Sunday, October 30, 2011

Holiday Ice Sculptures

Ice sculpture is a form of sculpture which is three dimensional artwork made from ice, water that is frozen into a solid state as the raw material. 


Santa's Throne
 Ice Art

Sculptures can be abstract or realistic and can be functional or purely decorative.

Gingerbread House
Ice-Is-Nice

They are generally associated with special events because of their limited lifetime.

Holiday Display
 Ice Art

The temperature of the environment affects how quickly the piece must be completed to avoid the effects of melting.

Santa's Sleigh
Ice Impressions

If the sculpting doesn't take place in a cold environment, then the sculptor must work very quickly to complete his piece.

Angel
About.com

Some sculptures can be done in ten minutes if the carver is using power tools such as a chainsaw and specialty bits fitted to a die grinder which is a hand-held power tool sculptors use for contouring.

Toy train and Santa
 Ice Art

They also use razor-sharp chisels and hand saws specifically designed for cutting ice.

Snowflake
Ice-Is-Nice

Tree with lights frozen inside
 Ice Art

Color effects are possible by a number of techniques, including the addition of colored gels or sand to the ice.

Santa in his sleigh
Ice-Is-Nice


Holiday Home
Inside Medford

This art form is traditionally taught in culinary schools, but there are some small schools that teach ice carving.

Angel
 Ice Art 
Harbin_International_Ice_and_Snow_Sculpture_Festival in China is a famous event held annually and has increased in size over the years. Sculptures of all sizes appear, up to and including building size pieces.




                 Cool Way Ice Inc.

I love ice sculptures. It takes very talented people to create these beautiful works of art.

 Hope you have a wonderful day.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ankh-Morpork first plays

Ankh-Morpork is Martin Wallace's venture into the family market as regards game design. It's by far his lightest game and has a fair amount of random chaos in it. This in itself will turn a lot of hard-core gamers off as they cannot control everything that happens on the board. I myself can play both types of game, you have approach them with a different take that's all.



It plays from 2-4 and Tina and I have played four games so far. The games premise is basically that you are trying to control the city of Ankh-Morpork. There are 7 personality cards and each has it's own victory condition. For example, Commander Vines wins if the card deck runs out and the Dragon King of Arms wins if there are 8 or more trouble markers on the board......oops, sorry not supposed to mention the number between 7 and 9. In the collectors edition, which I have, it is never mentioned. Even the 12 sided die has 7a instead of it. Each player draws a random personality card at the start and so each player has (maybe) different victory conditions. As I said, we have played 4 games, I have won 3 and Tina 1. My wins were as Lord Vetinari (who needs minions in 11 areas to win), two of the personalities that need control of 7 areas to win. There are three of these in the game. You have control of an area if you have more pieces (minions and buildings) than anyone else in an area. Tina won with one of these as well.....I wasn't concentrating and she sort of crept up on me.



As you can see Tina is playing red and won quite easily. The game is primarily card driven. There is a deck of over 100 cards depicting the characters and places in Terry Pratchett's fantasy world of Discworld. Your turn consists of playing a card, doing what it says on the card and drawing back to a hand of 5. Easy, eh! Well, there's a bit more to it than that. There are 12 areas on the board and each has a corresponding card. If you build a building in an area you get the card for that area and that gives you a special ability. It may be once a turn take 2 dollars from the bank, or pay 3 dollars and place a minion in that area or an adjacent area. They are all beneficial to some extent. Then there is trouble, trouble happens when there are more than one minion in an area. You place a trouble counter in that area if you add, remove or move a minion. You cannot build a building in area with trouble in it. There are also Trolls and Demons just to spice up the game a bit.

That cannot be said for the event deck. There are wizard cards in the deck, well, there would be wouldn't there. If you play a wizard you must draw a card from the event deck.....all events are bad. Fire, flood, murders it's all good fun. All in all I really enjoyed Ankh-Morpork. The randomness will increase with the number of players so will the fun I think. There is always a lot chaos and trouble in the Discworld books so it's true to the theme.

Happy Gaming!!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Beautiful Christmas Music to Dream and Relax

Lots of beautiful snowy scenes (I see some Thomas Kinkade artwork here too...love him) set to Kenny G's "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." So relaxing and dreamy! If you enjoy Thomas Kinkade's artwork you can check Here for my post with some of his beautiful Christmas Scenes. Hope you enjoy the video. I will be linking this post to Natasha's Pinning and Singing on the Weekend. Please pause music player on the left.






Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Essen time again

Well, I have been to visit England for a couple of weeks, been back a week now. I was waiting for my copy of Anhk-Morpork to arrive before I went .....but it didn't. It was waiting for me when I got back though. I love it. I am a great Terry Pratchett fan so I was biased I think. Been looking at the live feed on BGG today, great quality. I shall be watching over the next few days, next best thing to being there. I know a few of my old gaming buddies will be there.....lucky them.

