Everyday Skills

Unbelievable Black Bean Brownies {Recipe}

October 25, 2013 by Lindsey Bugbee 8 Comments
Everyday Skills

When I think “black beans”, the last thing that comes to mind is dessert. I love black beans in my Chipotle burrito bowl, black beans in tamales, black beans in bean salad … but never before had I encountered a dessert made of black beans.

As I made this recipe for the first time, I was having serious doubts. Forty minutes later, the moment of truth came … and I found I liked black bean brownies. A lot. And you know who liked them even more than me? One of the pickiest eaters in the world — Hernán {who you met in my Belated About Me}. I have made this recipe countless times now, and he consistently eats the entire pan.
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Making My Handwriting Into a Font

December 22, 2012 by Lindsey Bugbee 2 Comments
Everyday Skills

For a while now, my other half (an efficiency-obsessed engineering PhD student) has been scheming about ways to “mass produce” my talents. “I’ve got it!” he said one day, “We should make your handwriting into a font!”

I flinched and explained that a lot of the reason that people have me write out custom calligraphy is because people love having hand-written quotes, envelopes, etc. “Ah-ha, but how would they know?” he countered. Well … part of the charm of calligraphy is the fact that it isn’t consistent. I always look for consistency if I am unsure whether someone actually wrote something out or “cheated”. You can identify a letter, then look at the subsequent letters to see if they are a little bit different from the letter you picked out.

Despite the fact that I am always 100% for writing things out rather than typing them out, I must admit I was intrigued by a post on Craftgawker promising that I could make handwriting into a font for free without fancy software or headache. It’s called [MyScriptFont.com]. All you do is print out a template, fill it out, scan it back in, and upload it to the website. The site then converts your work into a vector font.

There’s the handwriting into a font that I created. Based on what I’d written on the template, I thought it was going to be truly amazing. A ground-breaking, game-changing font, if you will. But, that’s not what I ended up with. What I did get was a bunch of disjointed letters that end up coming together to look whimsical and unique. Will I use this font much? Well, probably not. However, what I do like about it is I never can find numbers that suit my taste. This font solves my problem in that I created my own. I also love the hand-written quality of the special characters.
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The Inner Photographer … Brought to You by Photoshop

November 23, 2012 by Lindsey Bugbee 2 Comments
Everyday Skills

We have been helping a friend set up her website, [www.alternativelivingreiki.com]. As of yet, our progress isn’t astounding, but we have been doing things little by little as we are in Northwestern Kansas for the Thanksgiving holiday. One of those things is taking good pictures that underline what Nichole at Alternative Living Reiki does. Reiki is an intensely natural treatment in which one’s energy fields are engaged to trigger healing and rejuvenation. To emphasize the nature aspect, Nichole and I traveled to a nearby lake to take pictures. Of course, we had to include a picture of yours truly getting a reiki treatment later, too!

I proceeded to take pictures with a Fujifilm Finepix, which didn’t seem to be the best camera — but admittedly I don’t know much about cameras. It was certainly a welcome alternative to Instagram, though, so I kept shooting. I was hoping my somewhat tedious acquaintance with modifying photos using Photoshop would pull me through on this one. So, after we got done, I came home, plugged the memory card in to my computer, and browsed Pinterest for Photoshop tutorials.

A tutorial titled How I Edit ALL of My Pictures by Jessica Drew Photography is one of my favorites. It’s a tutorial that has encouraged me to play with the curves tool … a tool that I previously was too frightened to touch with a ten foot pole. Turns out moderation is key with that one. I also love using the dodge tool on the eyes. Brilliant.

After reading through Ms. Drew’s tutorial, I had a couple of (what I consider) successful goes with Photoshop. Granted, the photos don’t look like a professional did them, but I’ve never credited myself as a photographer anyway. Without further ado, I present to you the before and after photos of Nichole:

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