RiverDog Prints Card BlogHomemade | RiverDog Prints Card Blog

Summer in Black and White

Cyn — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:50:55 +0000

This summer, part of my focus has been on a new found love — canning. It hasn’t manifested in the traditional sense. After creating paper goods for the people who “put up” (you can read about how that came about here), I’ve had a few experiences canning my own food from our CSA. While I’m proud of those jars, as my 5-year-old is proud of writing his name, the act of canning is not what has me jazzed.

I have found a way to marry a couple of my passions: paper goods and fresh, local, organic food. I am ecstatic to contribute to the homemade food movement through my business. And the success I feel has encouraged many more ideas that will support this movement and, in turn, me.

My summer in black and white was discovering the writing on the wall.

:::

This post is part of We Scout Wednesday this week on ScoutieGirl.com. Join in here.

Canning Party for One

Cyn — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:01:35 +0000

I’m excited to share my first canning experience. I only have a few photos because we had crazy, tornado-y thunderstorms move through as I was processing the brine and jar. Not good lighting for photos…

Dill Pickles from Canning & Preserving with Ashley English.
Hopefully the first of many canning experiences:

There are many canning parties going on this weekend. Check out the list of this Can-a-Rama at Canning Across America. I would definitely have joined this event, if I wasn’t going to be in an airplane on my way to another state. Check it out on July 24 & 25. Happy canning!

Giveaway :: Canning and Preserving with Ashley English

Cyn — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:57:17 +0000

**Update**
The giveaway has ended. Check our Facebook page in June for another giveaway of canning tags & labels. Thanks so much for entering!

I am very excited to host this giveaway of canning goodies!

One of the best instructional books I’ve read in awhile is Canning and Preserving with Ashley English: All you Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More. Ashley is the blog author of Small Measure, one of my favorite reads and a great tribute to homemade living. Canning & Preserving is one of her first books in a series called Homemade Living and it’s a terrific guide for anyone who wants to start canning. I’ve read it cover to cover and am SO ready to begin making my own homemade goodies.

I first met Ashley through her blog, where she was having a monthly giveaway of one of the canned creations from her book. I was the lucky winner of the September giveaway of Fig & Thyme Jam. It was so delicious that I had to send her a special thank you and I created tags for her canning jars. That sparked the creation of my own line of canning tags & labels. I asked for Ashley’s input on what she would look for and she graciously gave me her advice in the middle of a book deadline. I can’t thank her enough for taking the time and for sharing her expert opinion.

The giveaway includes one copy of Canning and Preserving with Ashley English: All you Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More, one set of 12 canning tags and one set of canning labels in the winner’s choice of design. The giveaway will run from today until next Monday, May 10 at noon. A winner will be selected and announced Monday afternoon.

You can enter the giveaway in a few different ways, but your main entry should be this: please go to the Canning section of RiverDog Prints here and enter a comment below about the design you like the most.

For extra entries, you may do any of the following one time and then leave a comment below:
:: Become a Fan/Liker of the RDP Facebook page here (if you’re already a fan, just let me know below [and thanks!])
:: Subscribe to the RiverDog Prints Newsletter here
:: Tweet about the giveaway with this phrase “Enter the Canning giveaway from @RiverDogPrints that includes a beautiful how-to book & #canning tags & labels :: http://bit.ly/anxhSa”

Good luck!

Canning

Cyn — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:44:44 +0000

I’m having a little mini-obsession with the idea of canning. It all came about in an organic kind of way.

I did a Blog Love Week last year where I highlighted five of the blogs I was reading on a daily basis. One of those blogs was Small Measure, created by Ashley English. Her current life of homesteading represents in reality so many of the natural, back-to-basics concepts I believe in. Shortly after I wrote about Ashley, I won the September giveaway of Fig & Thyme Jam from her blog. Every month, she had been giving away a canned item that was in her upcoming book, Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English.

We used the jam as she suggested: baked with a wheel of brie (minus the phyllo dough) and oh. my. goodness! The smell alone could have won an award. The sight of me and hubby hovering over that dish of heaven while we consumed every bit of it was shameful. I needed to thank Ashley with more than a handwritten note, so I designed some simple canning tags for her to use in spreading that joyous, homemade food-love to all the people. She even posted about them here.

I was hooked. I love making tags. And thinking about designing a whole line of them with matching stickers was exciting. Plus, these were to label food…

homemade food…

from fresh ingredients!

Two obsessions married into one creation.

I’m excited and a little impatient for my CSA to catch up with my plans for canning. I purchased Ashley’s book and am loving it so far. I can picture all my jars of foodie goodness lining a shelf or two in the pantry. I’m enchanted by the possibilities!

——————————————————————————————————————————————–
If you’re a canner (is that a word?) or if you know someone who loves canning, you can check out the tags and stickers in my Etsy shop here. They will also be available on my regular site soon with some customizable options.

Here’s to this paper nerd proudly turning into a canning nerd.

I’m a Winner!

Cyn — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:30:38 +0000

I am the lucky recipient of a homemade jar of Fig and Thyme Jam from the fabulous Ashley over at Small Measure. She has a giveaway each month of one of her homemade creations that will be included in her book, Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English. When they had the photo shoot for the fig jam, Ashley spread the jam on a brie wheel and wrapped it in phyllo pastry and baked it until it was all bubbly goodness. My mouth is watering already!

As you know, I’m a big fan of Small Measure, Ashley’s blog. She was featured in my Blog Love Week, which you can read here. I’m so excited to receive my jam. What a special treat to enjoy something homemade from someone who puts a bit of themselves in the making.