The weather is starting to get colder here, the tourist season is nearly over. A lot of the hotels and restaurants are closing for a short break. Soon it will the Christmas Advent market, that starts November 18th and I am looking forward to that very much. We will soon get the snow I expect, I don't care for it much but Tina loves it.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Antique Santa Postcards

I found this beautiful collection of Old World Santa postcards at http://www.santalady.com/. I love their vintage look and Santa Lady tells all about each one, where it was printed , and when it was post dated. One of them dates back to 1898! You can read about her collection of  post cards Here.





I especially love this last postcard! I hope all of you have a nice week.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Ceramic Santa Claus

This post is for Sundays with Santa at http://yuletideseasonings.blogspot.com/. This is a ceramic Santa that my mother made way back in the 70's! She was in to making ceramics at the time and even had a kiln  in the basement to cure the ceramics. She knew how much I loved this Santa and eventually gave it to me to proudly display in my own home. I make sure he is dust free and cover him in plastic and put in a box when putting him away until next Christmas. I don't know where he'll go when I'm no longer here, but hopefully, he'll have a place in one of my children's home!




 I took Mr. Claus out this morning to photograph and just thought that I would leave him out....in two weeks I'll start my decorating. I always start to get things out right after Halloween since it takes me two weeks or so to decorate. I only do a little each day and it's so much work bringing all of it up from the basement, the cleaning, etc., and I'm sure you all know what I mean!

 So I hope all of you have a great Sunday and join in celebrating Sundays with Santa with your favorite Santa images or collections, or anything Santa related!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Enya-Journey of the Angels

Such a beautiful song and Enya has the voice of an angel! So calming and peaceful. If you listen, you will need to pause the music player on the left sidebar. Enjoy!



 From the album: And Winter Come(2008)

Somewhere
 In a winter night
The angels
 Begin their flight;
 Dark skies
 With miles to go,
 No footsteps
 To be lost in snow.

 They fly to you
 Oh, new-born king
They fly to you
 Oh, angels sing

 One is sorrow
One is peace
One will come
 To give you sleep
 One is comfort
 One is grief
One will take
The tears you weep

 New star
 In a midnight sky
 In heaven
All the angels fly
Soft wings so true
 And all things
They will give to you

 Somewhere
 In a winter night
The angels
 Begin their flight

 Tonight
 All sing
 Oh, angels,
 A new-born king
 Tonight
 All sing
Oh, angels
A new-born king
  
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Sunday, October 9, 2011

4' Ltd. Edition Santa by Jim Shore

I mentioned in an earlier post which you can find here, how much I love Jim Shore's hand painted pieces. His work is beautiful. I have several and try to get a new piece each year. I'm linking to http://yuletideseasonings.blogspot.com/ for her Sundays with Santa, and this is what I have chosen to share. Now I do not or never will own this piece as it is way out of my price factor, $1,999.00, but it's made of stone resin to resemble hand carved wood and only 75 were made. He stands at 4ft. tall.  I hear that a prince bought one and being a prince he must be rich! This would look so nice in an entryway! I love the little lantern he's holding and the artwork is beautiful! Happy Sundays with Santa.
Source: qvc.com via Dorothy on Pinterest

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Halloween Rap, by Jib Jab!


Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Decided to have a little fun today with Jib Jab! In this video is my hubby, Bruce, Dracula, my son George, Frankenstein,  my two granddaughters, Kashmir, the Witch, & Kelsi, the DJ., and myself...the mummy! Enjoy!

P.S. Don't forget to pause the music player on the left to listen.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Image credit, Royce Bair, from The Stock Solution.

I thought this was such a cheery cupcake Christmas tree! What a great idea. Royce Bair took this photo of his two granddaughters' creation , they were 9 & 13 yrs. old at that time, who decorated the cupcakes and arranged them in the display to look like a Christmas tree for an extended Christmas Eve party they were having.

Great job girls!




Christmas Cake, Post No. 2

Good morning! I get many views on Christmas Cakes, so I thought I would do another post on them. These cake recipes can be found at allrecipes.com. They have all been rated 5 star's. Maybe you're looking for something new to try this year? All of the nutritional information is given and all are kitchen approved. Enjoy!






Cranberry Walnut Bread

Christmas Cherry Cake

Source: allrecipes.com via Dorothy on Pinterest 
Candy Cane Coffee Cake



Viennese Torte


Almond Tea Cakes


Philly Sugar Shack Maple Walnut Cheese Cake




Gingerbread Cake


Heavenly Chipped Chocolate & Hazlenut Cheesecake


Company Cheesecake


Southern Style Banana Split Cake



Creamy Coconut Cake


Philadelphia Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake