The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. TAKE JOY!
~Fra Giovanni
WELCOME
WELCOME to the Take Joy Society. We are a group of ladies who first met because of our love of Tasha Tudor's art and lifestyle. We are broadening our focus to include other artists/writers/people of interest who embody Tasha's philosophy to Take Joy in all the good that life has to offer. Here you will find a record of our get-togethers and resources to help you see that the gloom of the world is but a shadow so that you, too, can Take Joy by Creating Joy in your life!
An unforeseen circumstance prevented me (Cathy) from attending this month's Take Joy Society get-together. Thank you to Cindy for writing and photographing the following....
We did Pysanky eggs also known as Ukrainian eggs. Raw eggs are used because they dye better and the insides will dry up after many years. I pre-drew some of them, or they could choose to come up with their own design. The eggs were room temperature....
Cindy, Chris, Carol, and Cathy gathered at Cindy's house for this year's Christmas Tea. Edie, unfortunately, was unable to join us because her husband was in the hospital recovering from surgery.
The anniversary of Tasha Tudor's 105th birthday is next week on the 28th. It's gotten me to thinking about the beginning of the Take Joy Society which began as the Maryland Chapter of the Tasha Tudor Museum Society six years ago. The Museum sent out emails to its followers about the various celebrations the Chapters were holding. This is how I came to meet these lovely ladies, some of whom continued on with the Take Joy Society.....
“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
🍁For those of you who follow Morning Musings you know that I spent a week in the English countryside last May. Walking on the Lake District paths along moss-covered stone walls, through pastures of sheep and cows, over hill and dale had a profound affect on me. I've always loved being outside. Whether it's hanging clothes on the line, gardening, or hiking in the woods, I've always felt it to be a place I belonged. The first thing I do in the morning is open the blinds and whenever I can I open the window to my bedroom bringing the outdoors in.
🍁Upon my return from England I began seeing articles, blogs, and books on the value of getting close to nature and realized I needed to be even more intentional about it. I was introduced to Emma Mitchell's blog, Silverpebble, through Twitter and am excitedly awaiting her newest book, The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary, due out in January. About it she writes:
This is a diary of the curative effect of my walks in green places & is full of my illustrations. I hope it will encourage others to get outside.
Yesterday we met at member Chris's home to get a taste of Norway--a country she has visited several times and from which her ancestors migrated. We started the afternoon with cold cantaloupe soup--especially refreshing since the temperature was in the 90s. . . .
Edie invited the Take Joy Society members to her vacation home on the Northern Neck of Virginia so that we could go on the Northumberland County House & Garden tour during Virginia's Historic Garden Week. There were four of us in all who were able to get away for three days and two nights. Unfortunately photos were not permitted inside the houses, but I will be telling you a bit of their history.
We set out in the rain mid-morning on Tuesday. . . .
This year the theme for the Take Joy Society get-togethers will center around our travel adventures. Today I was the first to share. I took everyone to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. They saw my photos, ate and drank chocolate, and played with clay. If you have not already followed along on Morning Musings you can catch-up at these links to see the photos:
I take you on a tour of our hotel in the center of Merida. . . .
At the end of my slide show I showed them these YouTube videos. The first one explains how fairtrade cacao (pronounced ca-COW) beans are grown. I passed around raw, roasted cacao beans for everyone to sample. . . .
Next we watched a video of how cacao is used to make drinking chocolate. . . .
Then I passed around samples of ki'Xocolatl (pronounced kee shoc-co-LA-tal) chocolate (72% cocoa) while they watched a video of the Choco-Story Museum in Uxmal, Mexico. . . .
You can read more about the history of chocolate and its importance in Mayan culture HERE. To make it easier to read the article click on the Show Reader View bar (left hand side of the URL box).
Now it was time to sample another traditional food of the Yucatan--guacamole. I used my Mexican daughter-in-law's recipe (avocados, onion, roman tomatoes, fresh cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, salt), but added cacao nibs (raw chocolate pieces) after reading David Wolfe's "Top 5 Reasons to Love Raw Cacao" where he claims it's a recipe thousands of years old. . . .
We started with Green Tea with orange zest & cocoa bean shells that I brought back from Mexico. Ken made the tortilla chips from scratch--he made the tortillas from "pre-cooked yellow corn meal" from a local Latino market, then cut them into pieces and fried them in oil. . . .
