interview Archives - Keeping With The Times

Q & A | @ehpyle/Bottle Branch and a Giveaway

December 13, 2016 by Barb 44 Comments

Today I’m beyond thrilled to bring you a Q & A with the beautiful creative soul that is Elizabeth, or @ehpyle of Bottle Branch. I’ve admired Elizabeth’s work greatly since I first laid eyes on it. She has an incredible Instagram account, a beautiful blog, and a thriving business on Etsy. I’ve always wanted to know more about her and she has graciously agreed to share her journey with us. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.

So let’s get started!

Q. Who are you and why are you here ;)

I’m Elizabeth. I’m a former botanist, avid gardener, printmaker, photographer and mother of four. I first connected with Barb on instagram, where we share a love of flowers, nature and still life photography. I’ve since been honored to send her some of my own work though Bottle Branch, and loved watching her #sunday_sundries hash tag take off and soar. I was thrilled when she asked me to write a little about Bottle Branch, my botanical photography and paper goods business.

Q. So, can you tell me more about what a botanist is/does?

Yes! Botanists are the people who professionally identify plants in the wild (as opposed to horticulturalists, who study garden plants) and I studied Botany in graduate school. I spent hours in the field collecting plant samples and learning to identify plants by their subtle details – distinctive leaf shapes, elegant branching patterns, delicate flower structures. I like to think these years of close observation inform the botanically inspired art I now make. Even now, I try to identify the plants I work with. To me, naming a plant is part of truly knowing it, and a knowing plants is my passion.

Q. How did you get from being a botanist to starting Bottle Branch, the shop?

When my youngest child was born, I went from working mom to stay-at-home mom. I took up printmaking, wrote for a parenting blog, dabbled in needlework, and started gardening a lot. (Like Barb, I’m a fan of trying new things, as fearlessly as possible.) I grew vegetables, perennials, annuals and lots of cutting flowers– cosmos, zinnias, calendula, scabiosa, nigella, and more. As my garden grew, I developed a fascination with arranging and photographing flowers and plants.

My shop was born in late 2015, when I took a leap and listed a few silkscreened linens, woodcut prints, and photo cards in a shop on etsy. It has grown over the past year, and shifted to mostly photography and paper goods, but at its core, Bottle Branch was born from my passion for plants, flowers, and making things.

Q. How did you choose the name Bottle Branch?

I grew up in the southeast USA where a small stream or trickle of water is known as a “branch” and the one that ran behind my house was called Bottle Branch. I spent hours there with my siblings and neighbors, swinging on rope swings, looking for cray fish and chasing a single elusive bull frog. It was a place of joy, discovery, untamed nature. So, in 2013, when I started an open-ended blog about creativity and nature, I named it Bottle Branch in the hopes that it would be a place to share moments of joy and discovery; a place to marvel at the wonders of nature; and place to chase a single grandiose idea, even if it never worked out.

So here I am, still chasing that joy and wonder, and delighted to have had the chance to share my story with you.

Thank you so much Elizabeth. I’ve so enjoyed learning more about you and your shop and I’m sure my readers have as well.

And now, we’re in luck, as Elizabeth would like to offer a giveaway of a set of 5 “winter” theme cards from her shop!

All you need do is simply leave a comment here on my blog, on this post and you’ll be entered into the contest. Draw to be made Friday, December 16th at 1:00 pm MST.

**Please note that Christmas is coming :) and Elizabeth will be closing her shop and enjoying this sacred season with her family, so delivery may not be until the new year.**

Again, thank you so much Elizabeth, for sharing your story and for the beautiful giveaway! Your cards are exquisite!

Here’s where to find Elizabeth:

Etsy: Bottle Branch
Pinterest: Bottle Branch
Twitter: zibpyle
Instagram: @ehpyle and @bottlebranch
Blog: Bottle Branch (you might want to check out Elizabeth’s time-lapse capture of a strawflower opening up … it’s astonishing!)

Good luck on the draw everyone!

COMMENTS CLOSED – WE HAVE A WINNER (TO BE ANNOUNCED) YAY!!

“app” happy wednesday #26

December 3, 2014 by Barb 10 Comments

Good morning! I’m so excited to have the amazing and talented Roxi Hardegree from Creating Beyond The Layers as a guest poster today. I’ve “known” Roxi for years … it goes way back (5 years) to the days when I was on the Creative Team at E-Scape and Scrap. Roxi is a designer and she was one of the designers whose products I always used – they’re so classy and beautiful.

Roxi tells me that she’s going to be featuring her favorite shots from 2014 throughout the month on her blog, so be sure to check that out.

So, without further ado – here’s Roxi!

"app" happy wednesday

Taking pictures has always been a part of my life. And I’m not such a purist that my iPhone photos now are exceeding the number I take with my Canon. You see, first, I’m an artist, then I’m a memory keeper.

