Thursday, June 30, 2011

Drum Roll Please

And the winner is ....

Sara Kok!!!

Congratulations!!!! 

This is Sara's Blog if anyone wants to take a peek, she's just started up =)
Congratulations we hope you love your scarf!!!! 

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Calling all Ravenclaw's

In celebration of the final movie coming out in a short 16 days and honoring my house I created this treasury on Etsy. A treasury made up of all Ravenclaw products <3
Please take a look!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Get inspired about food

So I just finished the season finale of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution ... and if you haven't seen this show I strongly suggest you go to hulu.com and watch it ... it's absolutely amazing. I was lucky enough to have adults in my life that were educated in food and I come from a strong culinary background and went to college for Culinary Arts. I am not working in the field today but am cooking a lot at home, always making fresh bread and trying little by little to eliminate bad foods from our diet starting now so we have healthy eating habits intact for when we have children later on. 

So today I'd like to share with you all my personal garden. We weren't settled into our new place in time to start growing all of the vegetables I would have liked, but we did manage to get a tomato plant and two strawberry plants. We are growing all of our plants on our back deck and in our kitchen. It is my hope that we will also have some herbs going soon, maybe by this weekend in our kitchen window. 
I have a lot of different Morning Glories and moon flowers as well. I can't wait for them to start flowering.
The first morning glories i planted .. not sure if they are going to survive or not. They are resilient though.
Even more morning glories, with some moon flowers scattered in.
Again Morning Glories, they might be pink ones .. i dont remember 
Strawberries =) 
First tomato flower
Tomato plant ... its been really rainy lately and the leaves are wilting a bit

my hanging plant, also morning glories
and more

all of them ... 




Friday, June 24, 2011

Only 1 week left!!!


WE HAVE ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT UNTIL THE DRAWING!!!!
Who will get this lovely scarf made by InezGill?
If you haven't entered to giveaway yet its easy!!! And you can do it right now!!!! 





"THE GYPSY SCARF 

Knitted with 1 inch thick needles out an acrylic/wool yarn blend. 

Original design only 1 in stock!!

Can be worn long or short. Winter or summer!"



At the end of the month (June 30) we will draw a name at random and you will receive your lovely piece from InezGill.

To be entered in the giveaway:
1. Visit InezGill's Shop and browse around then... 
come back here and in the comments section
2. Leave a comment with your first and last name, or first and middle name 
and your favorite Item!!

Monday, June 20, 2011

More Baking Adventures!

So this morning I've made a variation of basic muffins with strawberries but instead of mixing the strawberries in the batter I put the strawberries on bottom of the muffin tins and covered them with batter.

I poured the leftover batter into a greased backing pan and covered it with strawberries and am making a strawberry rhubarb glaze to go on top. 








I also have some pictures of the bread I made for this week =)




just a basic white bread, still needs to rise twice before it is baked =) 


And as always, none of this would be possible without my life blood 
and this morning it is iced <3 


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Don't miss out!


 if you have not entered in to win the free scarf from InezGill now is the time! 
Simply go to the June Giveway blog entry and leave a comment! 

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Master of Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I am so sorry for the lack of posts this past weekend and yesterday ... I think my computer may be on it's last leg ... it is slow with everything! The internet is the absolute worst!! I can't do anything! This weekend I'm hoping to reformat it so I can hopefully keep it going for another year or two, we've had a long run this laptop and I.

But you don't want to hear about my laptop that's on the fritz ... you came for COOKIES!!!

Now that I'm working from home I've had time to brush up on my baking and cooking in general. I cook dinner every night =) which is something I've never consistently done! Now all we need is a kitchen table and it'll be perfect! Not that I mind eating at the bar in the kitchen. 
On to the cookies!