On the table is a model of a Mayan Calendar. I also set out more chocolate nibs. . . .
Later I made a pot of Taza Chocolate Super Dark drinking chocolate using water, which we drank while working on our craft. Because it was 85% cocoa everyone added a little more sugar. . . .
For our craft I made air-dry clay. This is the tutorial I used. . . .
I used lemon juice instead of vinegar so I did not add the peppermint oil. I microwaved it four 15-second intervals. After the 24-hour wait I found it to still be limp, so I added more cornstarch and kneaded it several more minutes. Then I put it in the refrigerator and by today it was just the right consistency--so you will have to play around with it a bit until your clay looks like hers when you pull it apart. If you add the color to it, it will make it softer and harder to work with, so you may want to wait to paint it after it is dried.
Here we are working on our projects. I handed out books to get ideas. . . .
Cindy is making a Day of the Dead figure from the Tree of Life book. The Mexican Tree of Life folk art is intricate and individually expressive of the artist's imagination. This page gives you some close-ups of these beautiful art pieces. . . .
She also made miniature flowers to go in her miniature flower pot that is drying upside down. . . .
Chris made a decorated bowl and will paint it once it is dry. She used a glass bowl lined with cellophane to form the bowl shape. . . .
Carol used cookie cutters to make different ornaments for her grandchildren to paint. . . .
I made a folk art apple tree with a dove. I added paint to my clay before molding it. . . .
It was very relaxing to work with the clay. Let me know if you make the clay and what you created.
The Take Joy Society members got together today to celebrate Spring with a Beatrix Potter Tea Party!
When everyone arrived they browsed my collection of books by and about Beatrix Potter. . . .
After which lunch was served. . . .
The Menu was mostly from Susan Wittig Albert's "Cottage Tales" website*:
Pea Soup
Cucumber Sandwiches*
Tomato Dill Sandwiches*
Ham Salad Pinwheels
Nutty Cheeseball w/apple slices*
Lemon Lavender Mint Iced Tea
The recipes marked with an asterisk can be found HERE.
The Pea Soup recipes comes from "An English Cottage Year" by Sally Holmes & Tracey Williamson. . . .
At each place setting I put a violet plant in a teacup that was to go home with each member. . . .
We watched a short video about Beatrix Potter that can be found in the extras on the DVD "Miss Potter". Here is another short biography on Beatrix. . . .
Then we made English cottages using cardboard, glue, moss, and plaster, sticks, and pebbles. . . .
We took a break for tea and carrot cupcakes*. . . .
Then resumed working on our cottages. Here are the ones that were finished before everyone had to leave. . . .
I chose Beatrix Potter as our theme because she was an example of someone who took what gifts she had and shared them with others and in doing so found great joy in the process. She'd always loved to draw and think up stories and shared them in picture letters to children she knew. Eventually she thought other children might enjoy them, too, so she endeavored to have them made into a book. When she couldn't find a publisher she self-published and the rest is history. This year is the 150th anniversary of her birth (July 28). She wrote and illustrated 28 books for children, but then went on to become a sheep farmer, raising prize Herdford Sheep. She is also known for her philanthropy for having donated 4,000 acres of land in the Lake District to the National Trust which millions of people enjoy each year for it's bucolic scenery.
Several members of the Take Joy Society gathered at Cindy's quaint stone house this month to make Valentines. She shared the house's history with us:
The farm I live on is called Montpelier and the land first belonged to Evan Shelby whose son became the first governor of Kentucky. He had a wooden home and we do not know where it was located. Then it was purchased by John Thompson Mason and his wife Elizabeth. They built the houses that are here today and are buried in a small graveyard on the hill behind my house. The house I live in was the slave master’s house and it was built in the 1750’s. The next owners of Montpelier were the Barnes family and upon their death they freed all the slaves. The next, and last owners, are the Seiberts. My children are the 7th generation of the Seibert family to live on the farm.
Cindy comes from a long line of watercolor artists. Here is her watercolor of what the house looked like before they added on to it more than 30 years ago. . . .
She has other artistic talents as well, like these welded sculptures. . . .
Before we began our craft we had a delicious Apricot Cake and Dollie's Tea Room's special blend tea. . . .
Scherenschnitte means "scissors cutting" and was introduced to Europe in the 16th century. Cindy wrote it out phonetically for us and showed us samples she'd prepared. . . .
