Between Holidays - French Toast Muffins with Clementine Maple Icing

I always really like the week between Christmas and New Years. Don't you?  I love the way things slow down and everyone's okay with it. The Christmas lights and decorations are still up, but the grand hoo-ha is mostly over.  A new fresh year is on the horizon with lots of plans, but not quite here yet, so just relax and wait till it arrives. It's a good week.

On Christmas day I made a late brunch for the mister and me.  At the last minute I had a brainstorm to make a new dish that I kind of made up right then.  It turned out great and I wanted to share it with you.

I'm calling them French Toast Muffins, but they might be more of a Bread Pudding. I don't really know. Basically I took some of the delicious gluten-free Challah Rolls that I got at the local Gluten Free Bakery here in town called New Cascadia Traditional. In case you don't know, Challah bread is a traditional Jewish egg bread. I've always wanted to make great french toast with it, but I didn't think I could because they only had the rolls. But, this recipe made it work.

So, back to the recipe. I took the rolls and broke them up in pieces and put them in the muffin tin (previously sprayed with Coconut Oil). Then I beat a few eggs with some half and half, vanilla, cinnamon and a little maple sugar (the granulated kind, I got mine here). I poured this mixture over the bread, sometimes smashing the bread a bit so it absorbed it all.  I then baked for about 30 minutes on 350°. See, how scientific I am? It's all abouts and kind-ofs. But, what do you expect for a last minute made-up recipe.

Then - and this is the best part - I juiced 2 clementines and mixed the juice up with a lot of powdered sugar and a smidge and a splash of more granulated maple sugar until it looked like I wanted it to look.  Once the muffins were cooled down a bit I drizzled it all over.  You could also skip the icing and just put syrup over them.

These were delicious hot or cold, They were great that day and just as good two days later. The icing even seemed to get a stronger taste of clementine as it got older and thickened. Having only juice and sugar in them, I just left the icing out. These were super easy and there are so many variations you could do. They'd be great for a potluck or picnic breakfast. 

I hope you enjoy this quiet week and have a great New Year. Thanks for keeping up with me.

Vintage Color Palettes - Xmas Greetings and A Happy New Year

Here are two Vintage Color Palettes that also wish you a Happy Christmas Season and a very Merry New Year. These are unique colors for Winter Holiday postcards, don't you think? I really like the combo of both of these postcards. Both are from the 1910's. 

The Xmas postcard's hex number colors are from right to left: d1db67, b1d1c6, fb878a, 658a28.

The New Years hex number colors are from top to bottom: b7b156, 9d6d48, ebcec6, b4a6ad.

Not sure what you can do with these color palettes? See this blog post about Using Vintage Color Palettes by Ponyboy Press.

Thank you for following Ponyboy Press over the years. I hope you all have wonderful holidays and a terrific 2015!

20 Years of Ponyboy Press - Giveaway!

It's been 20 years this year that I started my first zine. It was the beginning of 1994. I'd been submitting poems and prose to small journals I found listed in Poets and Writers. Some poems of mine had been accepted by a journal dedicated to Richard Brautigan and the editor and I became friends which resulted in long phone conversations late at night. He told me about zines and Factsheet Five. I picked a copy up of Factsheet Five and read all the descriptions of all kinds of zines that could be made. I'd never seen a zine like they had listed under perzines, but I began making one right away.

Despite having been a writer and a crafter most my life and despite having graduated form SFSU with a degree in Creative Writing a few years earlier, it still had never occurred to me to make my own little book. 

I suddenly knew that a zine would be a perfect place for all the little blurbs of writing I was prone to create and all the vintage photos and ephemera I'd been collecting for no particular reason. I remember that in one of my first zines I had pasted in (no scanner access yet) a little business size promotion I had picked up when still living in Ventura 10 years earlier. I'd kept it all those years. It was an amusing ad for Desi Arnaz Jr. giving a talk in town for something like Scientology. Perfect.

My first zine was called Frank, Jasper and Me and was published in Feburary 1994. I think I made 25 copies and gave it out to friends. While I was getting it ready to print I thought it'd be fun to have a name for my "press". One night at a cheezy blues club in Mountain View Marilyn Wann and I (who was also starting her zine FAT!SO?) thought up press names as she drew little logos for me.  The stick pony logo I use for Ponyboy Press still is the one she drew on a flier for me that night.

I made seven issues of Frank, Jasper and Me, which was just a personal zine with stories from real and imaginary friends and lots of vintage clip art from old magazines and my own collection. Even though I hadn't seen other personal zines, my zine looks surprisingly like a lot of other zines from that time that I later saw. Frank, Jasper and Me always had a cover image of two guys and a girl. I really still love all the covers of FJ&Me. They aren't all accessible to me right now, but next time I come across them I will post. Here is the cover of last issue. I probably made about 75 copies of this one.

 I just came across these the other day. These are reviews that were listed in Factsheet Five for the first couple of issues.

Once I moved to Portland in the summer of 2000, my zine making really ramped up. I joined the IPRC and got involved in helping to organize the Portland Zine Symposium. I started the zines Figure 8, Imaginary Life, Paper Crush and Current Resident by 2002.

