Giveaway Winner

Sorry this post is a day late. I am beyond busy right now! I didn't even have a chance to think about a giveaway for this week, so we will have to wait until next Thursday for a new giveaway.

The lucky winner of this weeks giveaway is:

Number 4- Rachel! Congrats!


Rachel I think I have your address somewhere, but you better send it to again just in case!

I'll be back to post next week! Have a wonderful weekend.

Winner!

Good Evening everyone! It's the time you've all been waiting for, time to pick a winner for this weeks giveaway!! And the lucky winner is:

Number 2- Kara!!

Kara, please send me your snail mail address, and I'll get your goodies sent off ASAP! Congrats!

Now lets see what's up for grabs this week!

TA DA!

A pretty little sterling silver necklace made by moi! The butterfly image was taken from a vintage children's book, and lovingly sealed in resin. Won't it look perfect with your little white summer tee, and shorts!

So you know the rules, to win you must enter by leaving a comment on this post before next Thursday, May 28th. The winner will be announced next Thursday, so check back in!

Thanks for playing along!

I ♥ Faces

I just found out about this cool site I ♥ Faces while over at Brandie's blog. They do a weekly photo contest, and this weeks winner will be featured in a printed book! My photography skills are very minimal but i thought it would be fun to enter! Here is my entry, one of my favorite pics of my daughter! She is smiling at something funny her daddy said!

"I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb Book photo contest. I am granting I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites."

New in Shop

I just added a few things to my shop! Stop by and check them out! I'll be adding a few more in the next couple of days too.

Sunday was a wonderfully relaxing day! We went to a little lake called Sugar Pine. The kids had lots of fun playing in the water, feeding geese, and spraying mommy and daddy with squirt guns! It was so nice just to soak up the sun and feel the cool water on my toes!

!

What did you all do over the weekend?

Weekly Giveaway!

Good morning ladies! Hope you all are having a wonderful day so far! Now let's make it even better for the lucky winner of last weeks giveaway...

Congrats to lucky number 13- Cupcake Studios! Please contact me with your info. and I'll get you goodies out to you!

Shall we play again?


This weeks giveaway is a pair of gorgeous earrings made by yours truly. Pretty mocha colored glass pearls, vintage rhinestone spacer beads, and clear faceted crystals , make these earrings stunning! The winner will also receive the pretty little earring stand holding the earrings!

So do you want them? Do ya? Well you know what to do! Just leave a comment on this post between now and next Thursday, May 21st. The winner will be announced that day , and another new will be announced!

Good Luck!

Sorry I left you all high and dry today! I know I was scheduled to announce the winner of the weekly giveaway today, but my daughter decided to get an ear infection, and my middle child thought it would be fun to throw up all over my carpet! Guess he got what my daughter had this weekend. Needless to say, it hasn't been pretty around here!

So come check back in tomorrow when I'll announce the winner, and reveal this weeks giveaway!

till' then!

Red Door

Hello everyone! Hope you all had wonderful mothers day's! Mine was very relaxing, despite my daughter being sick with the stomach flu. She slept most of the day, and my husband entertained the boys by taking them on an adventure at his work (he manages a golf course, and the boys love riding around in daddy's golf cart!) !

I spent a few hours at the antique fair which is the second Sunday of every month in mid-town Sacramento. For some reason I really wasn't in a hunting mood, very strange for me since I usually live for the fair. I did find some fun things though, a few old rhinestone jewelry pieces, some pretty vintage tins, and two gorgeous old feather down ticking pillows for $10 each!

Our house has been busy getting things cleaned, painted and packed up for the June 1st date of putting our house officially up for sale. The picture at the top is my newly painted red front door. I can't not say this enough, "I hate packing!!" I hate moving for that matter! We have done so several times in the past years, and it doesn't get any easier the more you do it. My husband says it's cause I have too much junk, and I think he may be right! I don't like to part with anything I think my be useful to me someday, but I'm also not very organized. This can be a problem when your house is just too small!

