Welcome to the middle of the week! You made it! I made it! We made it, hooray!
If you’re from the world of Instagram/TikTok, you might have heard of WIP Wednesday, in which Wednesday you show your work in progress. Below you will find my attempt to do the 50 states with their state flowers. So far we have North Carolina (represent!) and Oklahoma. So far Oklahoma has seen a couple of revisions and I’m still not quite happy with it so I won’t even bother putting it here. Talk about a true work in progress project!
North Carolina outline with blooming dogwoods – find it here
Now, are these my only WIPs? No, because why would I only have one thing going on? I have a book that I’m working on (nothing substantial yet, so don’t think you’re getting anything any time soon), I need to make some ghosts and pumpkins for the spooky season, and I guess my sourdough is a work in progress too. If we wanted to get really deep here, I would say that I am also a Work In Progress, but I don’t think we are ready yet for that conversation.
Anyhoooo, just a quick post regarding WIPs as I have another post I need to work on for today. TTFN, ta ta for now!
Quick reference drawing of a mature sourdough starter by me
Things I use for my sourdough starter. I got two of these jars because they work perfectly to store my starter. The reason I have two is for when I need to switch my starter over to a new jar if the new jar becomes crusty with old flour. They have a clasp lid that isn’t super finicky, a rubber ring that can be removed when placed in the dishwasher, and a wide mouth to make stirring things easier. Now I love these flour sack towels. They are good for EVERYTHING! Covering dough while it proofs, protecting Brad from direct sunlight, used for packing material when we moved. Literally everything! Plus the amount you get for the price is very reasonable. Now, the most important thing when it comes to baking, especially with sourdough, is using a kitchen scale. It works out great especially when converting non-GF recipes to GF when using my GF flour blend. Since different blends have different ratios, their texture and consistency are different resulting in bakes that either become very moist or super dense.
Now that you know what I use, you can use them too! I know after reading all about Brad III, you were super excited to make your own sourdough starter. Well let me tell you how to get started: 1. Wash your jars with warm, soapy water and make sure they are DRY! 2. You are going to place your jar on your scale and zero it out (the tare button). 3. You will measure out 40g of flour. Now you don’t have to be like me and use GF flour; just generic flour from the store will also work. 4. Next, take some warm water from the tap. We don’t want distilled, our wild yeast isn’t fancy. 5. You are going to take a butter knife and get a little dab of either honey or maple syrup. This gives the yeast some extra sugar to eat and be super excited to work for us. 6. Mix it all together. It should look like a lumpy paste. If it’s too soupy, add a bit more flour. If it’s very dry, you can add a smidge more water. 7. Now, at least for this first day you don’t need to close the lid all the way. Make sure you find a nice warm spot that is out of the way (your oven can work) and place a towel over the jar. Don’t tuck it too tight around the jar, just enough so dust and dirt don’t get into the jar. 8. Now we wait at least 24 hours before moving on to the next step. Some people say 48, but I’m just a tad impatient. 9. Time to check on the starter, maybe you’re seeing some bubbles, maybe not. It’s very shy at this point and won’t make much of a fuss. Now take a spoon, give it a quick stir, and you are going to discard about 1/3 of the starter. I know, it seems like a waist, but trust me you will thank me later when you don’t have to feed your starter 5 cups of flour because you forgot to trim it down. 10. You’re going to take your scale, and repeat steps 3 and 4. Again, it should look like a lumpy paste. 11. Close your jar up, cover it with your towel and stick it back where you put it before. 12. Now for the next week, you will repeatedly discard and add more flour and water. This is how you will get your yeast to mature. This is not the time to make anything with it. It’s baby starter, so it can’t form any good loaves or even crackers. This is where you will get to know each other and you should start seeing more bubbles as your yeast grows and gets more active.
Okay, it should be at least day 10 before you attempt to make anything. Unless you live in a warm climate and you are seeing lots of action, then you might be able to get away with making something.
If at any point your starter gets fuzzy, green, or has a gray liquid on top, you have to trash it. It is now contaminated and cannot be used (Remember how I said we don’t talk about Brad II? This is why. RIP Brad II).
Now, if you can’t make something every day with your starter, you can place it in the fridge. It will go dormant (very sleepy) and won’t be in the mood to eat. I don’t recommend doing this while it is maturing as it’s not good for a growing starter. Just make sure that before you bake, you bring out your starter and give it a good feeding and let it warm back up to room temp.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the basics of making a sourdough starter. There are plenty of resources and support groups out there when it comes to sourdough.
First of all, they don’t all live in trees (talk about a misnomer), but are instead identified by their feet! They have toe pads to help them climb and the last bone of their toe is actually shaped like a claw!
Tree frogs can be as little as an inch long and as big as 5.5 inches! They come in a variety of colors, but most of the species in the United States are green, gray, or brown.
There are over 800 species of tree frogs, mostly found in the tropical climates of the western hemisphere. They are considered insectivores and rely on a diet of flies, ants, crickets, beetles, and other small invertebrates.
Amphibians as a whole are on the decline worldwide, due to habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change.
If you like the style of my tree frog, check me out on Society6 and snag a sticker!
We get it, you love your pet. All those photos of them sleeping and making derpy faces, videos of zoomies, and the crazy sounds they make, just make you feel all warm and fuzzy. You can scroll through them for hours, force your friends and loved ones to look at them over and over again, and you constantly take more and more making sure that it is a never-ending cycle. I too am guilty of doing this, heck I even made a slideshow of derpy Bean faces just last night!
Now imagine if you could get your cute little buddy as a sticker and place it on your laptop (or water bottle!) for the whole world to see. Then you could just take that face wherever you go and it would be immortalized forever (until you get a new laptop or water bottle that is).
You know, I did exactly that. You might have seen a picture of a cartoony-looking cat in my first blog post. Yep, that’s a picture of Bean that I drew; and while I don’t have a way to make stickers myself yet, my lovely step-sister made me a whole sticker pack of that face. So not only is it on my water bottle, but it’s on my iPad case and on my fiancé’s water bottle. There’s even a couple floating around my parents house. And let me tell you, it is the funniest thing I have ever seen.
So here I am, drawing faces of Bean, even a couple of Draco (dark beard and all) when my fiancé gets the idea that I should draw pictures of our friend’s animals and send them to them. Now, I don’t know if you have ever thought about this, but drawing black dogs is a lot harder than you think.
While I still have a long ways to go in the world of pet portraits, I like to think some of them have turned out pretty well. Scroll down for some fun art and cute animals.
Let me know what you think and remember – only you can prevent wildfires.
The one and only Draco – to see what he gets up to, follow him on Instagram @dracothemagnificentbeardieMy stepsister’s cat, Daisy – also on Instagram @duchessdaisythecat1My future sister-in-law’s cat, Katniss – is sadly not on InstagramMy friends’ best boy, Boomer, may he rest in peace up in doggy heaven ❤
Just a Little Bit of Everything 