These are both issue one of the zines Paper Crush and Imaginary Life - out of print. From 2002.

The first issue of Figure 8 from 2001

I started making crafts (actually I had always made them, I just started making them to sell) and sold at the local crafts shows like the Handmade Bazaar for many years.

Handmade Bazaar around 2003

A lunchbox filled with magnets from around 2007

I estimate that I've probably printed about 1000 copies of the most popular Figure 8 zine. You can find some of the Figure 8 zines in libraries all over the world. I've had zines in art exhibits, mobile libraries and referenced in books. If you're interested in the Ponyboy Press zineography, you can find it here on the ZineWiki site.

If you think this is winding up to a good-bye, it's not. I will continue making zines and crafts, because that's how I am. However, the time between each is longer and the distribution of them will be smaller.

The Giveaway:

So, what it comes down to is this: I have lots of one of a kind crafts laying around that I am ready to pass on to someone. I don't really have the time to list them on Etsy and it seems weird to just have one item like that anyway, so I decided the anniversary of Ponyboy Press is a good time to have a giveaway.

2 winners picked at random will get a pile of Ponyboy Press Projects and maybe some zines. Some may be from ten years ago. Some may be things I made and never even offered for sale. And who knows what else I will throw in!  You may get gocco printed cards, patches, pillowcases, little booklets, buttons, magnets, pocket mirrors, zines.....you never know!

To enter, please leave a comment here or on the Facebook post that mentions the giveway. Sorry, International people, but I can only ship these goods to people in the U.S. The last date to enter is September 20th.

Hope you enjoy this giveaway. Thanks for all your support over the years!

Vintage Color Palette - Chicago Harbor

Sunset colors here on this lovely vintage linen postcard from around 1940. These linen postcards still look so great with these rich and saturated colors. 

The hex codes for this palette are from left to right: 10aac6, b67ab1, f5cf67, f09b6f. 

Wondering what you can do with these palettes? Check out my post about Using Vintage Color Palettes and all you can do with them. You can also see all of them on the Vintage Color Palettes board on Pinterest.

Vintage Color Palette - The Scenic West

What a lovely vintage western color palette from the cover of this accordion postcard from around 1940. 

The hex color number are from left to right: f2e287, 602928, c22c23, 8ac2df. 

Wondering what you can do with these palettes? Check out my post about Using Vintage Color Palettes and all you can do with them. You can also see all of them on the Vintage Color Palettes board on Pinterest.

New Zine now listed!

The Portland Zine Symposium happened last month. It was a good time as usual and great to see some old friends and meet new ones. I made a zine about winter for the symposium. This is a zine I have been wanting to make for a while. It has illustrations, which is a new thing for me. It's a sweet and short zine about enjoying the quiet days in the post-holiday winter months. Hope you like it.

Here is a full picture of my table from the symposium:

Also, now back in stock: Paper Crush #4 - the zine about collecting vintage postcards (which includes a vintage postcard)! and Imaginary Life #7.

Vintage Color Palettes - La Valencia Hotel

I got a new Vintage Color Palette for you today. This one is a postcard from a La Jolla, California hotel - La Valencia Hotel.  The Hotel still exists and is quite grand and beautiful. The picture below is the closest I could find on the website to this spot. The tile is the same at least.

Wouldn't you just love to have a lemonade and a shrimp salad at this lovely vintage scene. I just love the avocado green and the slightly acid yellow. The seafoam green (or blue, whichever your slant) and the dusty salmon definitely make this a combo you don't see around today.

The hex colors for this palette are from left to right: 799661, eadb69, a7c1bc, e4a18d Wondering what you can do with them? See this post on How You Can Use Vintage Color Palettes.

Vintage Color Palette - Greetings from North Chicago

This is a pretty pastel palette from a postcard sent in 1948. The message on this postcard is a gem and just as great as the image. It's like a poem on it's own, as is. It was sent from Pennsylvania to Maryland on 3/31/48. It reads:

Dear Schulers,

Congress has declared war on the termites. It will cost about $250 and the war will last two and a half days. Mom wants me to buy ten more chicks since she has to bother with a few. One went to chick heaven already. It's raining, but mom is washing the clothes. Erwin left a white shirt, the one with the book of chances. Anne called Andy yesterday, Dobby had pneumonia.
Love, Joe

At the top it says:  J.M.J.F. I wonder what that means.

The hex colors of this palette are from left to right: f8c7a1, aabb78, 95b0c3, c3bdce

Vintage Color Palette - You're a Cat

If you're looking for a bright colorful palette inspired by the late 60's and early 70's here is one for you. This vintage postcard doesn't have a date, but they began publishing in 1965 and they put out a lot of colorful comedy hippie and swinger type cards. I got a few of them when I got this one.

To me, this palette of turquoise, magenta, yellow and green is a unique collection of a specific version of these colors popular from the time.The turquoise has a little more green in it and is a bit softened. The magenta is super saturated and clear, the yellow has a good amount of orange in it and is dense and the green has more yellow in it - a version that was used a lot during that time. If you want the hex code numbers they are from left to right: 3ca9b4, d91d6e, ffd337, 69b643.