Why are we moving then you ask? We have been mulling over the idea for about a year now, well basically since the real estate market decided to take a dump and take all our investment with it! Now usually people are very hush, hush about their money/finances, but I'm telling you this because I know we are not the only ones affected by the current state of our economy. When we purchased out home in 2005 we paid $400,000, mind you this is a 1400 sq ft , 3 bedroom home. Today our house is worth $169,900! talk about devastating! Everything we put down on our house is gone. Everything we put into the house is gone. We never intended this to be our "forever" home, since our goal has always been to someday return to Santa Cruz, where my husband is from. Our chance to move to Santa Cruz may come as soon as 2 years from now, and there is no way our house is going to jump back up to $400,000. A short sale is really the only option, since we owe more than the house is worth. Do we just stay for now, and short sale later, delaying the inevitable, or do we get this thing over with, and start to repair what has been broken now rather than later? We've cried, we've gotten angry, we've moped and been depressed, but finally realized some things are just out of your hands. We are ready to be done with this, get on with our lives and start the journey of recovery. It is deflating, and feels like we are starting all over again, when we worked so hard to become homeowners, but we are focusing on the fact that we are healthy, financially stable, and will always have a roof over our heads whether it's ours or borrowed. That's what's most important after all.

Now, off to pack up some more!

Weekly Giveaway!

I am trying to make a commitment to myself to blog on a regular basis. While I'm not quite ready to commit to a certain number of posts a week, I will be posting at least once every week! In order to follow through with this I'll be doing a giveaway once every week! Yippee!

Each week will be something different, and may include one of my pieces of jewelry, a DIY kit, vintage finds, and anything else I think you all might enjoy!

This weeks giveaway is a DIY kit: Hazelnut Cream Vintage Bracelet Kit


The winner of the giveaway will receive one kit with everything you'll need to create a one-of-a-kind vintage bracelet (see above pic.). This includes, vintage beads, vintage glass buttons, pearls, bits of antique lace, seam binding , and other fun things! It will also include antiqued brass jump rings, headpins, an 8 1/2" length of chain, antiqued jewelry wire, and a toggle clasp to finish off your bracelet. The only thing you'll need to supply are your tools, and creativity!

To enter, leave a comment on this post, and one random winner will be selected on Thursday May 14th.

Good luck!

Latest Purchase

Look what I just purchased from one of my favorite stores! I went looking for a cute something to hang on my newly painted front door (I'll tell you more about that later), but instead found this very Anthro looking quilt and shams. Did I need them, well, no, but I fell in love, and for $50 for the both the shams and quilt, I couldn't pass it up! The colors are not my usual palate, but It seems like my palate is ever changing, and for some reason this quilt just called to me!

My bedroom is pretty much devoid of color. I never painted the walls, so they are builder white and boring. We are putting the house on the market June 1st, so the walls will remain white. The painting over the bed belonged to my Husbands Grandmother. She recently passed away, and I feel privileged to be the new owners of the painting. I believe one of her close friends painted it for her. The colors were a perfect match to the new quilt.



The pillow with the "K" on it actually used to be in my office (before baby girl took over the room). I thought it went well with the quilt, although it might not be nice to have a pillow with just my initial on it, since my hubby shares the bed too! I'll have to find something else to take it's spot!

The bed, well actually the entire bedroom set, was a wedding gift from my parents. It really is more my moms style, very traditional, but It's pretty, and was free! Can't beat that! I love my mommy!

Hope you liked the peek into my bedroom! Bye for now!

Nutella Love

Today my boys and I made some delicious Nutella Banana Muffins (we call them cupcakes at my house because cupcakes are much more likely to get eaten by the kids than muffins are!). We are big fans of Nutella here, but since beginning my quest to shed pounds (which, I'm happy to announce, I am down 2 pant sizes! Whoot! Whoot!) I haven't been breakin' open the jar as much. I have had a huge Costco sized jar in my cabinet for 2 months, so I thought it was time for a little treat!

My kids love to help me bake, but it's very hard to do it in an organized and neat manner with all three. Usually my 2 year old has her hand in everything generally making an obscene mess, so I reserved some special time just for my boys while the baby took her nap. We had lots of fun, and the mess was kept to a minimum!


If you love Nutella, you must make this recipe! It really is to die for! I took the liberty of spreading a thin layer of the spread on top like frosting, and added a small sprinkling of powdered sugar! Yum!



If you make them, let me know how they were!

**UPDATE**

You'll be happy to know the huge pile of Laundry is gone! It's now possible to walk through the hallway without fear of a broken ankle! Gotta love that!