I have a hard time ‘leaving a photo alone’, in its unedited form. Already having a Photoshop background, it was easy to go down the rabbit hole when mobile editing was made possible with apps. My first introduction to altered mobile photos was with Instagram. I shot and loaded my first photo in November 2011. I was sitting on the sofa and took a photo of the fireplace using the Instagram app, applied a filter and uploaded it. I turned to the left, snapped a picture of hubby and filtered him too. (They are the two best subjects for my experiments. My Hipstamatic roll is full of them. lol)

Soon after that I took a course on Snapseed and continue to use it on almost every photo. Besides knowing it like the back of my hand, it’s a great basic editing app with tons of extras.

My favorite style is textural edits. I’ve used DistressedFx a lot but my current favorite is Stackables. I usually play around adding layers but lately I’ve tried some of their formulas and then put my own twist on them.

A lot of my edits are ‘happy accidents’. I have very few ‘formulas’ I follow, except my watercolor/ink edits for example. But for the most part it’s play, play, play.

The best advice I can give is to pick one app, use it a lot, say for a week or two and get to know it real well. Even though I have well over 200 apps on my phone there are just a few that I seem to gravitate to, the ones I ‘know’.

Hydrangea made with Stackables and Snapseed, self-portrait with Snapseed and Image Blender, Fall Watercolor made with Artomaton, iColorama and Image Blender.
My current favourites: Snapseed, Stackables, PixlrExpress’ Picfx’ Mextures, DistressedFx, Hipstamatic, Superimpose, iColorama, VCSOcam.

"app" happy wednesday

Roxi_Hydrangea

OK, I literally gasped when I saw the images that Roxi sent me … stunning work isn’t it? Today I’m linking to an image I made after being inspired by these masterpieces (ahem, not in the same league here, but that’s quite alright).

If you are new to the party, this is a link-up to share your photos edited with “apps” of any kind! Let me stress there are no rules!! Just join the fun and share any kind of artsy creation.

Let’s see what you’ve been up to!

Use any “app” you like and perhaps explain how you used it.

Did you use just one? Did you combine apps?
Simply create some art. Post it on your blog or Flickr or wherever you are uploading your work, and then come back here and link it up!
Visit a few friends to see what they are up to and perhaps learn some fabulous new tips and techniques.
Spread the word about the link-up, the more the merrier!

Sorry … this series is closed.

Interview With a Neighbor

May 30, 2014 by Barb 24 Comments

I’d like you to meet Deb. She’s a neighbor and friend who fairly recently moved to our area.

Well, actually it’s been over a year and a half since Deb and her husband moved into their beautiful new home here on the lake but it’s only been about a year since we became friends. We met through her sister-in-law Diane whom I’ve known for many, many years. It was last June that they asked me to join them on their daily walk. I immediately accepted and my life has grown and been enriched because of it.

Deb is passionate about her baking and cooking which I find very intriguing. I love it when someone has a passion. I can feel her enthusiasm every day on our walks. One of her first questions will be “what are you having for dinner”? I’ll mumble something about throwing a pork chop on the BBQ and baking a potato … and then quickly ask her what she’s having (change the focus).

It’s usually something encrusted with crumbs and herbs accompanied by some incredible vegetable dish with seasonings I have never even tried. So inspiring!

She’s been baking bread since grade two, and growing up she was inspired by her mother and her grandmother and their love of the kitchen and garden. She also loves cooking with fire and using great appliances … .

interview with deb
When I asked her if I could interview her to learn a bit more about why she does what she does, she gracefully accepted. While we chatted she poured me a hot coffee and fed me bits of fresh breads and cakes.

interview with deb

After baking a loaf of bread you must let it cool for 2 hours before slicing it. Then you need to break it apart and taste the crust, much like testing a wine. Then you try the “crumb” which is the bread and don’t be putting any butter on it!

interview with deb

She also pulled out some tasty treats like this danish in the bottom right corner …

interview with deb

OK. Somebody stop me.

interview with deb Deb tells me she has taken over 20 classes at different colleges, as well as one in Italy!

She just finished a 4 day “boot camp” bread-making class at NAIT where she was at the school at 7:00 am and didn’t leave until 7:00 pm. When I asked her for a recipe she handed me a chart with strange words like “poolish” and “starter” and “levain”. But scariest of all was that they don’t use measurements, they use percentages. Of course! it all makes sense; if you combine 70% ARW flour, and 30% rye flour as well as 100% water, 0.1% yeast and 0.2% salt, you will end up with a lovely Rye Poolish …

Alrighty then! so this is her stove … how amazing is that? It’s La Cornue from France no less and it’s a real beauty. I could have spent an hour photographing it.

interview with deb

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I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting Deb. She may turn up in another post some day since she has a Forno oven and I’d love to see that one in action!

interview with deb

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!