The French Love Their Pastries

 

Before we begin today, I want to thank Alison from Craftytrog's Arty Adventures for being such an incredible host.  As many of you know, I absolutely adore Alison's art and get such a thrill every time I visit her blog.  I admire her style and often study it and her art.  Again, thanks so much Alison.  You have definitely done us proud.

As for me, I have needed my co-administrators to pick up the slack for me this month.  For that I apologize.  Now that ICADs are finished, and as soon as my neighborhood's annual clean up is complete (on August 12), hopefully life will allow me more computer time.

This month, Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is our host.  I misunderstood the theme.  I thought it was Anywhere in the World, and created a journal page based on that theme.  Then I learned Chris really wanted WHERE in the World.  Such a small change, but it still changed the entire feel of the theme.  Chris wants us to, and I quote:

see places, people and customs, in fact anything memorable about your chosen destinations. It can be somewhere you have visited, but doesn’t have to be.

With that in mind, I created the following.

This journal page is titled

 

France's love of fine pastries.

 

We'll begin in a typical cafe somewhere in France.

 

Here are the pastries:

 

Canele' is a small French pastry with a thick caramelized crust and a soft vanilla center. 

It is known for its unique shape, which reminded me of a bundt cake on steroids.

 

I bet this truly would be good with coffee.

Chouquette is the next pastry.  It is made from choux dough topped with pear sugar.

 

Per the description, they pair beautifully with afternoon tea.

Religieuse was the most fascinating to me.  They are two cream filled choux pastries, one a bit smaller than the other, that sits on top of the other. 

Religieuse means Nun in French and it really does look a bit like a nun in her habit!!

 

Opera looks decadent to me.

 

Thankfully. I didn't color compensate, so I hope you can read about all the layers that include coffee and chocolate ganache. 

I managed to cut off part of the most beautiful of all the pastries known as fraisier.

Fraisier is composed of sponge cake and fresh strawberries, along with pastry cream.  Who wouldn't be tempted if they saw this on a dessert tray.

I started by printing the top two lines of this journal page, leaving room for the rubber stamp of the Eiffel Tower.  I was quite concerned with the top and bottom of the stamp, and because it was wood mounted, I didn't realize I got the height right, but not the width.  There was no do over, though.

Each of the French pastries was found in a junk mail travel magazine featuring the beautiful pastries.  I suspect Chris has eaten at least one of these amazing French pastries.

Chris, Erika, Valerie, Bleubeard, and I are delighted you joined us and hope to see you this month at Art Journal Journey as you share your own interpretation of Where in the World.

 

We welcome art journal pages that meet the theme requirements, altered book pages, canvases, loose, or stand alone pages including fabric and digital art.  We cannot leave comments on Facebook or Instagram entries.  We do not allow cards, tags, index cards, ATCs, or ATCoins, unless they are part of a journal page, and as much as we don't want to, will be forced to delete your entry.  Please remember if your blog is not in English, you must either provide a translation tool or translate it for us.  Hope to see you soon at Art Journal Journey.