Frosted Rose Petals

I woke up this morning to discover to my delight that it was going to be a sunny day! The birds were singing outside my window, the dew on the grass sparkled like tiny stars, and the sun had come up beaming with happiness; it was going to be a good day. I decided to make the frosted rose petals from 'The Fever and the Flame' because you are supposed to leave them out in the sun for part of the time, and it was the perfect weather for it.
First, I collected two roses and rinsed the petals; my last encounter with earwigs in roses was not pleasant, although, thank goodness, I did not get pinched. Then I cut off the white at the base of each petal,

dipped them in rose water,
and layed them out on a baking sheet that I had lined with parchment paper.

Next, I left them in the sun to dry.
However, the Wind Woman must have been bored and decided she wanted a bit of fun; she played with the corners of the paper, lifting them up and making my perfectly placed petals tumble around. So I weighted the paper with stones.
Then, once they were dry, I sifted icing sugar over them and left them for two hours.


After two hours, I turned them over and sugared the other side, repeating the 2 hour then flip process until each petal had dried to a crisp. Then I put them carefully into a white box with pink and white tissue paper :)
and tied it closed with a pink ribbon.
I tasted one, and it wasn't as sweet as I had been expecting, but it was a really enjoyable experiment, and I had the time of my life making everything pretty. I just love the look of the white box with pink ribbon!

Rose Water

A few weeks ago, I read a book entitled 'The Fever and the Flame' by Mary Hooper and really enjoyed it. It's about a girl who lived during the time of the Black Plague and the great fire in London, from about 1665 to 1666. I found it extremely interesting and well-written. The girl goes to work with her sister in London in a candy shop; it's really fascinating to read about how they made the candy. At the very end, there are a few recipes that tell you how to make some of the delicacies you read about in the book, and I thought it would be fun to make frosted rose petals. I have to wait for a sunny day, however, so I decided to make rose water, which I will need anyway.
You need about three to four roses that have not been sprayed with pesticide. Remove the petals from the stem and rinse them carefully, looking for bugs. I discovered a few creepy crawlies myself, earwig included, and shuddered to think what might have happened if I had accidentally cooked him along with the petals.Then you add the petals to 2 cups of water in a saucepan and slowly heat, but make sure that it doesn't boil. The petals may seem to be a bit too much for the amount of water, but they shrink as they become softer and smaller. I used a spoon to push them around gently, just to make sure they all were submerged in the water. Once they become transparent (which, by the way, looks beautiful in its own fairy-like way), you strain the water, squeezing all the excess juices out of the petals as you do so. After that, you can put it into a pretty container (unfortunately, I didn't have an extra special one, so I just used an old Mason jar and tried to make it look better by pasting a blue label on the top) and put it in the fridge. It will stay good for about a week or so.

The Lady and the Lion

This is by far one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen! I added it to my wish list on Amazon today. I found it at the library years ago, but at that time, I wasn't really collecting books. So now I'm going to add it to my ever growing collection. If you've ever read the Inkheart series, you'll know what it means when I have a feeling my home is going to end up like Elinor's. Anyway, this breathtaking book is an adaptation of the Grimm fairytale and it is by Laurel Long (who also illustrated it) and Jacqueline K. Ogburn. The fairytale itself is very like Beauty and the Beast, which may be why I love it so much. These are just a few of the amazing illustrations.

A New Book!

One of my many bookshelves; the books stacked on the right are L. M. Montgomery paperbacks. I had to put them horizontally on top of my Anne of Green Gables series because I ran out of room. Ah, the joys of collecting!

Yesterday I had an exciting surprise. I came upstairs to hear my father announcing that a large package had arrived for me and that it was a book! I discovered that it was the Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. I had completely forgotten that I had ordered it. It is a beautiful copy with red binding and lovely illustrations by one of my favourite artists; Arthur Rackham.

It is published by Wordsworth Library Collection, and I purchased it online at www.amazon.ca. This is the cover.

The binding.

The frontspiece.

The title page.

A beautiful castle by Arthur Rackham in the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.

This is at the end of the Cinderella fairytale. The caption reads, "He took Cinderella on his horse and rode away with her." Sigh. How perfect!