now! Start praying for a good verse. We'll get there by the end of the week.

Today let's get started with backgrounds. I use mostly really cheap materials. There are a few little exceptions, but mostly I like to use what I can easily find at the craft store. This week I found these canvas panels at Walmart. They were about $4 for 3 8x10 panels. My paints are Americana. They are about $1 a pop and you can find them at any craft store. Again, my brushes are cheap because I ruin them all the time. :) The rest of it, I'll get to in just a second.

So here we go. Smack a couple of paints on a palette. Or maybe a plate from the kitchen. If you have a palette you'll feel like a real artist. You may even want to invest in a beret. But if not, a plate will do just fine. I picked a favorite combo, sea glass blue and pistachio. I call this combo The Jenny Marrs. It's beachy blue and green with a whitewash. It's because Jenny's whole life is in this color combo and every time she orders a painting she orders it like this. It's also my fave. But every time I paint this background I think of my girl Jenny. :)

So start painting your canvas. I do a little blue over here, a little green over there, mix it up. Keep it fluid. This is the fun part. 

Next you're going to need a really rough brush. Something that feels like straw. Something crunchy. You got it? We're going to dip it in white and then paint it off. You want your brush almost dry, almost without paint on it. 

The *very lightly* go over some of your painted background. Lightly. It will bring out that canvas texture and give it a nice vibe, don't you think? If you don't, don't do it! It's yours. 

So then we let it dry. It only takes a few minutes. Then I use a bit of this ink. It's an ink pad that you'd normally use for stamps. Sometimes I do, but I really like it to give an earthy quality to my backgrounds. I found this one at Hobby Lobby. All I do here is take off the lid, turn the ink pad face down and *very very lightly* rub a bit of it on the canvas. It's a little brown, a little shimmery. Just a hint, you know? 

Then we wrap it up with my favorite element. The ink!

I use Liquitex, in iridescent rich bronze. Again brownish and shimmery is my bag. The perfect combo of earthy and glam, that's just my style. I do have a hard time finding this in stores, so I stock up and order it from Scarlet Lime. 

I just splash a bit of it around the edges (remember, we want to leave the middles open for our art girl and scripture). I also run it around the edges. I don't know why. 

So that's the way I do my background these days. I go for simplicity now so as not to distract from the art girl. But there was a time that I really did up the backgrounds. If you like a little more wild, here's a few variations. 

In this one you can see some stamps that I added with black ink. I also did a few splashes of hot pink acrylic ink.  I LOVE this etsy shop for unique stamps. 

In this one I've got all kinds of stuff going on. Under the paint is some scrapbook paper mod-podged on. There's some antique sheet music in there. Splashes of different color paint. Sparkly confetti stars (sprinkle on while the paint is wet). And some drips of paint at the top. I just squeeze the paint straight from the bottle. A little heavier on the sides. 

You can get creative with these backgrounds. Anything goes. Just remember to not put anything to awesome in the middle where our art girl goes. I'll be back on Wednesday and we'll start working on painting our faces on there. Don't be intimidated. You just practice and practice until you find a groove. But we'll talk about a few techniques. Also, feel free to comment with any questions you run into. I'm totally open here. We'll be making these at our retreats all together, with more hands on instruction. Are you coming to our Glampout in August?! 

***did i say wednesday? i did, didn't i? well, then my husband called and asked me to run home and help him list our house for sale. and so i did, and then we sold our house. crazy, right?! god is so good to me sometimes! anyhow, back to the art. let me get my act together and i'll meet ya back here on monday for faces and hair.***