Creative Juice

Inspiration For You

How to Blog a Recipe (Not)

Welcome to my blog. Today we are going to make this delicious dish that only takes 10 minutes to prep.

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Oh, yeah, I guess you already know that or you wouldn’t have clicked on this search result. But, do you know WHY I am sharing this recipe?

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Well, you are right, it was only to earn income from the ad you just skipped over. Do you at least remember what the ad was? No? Oh. Well, anyway, here are the INGREDIENTS in this recipe, where I will tell you why each one is fantastic on its own. So great, in fact, why mix them together?

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Oh, c’mon! You just ignored another two ads. Everyone uses this format; it must work some of the time… I give up – time to get to the recipe. Oh, when I said it only took ten minutes, I neglected to mention that you have to leave it in the fridge for 4 hours before cooking. That isn’t a problem is it?

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Here is the recipe. Come back next time when I will show you how to prepare a simple recipe. And by simple, I mean that it has one or more ingredients that are almost impossible to find and/or are really expensive.

You’re leaving my page? Was it something I wrote?

The Generating of Gneville the Gnome

After a long life of hiding in a neighbor’s garage, some cut-off pieces of landscape timber became mine. At first I thought I would be able to just cut off the corners at one end and paint them to make gnomes. Turns out even old timbers are pretty hard and dense! Plus difficult to clamp while keeping the corners clear.

I should explain that, even if I could afford strong power cutting tools, I will never use one. Twice I have needed stitches in my fingers just from using a (powerless) mat knife. I know how to use power tools in the correct manner to keep my hands, etc. away from the blades, but as I am a clutz, it’s better to just stay away. (My hands were where they should be with the mat knife, but I still managed to injure myself!)

But I digress. I did clean and power sand them, and round the corners a bit.

The hat: heavyweight vinyl fabric. I made a few “patterns” with tracing paper. The normal way to make cones, with an arch at the bottom, didn’t work with the square “head”. I ended up cutting out a wide, long triangle with a wide rectangle at the bottom. I sewed the side of the triangles together, then turned in right-side out, folded the rectangle up and topstitched.

Once I had marked how far the hat went down, I took off the hat and painted the face and body, and sprayed with clear finish.

The beard: nylon rope. As soon as I cut it with a sharp scissors, it started to unravel. So I knotted one end and stapled the other to the post. It also unraveled at that end to help make the moustache.

The nose: Use large (2″) wooden ball knobs, with a hole in the flat side. The cheapest are at Hobby Lobby; other places that carry them only sell them in large quantities. I used a dowel inserted into that hole and a hole drilled in the timber to give the connection more structural stability. I then covered the dowel pin and the flat surface with craft glue.

Then I put his hat back on, named him, and voila! Gneville the Gnome. He sits in a sheltered area by the front door.

I also made a Rudolph the Reindeer, but did not take photos of his progress. The body is stained, and the ears and antlers I cut out of wood. His shiny red nose is the same as Gneville’s.

AI, the Gluttonous Monster

The newest antagonist in an old battle

The media acts like AI is something new. In reality, it has been around awhile, but its output is much more advanced than it used to be – partially because developers think it is okay to input everything within reach.

Since the advent of personal computers, artists and other creatives have suffered from a lack of respect for actual skill and experience. Many people still think anything they see on the internet is free for the taking, regardless of copyrights and watermarks. AI developers just takes that free-for-all mentality and gets computers to do the dirty work.

I am a graphic designer and marketing/technical writer. Even back when print projects were the norm, there were people who acted it was all done by the computer and, therefore, easy. About 1999, I worked for a large manufacturer of engineered products. One person (from another department) decided his Six Sigma Green Belt project would eliminate my involvement in creating one-page case histories, which I had developed. He thought he could “automate” the process, using only the few notes the sales people provided. Now, our sales people were great at what they did, but not at writing terse copy or taking great photos. He didn’t realize that I actually used my brain to – in less than 100 words – describe the customer’s need and our technical solution, highlight the key points, and pair the copy with a visually-strong photo. You guessed it: he got nowhere with his project.

Today it is “easy” to slap together some words and images using readily-available apps, even some with a variety of templates. But are they the best combination? Does the piece reflect the quality of your product or service? Does it drive customers to action? Does it set it apart from your competitors’ products? Is it even noticed?

Don’t settle for “just good enough” or a machine that spits out something generic. Invest in a professional. Save the AI for more mindless tasks.

The Cow in My Strawberry Patch

How Michelangelo and I are alike

I’m not very good at breaking down how I create things. Michelangelo supposedly said “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”. Now, I am not anywhere as gifted as Michelango, but my explanation of how I create things would be just as useless to other artists! “I took a pallet… and made it look like a cow.”

My neighbors gave me a pallet in the fall of 2022 because I had a painted one in my garden. The new pallet was huge and heavy, so I knew I had to at least cut it in half to use. I was going to make planters except they wouldn’t really work where I planned to put them. Friends had tagged me in posts of pallet art, including one that was shaped like a butterfly. I thik I also saw one that had a painting of a cow. But I’m not sure where the idea “came from”.

I measured the pallet, then made a scale drawing in Illustrator to see if I had enough wood to do what I planned. I also made sort of an outline of the head to use to cut, because I can not, for the life of me, make an animal, etc. head/eyes, etc. even on both sides (even when I am painting just a cartoon face). I used a reciprocal saw to remove the planks, and a hand-held jigsaw for the shapes (which still did not turn out exact). The head is probably a tad large. When making things you have to be forgiving of yourself; a “mistake” is part of the process and can be worked over or ignored completely. Trying to “fix” an error can make things worse.

I luckily found a cow bell at a thrift shop. I used L-corner braces to attach the head to the rest of the pallet. I used “interior/exterior” white paint and craft paint. I used polycrylic over all. However, over last summer the white sort of yellowed, I am going to freshen up the white, then use my trusty Rustoleum clear to protect it, before releasing it back into my garden.