Have your tea and eat it too!
Earl Grey cupcakes with Lemon Cheesecake frosting
I really love Earl Grey tea, it's refreshing, uplifting...ok now I sound like I should do a voice over for a TV commercial, but needless to say I was excited to try my cupcake experiment and it works perfectly! So now you can have your tea and eat it!
Adapted from an original Vanilla cupcake recipe by Nigella Lawson.
Makes 12
Ingredients:
125g unsalted butter, softened
125 sugar
2 large free range eggs
125g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons of strongly brewed earl grey tea (cooled)
1-2 tablespoons of earl grey tea leaves
Add all ingredients into a bowl of food processor except the tea...blend well then add the tea until it forms a soft, dropping consistency.
Add the batter to 12 cupcakes paper lined moulded tray
Bake in a 200 degree oven for 15-20 minutes
Cool, then ice.
Frosting
1/2 cup icing sugar
125 lite cream cheese
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
rind of 1 lemon
plus long rind "ribbons" for decoration
Blend until smooth and then either use a piping bag or knife to ice the cupcakes, finishing with the rind "ribbons"
Fear of Failure
Not sure if I posted already this, but I am clearing out all my un-published posts and drafts and just thought it was kind of apt for me at the moment.
Huge Sigh…Ahhhh
Ok, I admit it's not the best title, but that's how I feel about my blog at the moment. So much has happened lately and I have been too busy to blog...so a huge catch up is necessary and to that I will have to use point form....
Here goes:
- Probably the biggest news is the fact that I recently entered Miss Pinup Australia and was selected by a panel of judges to compete in the NSW Final on November 12th. I am really excited about this experience, for more than one reason. I'll write about why I decided to do this in another post very soon.
- The second big thing is that I entered a photographic competition via The Galeries, which was judged by Paul Barbera of Where They Create fame (excite!) and I was runner up winning a $500 voucher for digital printing. I entered some of my 365wordgirl self-portraits as the theme for the competition was ‘CREATIVE SPACES OR CREATIVE PEOPLE’. You can view the winning photos here, along with my entry also.
- To coincide with my adventures into the realm of Pinup, I launched a new site - missmookie.com is the place where you can find all my pinup style photos and news, plus I added my dj mixes here also. I'm currently re-thinking where and how I will share my creative news and updates on the web. As I do a lot of different things it sometimes get all tangled and a bit overwhelming. Stay tuned!
- Another thing I recently took part in was a really cool live photoshoot installation SEVEN HUNDRED PHOTOS, which was at the Darlo Bar in Sydney. Presented by Jesse Willesee, seven artists were given free creative reign in seven hotel rooms...one room per artist, within these rooms and with the use of models, they created live installations. Photographers were then invited to come and take photos of anything they liked. After the event photographers were asked to submit their best pics, the entries were narrowed down to the top 30, in which 5 of my photos were included...then a top ten, I made this group also...the winner was selected and their photograph will be made into a label for the Darlo Bar's own wine 'Thirsty Artist' and featured until next year...awesome or what?!? oh plus the winner will also receive an entire case on 'their' wine for themselves
(The runner up scored a case also)
George Popov's entry:
Runner up Jack (Ben) Jackson's entry
My top ten entry:
And here is the first round of finalists! So much awesome...click on the thumbnails to see the album via facebook
I had such a great time at Seven Hundred photos and have met some really cool people along the way. This was meant to be the last Seven Hundred Photos event, but it was such a success it will hopefully continue happening in some shape or form. You can see all my photos here.
My favourite two photos from the night that I took would have to be:
Eidolon
25/6/2011
Spontaneous shoot I did.
Long single exposures.
Post production frame effect added.
© Melissa King 2011
Mayan Russian Playing Cards
I liked these so much I made an animated gif original images via englishrussia.com
Changes.
As you may or may not know I'm a Tumblr addict of sorts, which has inevitably meant that I neglect my 'real' blog.
I have oodles of draft posts sitting in my dash, but there is somehow more pressure involved in posting a wordpress blog post. It's so easy to reblog on tumblr and pretty pictures and also more appealing than lengthy copy (especially mine).
Anyway I just this morning hooked everything up, so as to avoid this blog neglect. Hopefully it will give me more time to do creative stuff, that I can in turn blog about - win/win, right? ;]
If all this fails I will ditch my wordpress and stick with Tumblr...but hey, I'll see how it goes.
