Flower Baubles Necklace

I have been in a slump lately, one that involves designing jewelry.  I've been busy quilting away and madly trying to finish up a quilt before I leave town for spring break.  As I was reading some of the blogs that are on my reader, one of the gals tossed out an idea for a resin baubles challenge and I thought why not.  Of course, I said yes before I made the trek to Michael's to find the said beads, but luckily I found the designated package and my little helper picked out the package of pink and purple.  The other choice was a spring green and teal which would have been fun too.

I purchased the package, brought it home and began playing with it.  This necklace was super fast to put together and I like how it came out.  I used crimp beads to keep everything in its place and attached a lobster clasp and jump rings to finish it off.

Thank you Lorelei for the challenge and I look forward to seeing everyone's creations.

Don't you just love these little globes?  Amazing how from the side 

they are clear but from the top, the color shows through.

A close up of these beauties

Coming soon to my etsy store.....

If you feel like blog hopping, here are the other participants

Lola

Denise McCabe

Mustard Bead

A Polymer Penchant

Pearl and Pebble

Peacock Fairy

Beads for Busy Gals

Dawn Williams

Shirley Moore

B Street Studios

Sally Russick

Pamela770

Erin Prais-Hintz

Heather Powers

MirandAck

Lily

Karen Firnberg

Tanya

Mary

Rosebud101

Ann

Toltec Jewels

Micha (ME :)

Terri

Guinness Brownies

My husband had poker on Friday night and while I was hoping to make cupcakes for the guys, home all day with 3 boys gave me a headache so I mustered up enough strength to make brownies...from a mix.

Sigh....

I'm such a brat about mixes but I have to say the Ghirardelli brownie mix is pretty stinking good. I did substitute the water for Guinness beer and sent then on the way to poker night. The guys loved them, my girlfriends were tweeting how good they were or that poker should be at another friends house because then she could have brownies. I was like, y'all the brownies came from a mix. So I thought I would share my crazy Guinness brownies.

Recipe:
Box of Ghiradelli brownie mix
1/3 cup Guinness
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

Following the directions from the box, substitute the water for the Guinness and continue with the directions. Pour into an 8x8 baking dish that has been throughly greased and bake for 35-40 min. You need to bake it a little less than the box states. Mine were crunchy on the outside & gooey, yummy in the middle.

No More #diyproject

There are blessings and curses of being a stay at home mom and one of those curses are the lovely, pushy sales people who go door knocking for a living.  One too many meat salesmen and tree cutters and I had had my fill.  It was time to look for a no soliciting sign to adorn my front step.

Enter the wonderful world of Etsy......

I searched out no soliciting signs to place outside and discovered a lot of great ones.  Some are funny, like this one, this one and this one.

Some are basic, but pretty, like this one, this one and this one.

I decided to go with this sign and turn it into a little DIY project.  I bought an 11x4 piece of craft wood at Michael's, spray painted it silver and once it was dried, I added a layer of eggplant alcohol ink using a sponge paint brush and once that was dry, I followed the directions on applying the vinyl sign.

I hot glued silver ribbon to the back and made the ribbon long enough that if I wanted to add a wreath outside, I could and you could still see the sign.  Now I need a pretty wreath to adorn my front window area next to my front door.