She gave us patterns to trace, but you can draw anything you'd like. . . .
Then she showed us how to place the pattern in the fold of a piece of paper and trace the design on the light board (or you can use the light from outside by placing it on a windowpane). You want it in the fold because you will be cutting one design through two pieces of paper that you'll unfold when you're done. This way both sides of the design will be identical. Then she used an exacto knife--or you could use the special small, sharp-pointed scissors made for papercutting, to cut out the requisite spaces. Finally, she used scissors to cut around the outer outline of the design. . . .
Here we are cutting out our designs. . . .
Some of us chose to color ours. If you're brave enough (i.e., confident in your handwriting skills) you can write words along the outside like Cindy did in the samples. The bottom right piece is the one Cindy worked on while we did ours. It is not quite finished, but you can see how intricate you can make them if you have the patience to cut out all those little spaces. . . .
Here is a short video that goes through the steps (this is not our Cindy ☺︎). . . .
The Take Joy Society got together today for a Susan Branch Christmas Luncheon. I've been a fan of Susan's art for years. I was finally able to meet her at the Friends of Gladys Taber Reunion last year. She is a gracious and inspiring lady, always full of joy for life and people.
While I finished getting everything ready in the kitchen with the help of my terrific husband, everyone had a chance to look through Susan's books. . . .
There was so much more I could have put out: calendars, recipe holder books, scrapbook pages, journals of all kinds!
I used recipes from Susan's books and website. I served Cucumber, Egg Salad, and Chicken Salad sandwiches. I liked the added touch of minced parsley on the edges of the cucumber sandwiches. . . .
I decided to omit the endive in the Orange Watercress Salad as Susan suggested if the endive was too bitter, and it was fine without it. . . .
I used raspberries and blackberries in the Fresh Fruit Salad. The topping made it a real treat . . . .
And the Rice Pudding, hot right out of the oven, was a hit--real comfort food. . . .
My table was decorated in the style of Susan Branch. . . .
........With dangling prisms on candle bobeches, Rose Chintz dishes, Christmas crackers as name placecards (mine contained chocolate kisses). It was even remarked that the wrapping paper on my gift to my guests, "Christmas Joys," looked like Susan's style of painting. . . . .
Here we are ready to eat. Two of our members were not able to join us for lunch, unfortunately. . . .
After lunch we exchanged gifts--handmade ornaments. . . .
I herded everyone downstairs so we could look at Susan's Blog on the big Screen TV. I showed them these Christmas-themed posts by Susan as well as Yankee Magazine's photo shoot:
I had several crafts in mind for us: Moravian Stars and Snowflakes (click for tutorials), but I decided on this Christmas Star. They are really easy to make. Here is a tutorial:
Here are the ones we made. . . .
I thought they'd be nice to string on a ribbon to make a garland.
By now it was mid-afternoon--time for a tea break. I served Lemon Pepper Tea Biscuits, Ginger Crisps, and Snowballs along with Susan's Apricot Jam Tea. . . .
I made these in my heart-shaped cast iron pan. I love pepper, but I think I got carried away with TOO much pepper on mine and not enough sugar. . . .
Susan also makes these with chocolate chips. You can find that recipe on this post.
These turned out great. . . .
as did these. . . .
We discussed our upcoming plans: a class on writing a children's picture book led by Edie (who is a published author) with a visit to a nearby Museum that is featuring the art of the Little Golden Books; a Beatrix Potter/Peter Rabbit-themed afternoon; a plant shopping expedition to Landis Valley Villages's annual plant sale, and our postponed Grandma Moses Painting Party. We ended the afternoon finding out whose tea cup saucer had the Susan Branch sticker affixed to the bottom. It was Carol! Which meant she won Susan's first cookbook: HEART OF THE HOME. . . .
Based on the diaries Susan has kept since she was in her twenties, The Fairy Tale Girl is an illustrated memoir filled with original watercolors and personal photographs. Susan's new book is an age-old story of love and loss, mystery and magic that begins in a geranium-colored house in California and ends up, like any good fairy tale, on the right side of the rabbit hole, in a small cottage in the woods on the New England Island of Martha's Vineyard.
The sequel to this book, MARTHA'S VINEYARD ISLE OF DREAMS, will be out in the Spring and can be pre-ordered HERE.