Shoes + old leather bag + glue gun = BRAND NEW WEDGES
Customising shoes doesn't have to be difficult.
1. Find some cheap shoes on sale, I got these for $10...but they are nothing special...I like that they have a wedge heel though.
2. Old leather bag that you don't mind cutting up (or you could just use leather offcuts)
3. Cut the leather into strips.
4. With a glue gun, start gluing the strips around the shoe (obviously each pair with be different depending on the original shape of the shoe)
5. Continue gluing right around the shoe. It is a good idea to start at the centre back, at least that's what I did.
And yes...my studio table is usually this messy...gotta make a mess to create awesome stuff ;]
6. I added a fringe detail to the front of the shoe, to give it a finished look.
7. Voila! I'm pretty happy with the result and can't wait to customise my next pair of shoes.
I wish I could talk to Cindy Sherman today.
I want to pick up the phone and call her...perhaps David Byrne will answer (which would be awesome in itself), then hand the phone to Cindy. I would start by saying "thankyou". Thanks for inspiring me, thanks for dealing with feminist issues in a confronting way. Thanks for changing the way in which pop culture regards self-portraiture. Thanks for telling stories. Thanks for proving that self-portraiture is an artform in its own right and has nothing to do with Narcissism and vanity.
Then I would explain the rut I am in creatively...As you may or my not have noticed, a while ago, I stopped my 365wordgirl project. I don't know why I originally stopped...I think I used a difficult word as an excuse. Now each day it gets harder to start. I've lost my footing. I'm unsure how to go about taking the plunge to start again. I've lost confidence. I feel like a fraud. Do you understand Ms Sherman?
Does this go part and parcel with being a woman in our culture? Do I feel this way because I don't fit the mould? Does anyone? It seems that we can't have it all. Can we? I mean sure we can, but we will be judged?
Maybe all this self-doubt is simply part of the journey, after all I was never under the illusion that it was simply to create pretty pictures. I am indeed unpeeling layers...there are some issues I need to deal with. Of course, it would have been easier if I didn't over analyse everything - Damn virgos! Maybe I need to harden up. Swallow my pride and just get my hands dirty and just do it.
So I would ask you Cindy...should I stop right here? The thing is parts of me feel ugly inside. Are we threatened by this? Am I scared of this? Sure inside I feel beautiful, I love me and who I am, but at times there seems to be a disparity between my inner beauty and the definition of beauty in our world. I guess it relates to the general perception of what is deemed physically attractive and how this completely and unfairly differs for men and woman. Look on your movie/tv/computer screen, wrinkles on men are seen as distinguished, where as a woman will be airbrushed.
My project initially set out to be a fun discovery into random causality. Gathering random words from across the globe and careful constructing a self-portrait photo from these. Naively I thought the most difficult thing would be to work out how to include the 7 words each week. But being a woman makes this tricky...there is so much to prove, so much baggage to deal with (and it's not even mine). Simply by being a woman in a photo, you are defined in a totally different way from a man in a photo.
All the great artists have done self-portraits at some point in their career, we can hardly regard Van Gogh's self-portraits as vane. I have been meaning to write about this for so long, perhaps I should not have left it this long. Please forgive me Cindy. I want to make you proud, I want to show that woman are strong, that they can do anything they set out to do, but they are different from men. I want to capture the rawness of me, the essence of who I am inside and out.
I look to you Cindy and the art you have given us and I endeavor to keep going.
I took the following images on the weekend..it's not 365wordgirl, but it's a start.
You can view my 365wordgirl project here.
The biggest art gallery in the world.
If Banksy stands for a voice against the system, JR is a voice for the voiceless. In the world of street art, it is often assumed that a big part of the message, is the actual act. Using the streets as your canvas and turning the tradtions and institutional values of art on their heads. French street artist JR takes this idea further. He puts a face to his message literally. In his art the act is simply part of the whole process. I just watched his presentation for TED and although I had seen photos of his art on the bridges and buildings of Paris, I didn't know the background or the true extent of his work. It quite a simple idea with lots of impact. I am excited to see how his INSIDEOUT project will evolve. Inspiring! Go watch it!
TUFF STUFF
Recently featured in the TUFF STUFF treasury on Etsy.
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