I was going to type out the recipe for you ... but it's on the back of the tollhouse chocolate chip bag ... 
I was looking through my notes from when I did my first Baking class back in college ... and found my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe .. the title "Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies"
=)
This is the second batch I've made, the first was really bland ... use semi sweet chocolate, milk chocolate just isn't the same! 




mmm mmm mmm and now my house smells like cookies =)




oh and this little tid-bit ... this woman lives across the street from me ... 
late 20's early 30's blonde hair and little yippy dog ...
she parks like this every day and it drives me nuts! 
this is actually pretty good ... usually she's further on the lawn 
her driveway can fit 4 cars and she's got a garage 
... plus its a duplex ... so she shares this driveway with someone else 
boggles my mind 


Friday, June 10, 2011

BUTTONS GALORE!!!!!!

It occurred to me this morning while browsing some of my favorite button shops that I hadn't blogged yet today ... and then I realized I have never blogged about BUTTONS!!!!! What kind of button fanatic am I if I don't blog about my favorite collection item!!

I would like to share with you all some of my favorite button shops on Etsy!! 
ENJOY!


Heather Nichols has some great pieces! I just bought a necklace from her and am really excited to get it =) 
She has some really unique button jewelry that I had never seen before!
Like this necklace!

KrapLap is based out of Germany and they also have some great Button Accessories and jewelry! 
Like this beautiful bracelet.

Crushcrush  also has some awesome buttons and they are based out of Thailand! 
These are my favorite from Crushcrush

And finally my current favorite button proveyor is the lovely Mariiam 
Since I discovered her shop I've gotten all of my buttons from her and could not be happier.
Here are some of her buttons...




And just for giggles here is a shot of the buttons I have right now =)




Also if you have not entered in to win the free scarf fromInezGill now is the time! 
Simply go to the June Giveway blog entry and leave a comment! 




Thursday, June 9, 2011

Coffee and other Necessities in my life

So when I moved to TN I toyed with the idea of getting an espresso maker instead of a coffee maker then I changed my mind when I found this coffee maker at Bed Bath & Beyond 


I absolutely love it! And since I can't function well enough in the morning to actually make a pot of coffee I just make it the night before and it brews in the morning ... this is the first programmable coffee maker I've had and I have to say it is absolutely amazing to wake up to the coffee maker beeping to tell me the coffee is ready >.<

I had a French Press for a while, well i still have it just don't use it, I can't seem to get the ratio right when i'm still half asleep ... something my friend Emily noticed when I was babysitting for her over the course of 3 weeks while she took a summer class. From what I've been told my multiple people I can be quite amusing trying to make coffee before I've had any amount of caffeine. As an amazing perfect gift for watching her two lovely children her and her husband got me a basket full of Starbucks coffee, neither of them are coffee drinkers but despite that they picked out some AMAZING blends! They also got Starbucks Via's which are brilliant!!! Especially for the morning challenged people like myself.
So with moving into the new place and unpacking everything I didn't realize until yesterday how much coffee I actually have in my cupboard ... Just coffee ... this doesn't count the tea selection ... 





Also this week has been a busy week over in the Etsy community, I have been featured in multiple BNR's if you would like to go take a look and peak around at some of the shops! 






Also if you have not entered in to win the free scarf from InezGill now is the time! 
Simply go to the June Giveway blog entry and leave a comment! 



Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Get the skinny on BNR's on Etsy!

So I have been a member of the Etsy community for less than a year now and one night while crawling through the forums looking for advice to better my shop a lovely woman by the shop name of Claudia Bruno suggested I check out BNR's (buy and replace) and that through them you get sales and free advertising. Being a total noob in the Etsy world I of course didn't have the slightest idea what a BNR was! Claudia was great and explained everything! So now i'm passing on my knowledge! 
If you go into the treasury section of Etsy and search for BNR you'll find multiple treasuries full of people chatting and hanging out! So what you do: Every BNR is slightly different based on the Curator but there will be a list of rules. Here are Feltery's rules for the BNR that is going on today:

1. Min. $3 purchase.
2. You may buy ANY item from any of the shops.
3. NO need to call out shop name. 
4. Post transaction LINK.
5. Next round starts after 12 sales, where you will be featured.
6. Help spread the word!


