The Bees Knees revealed....

Green Hive Honey of Camden, Maine has a new product and I am the happy one who had the enviable task of designing a new label for The Bees Knees "A Sweet Arthritis Remedy"!! Yea for me....below is the original label/logo I created for their raw honey and we used this as the starting point for the new label which will be categorized in the
Bee Healthy section of their business.

First I created the handpainted type, as you see below...something I derive a great deal of pleasure from, type and fonts have always fascinated me and remind me of the days when I worked in a commercial art studio hand laying Letraset by the ream, what a different world that was a couple of centuries ago or so it seems.

Next I silhouetted the banner from the original watercolour painting of the Green Hive Honey logo....

 

...then I found James' lovely drawing of a pretty bee to add to the label....

and THEN I scanned, cleaned and corodinated, or even coordinated although I do like the word corodinated - all the component pieces in wondrous Photoshop...which allows me to add the small type and not drive myself insane with drawing minute type.....we choose to use a pale yellow background and a round label to differentiate the regular eating honey from the beneficial honey...and Ta Dah...here is the label

Then off to do the photoshoot for me to upload to Etsy and James to do a new page on the website - just couldn't resist a pink background here

A little still life of jar, lettering and labels for the soothing of thine eyes!!

I posit a POSSET for your Beloved....

 How simple can a dessert/Brit pudding be? So simple it needed a colourful and fun background to give it some counterpoint, and hey with all the snow here and lack of colour I need something bright to revive my eyeballs.

ELIZABETHAN POSSET:

OED definition is: Drink made of hot milk curdled with ale, wine etc (sounds charming....) formerly used much as a remedy for colds. In the Elizabethan era it became the recipe you see below...a more refined pudding in the truest Blighty tradition.

OK I’ve said some of my other desserts/puddings here were simple but this beats them all….4 ingredients (you can even make it 3 if you want to use just sugar - delete the honey and add in 2 extra tablespoons of sugar) and 3 minutes of cooking and a really impressive and divine dessert results!! Sure to impress your beloved on Valentine’s Day!!

INGREDIENTS:

Makes 4 servings.

½ cup/3oz sugar (I used organic slightly brown sugar but if you want your posset the palest of colours then use white)

2 tablespoons of honey

1 1/2 cups/12 fl oz heavy/double cream

Juice of one lemon

METHOD:

1. Put cream, sugar and honey in a heavy bottomed pan.

2. Warm to just barely boiling

3. Simmer very gently for 3 minutes and stir occasionally to prevent stickage.

4. Transfer to a bowl, whisk in the lemon juice dribble by dribble…be in

awe as the mixture thickens.

5. Pour into small, ½ cup containers and allow to cool then pop

into the fridgerdator (tee hee) for about 4 hours until completely set.

6. This is a truly amazing dessert/pudding but I realize what it actually is is a slightly set sweet cheese…do try it, I know you will be impressed!!

Here's what I am working on right now. There's part of that word above that becomes so important in just 10 days time...but which should be as important every other day of the year! and YES glitter glue...I have found a way to use it in my geometric paintings....I know it's hokey and silly but glitter glue takes me back to my childhood and sparkly Christmas cards and my transparent pink plastic stilletoes that had sparkly bits all through them...boy I LOVED those shoes and, of course, they were PINK!!

And here's some pictures of Maine's current disappearing act...more snow due tomorrow and potentially again next Tuesday...how much more shoveling does a girl have in her I ask you??

 

I took these pictures at dusk, my favourite time of the day to be wandering out in a snowstorm...the low light and snow certainly make any colour stand out admirably...and I was cheeky and used the flash to accentuate the gold leaf and tiny snowflakes.

James' "Leap, run, leaping" below is running out of steam and has almost sunk beneath the waves of snow, will she disappear completely in the days to come?

 

And finally "Girl Facing North East"  stands strong against the winter winds.