That is pretty much the jist of it. I've gotten a lot more views in my shop and even hits on my blog and new fbook and twitter friends. It is a great networking tool if used properly! And just think, there are 12 people featured in each BNR including yourself, and everyone has their own people that follow them and they are promoting the BNR on twitter, and facebook and sending out convo's ... it's a lot of great exposure to your shop!!! 

Here are a few great BNR's that you can check out!






xoxo

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Harry Potter

For a lot of kids in my age group Harry Potter is more than just a book series, and together we have grown with Harry, and as Warner Bros. developed the books we love so much into movies we waited with anticipation. Next month as we all know will be the last movie of the series. I am very excited and very sad at this. Excited to see what they have done and sad that there will no longer be midnight premiers and fun to be had with other wizards (we can always go to Orlando i suppose though). We as Potter fans know that it will never end and these are books we will pass down to our children and hope they make an impact on them like they did on us.

That being said if you read this blog than you know that I am an avid reader and whenever I can't find a book that spikes my interest or am just having trouble falling to sleep I grab Harry off the bookshelf and open to a random page and start reading. At a certain point you forget you are reading and just drift into Hogwarts. I found myself thinking one day how else we could show our house pride, I personally have sewn Ravenclaw patches onto vests and sweaters to wear on an almost daily basis (more in winter) I was looking for things that wouldn't stand out immensely but that if another Ravenclaw saw they would smile and know. 
About a week ago I hit a sort of road block with my knitting shop on Etsy and then it came to me ... House inspired scarves, coffee cozys, headbands, jewelry ... so I set to work. 

The first thing I made was a Gryffindor inspired scarf with matching coffee cozy. The pattern is very different from what they use in the movies. Also with the yarn I had left I made a matching coffee cup cozy


I had planned on making the same things for all 4 houses ... and at some point got sidetracked ... but I do plan on having them done before July 15.

Also in this inspirational phase I made a headband for each house.





It started with me just making a Ravenclaw one for myself then Katelyn wanted a Slytherin one so I just made a bunch and put the rest in the shop!! 

You can visit the shop to view more pictures or to purchase HERE


We are also still taking names for the July Giveaway!!! You can win a free scarf from InezGill
Just go to the blog link HERE! and leave us a comment!!

Monday, June 6, 2011

June's Etsy Giveaway!!!

JUNE GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!


This month I am teaming up with a fellow Etsian, InezGill to do a giveaway!

"THE GYPSY SCARF 

Knitted with 1 inch thick needles out an acrylic/wool yarn blend. 

Original design only 1 in stock!!

Can be worn long or short. Winter or summer!"



At the end of the month (June 30) we will draw a name at random and you will receive your lovely piece from InezGill.

To be entered in the giveaway:
1. Visit InezGill's Shop and browse around then... 
come back here and in the comments section
2. Leave a comment with your first and last name, or first and middle name 
and your favorite Item!!



Friday, June 3, 2011

Green Lantern Cake!! With Lantern Corps Cupcakes!!!

To celebrate my dear friend Shawn's birthday we are going to see the new X-Men movie (green lantern isn't out yet). He is probably one of the biggest Green Lantern fans that I know .. myself not included :-p. We got these tattoos together for my birthday back in December. 
**Shawn and I, December 2010**


Now keep in mind I have not decorated a cake since my baking classes in Culinary school in like 2008. 
So please don't judge too harshly =)

And so it begins .... this was at about 7am



I decided to practice a little freehand while the cake was cooling
The Lantern Corps with their corresponding food colors

Slowly making a mess!!!

 The colors are a lot brighter in real life, i was just too messy to play with the camera too much
FINISHED

My favorite! I think it came out best! 

 And this will be how it is presented to the birthday boy!<3