Shameful

I have a dirty secret (and I do mean dirty!). I have been very diligently avoiding any type of housework this week. We are planning on putting our house on the market next Friday and my to do list is a mile long. I don't work well under deadlines. I procrastinate until I can procrastinate no longer. It's my worst trait, I admit. So while I have been making jewelry, working out, going to coffee, reading and playing with the kiddos, my laundry pile has grown to epic proportions! I kid you not! I am showing you this picture in the hope that it may publicly shame me into getting my act together! So please, if you have a weak stomach, look away!



I think it may take me all weekend to get it all done! That must be my penance for my sloven ways! You know what Ill be doing this weekend, hope yours is much more enjoyable!

Teaching an old dog new tricks

I've been very inspired lately to learn and create some new pieces. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, and yet I struggle to find the time I need to work those ideas out. Soldering has been something I have wanted to learn for some time now, but just never got around to hatching it out. I thought it might be best to learn soldering as sort of a building block to learning more complex metal smith techniques, which is my end goal. I finally bought the supplies, and referred to the tutorials and books I've had had for awhile, and sat down to do it. It's addicting! I want to solder everything in sight! I've made several basic pendants, which as you know are made by everyone and their mother, but it's new to me, and I'm enjoying the possibilities soldering allows.


I picked up a few new art books recently thank to my 50% off coupon from JoAnns. I never realized what a great selection of art books they carried. I now have a list, and every time I get a coupon I'll be picking up a new book!


One of the books I got features some amazing jewelry by some very talented ladies. My work tends to be, pretty, romantic, and rather girly, but there are some amazing wire techiniques in this book that I'm really excited to learn! Many of the projects are made using a more rustic approach to wire wrapping. I am usually a very precise and neat wire wrapper, so this messy technique is a little foreign to me, but I'm loving the freedom of it! It's organic and very liberating!

My latest purchase was a tiny little sewing machine for crafting. I really, really want to learn to sew beautiful things like this gal, and this gal, and this one too, but for now I'll be content to sew small things like paper and felt. So much to learn, so little time!

Ohh I also am dying to make a few projects from this gorgeous book! For now I'll just drool over the pages!

And the winner is...

My random number generator, AKA: My husband, picked lucky number:

1

for my B-Day giveaway!

That means Heidi of Digital Misfit is the winner! Congrats to you, Heidi, and thanks to the other 6 of you for playing along!

Heidi, please email me your snail mail info so I can get your necklace off to you!

Fabulous Friday- Jewlery Display

I stumbled upon the blog Simply Seleta today and thought I'd join in her Fab Friday. If you'd like to participate you can see all the rules here, but basically you just have to blog about something fabulous from your day!

Today I was feeling crafty and have been itching to make some display pieces to hold my jewelry that I sell at a few local shops. So I used my morning to be productive and made two of these cute pin boards to hang my jewelry on!



I already had the frames but they were gold and not very attractive, so I spray painted them aqua and antiqued them a bit. next I wrapped the peg board (what used to be in the frame) with batting and burlap. I screwed the boards back in place and added a little decorative trim to finish the pieces off. I just used pearl tipped straight pins to hang the jewelry, and viola! I have two new pretty pieces to display my wares!

I think these definitely qualify as Fabulous!

Infectious

I told you dance was infectious! I just saw this on Dede's blog and had to share!

Zumba

I've told you guys a little bit about my journey towards weight loss and a healthier me, but I haven't given much of the details about what routine consists of. I discovered Zumba about 4 months ago, and have become completely hooked on the Latin infused dance workout! I started dancing at about age 4, and continued throughout high school. I even danced and cheered competitively in high school. I love to move and dance to a good beat, but since having children and gaining weight I'd lost my rhythm! When I stumbled upon Zumba I was so excited to try a form of exercise that actually seemed fun! I own a treadmill, but I'd really rather do laundry than step on that thing! It is sooooo boring! I can't stop looking at the clock when I'm on it!
Now with Zumba, I am going 4 times a week, and the workout is amazing! I'm sweating bullets when it's over, yet the times seems to fly by because it is just so much fun! I'm also doing a toning and weight training class 2 times a week. It's brutal, but effective! My legs are actually burning right now from the million lunges I did in Monday's class!

So it may sound like I'm a spokesperson for Zumba, but really I just wanted to share with you this fun and very effective workout with you guys, because it has truly been the main force in my quest to shape up! There are Zumba class all over the country, so find one near you and try it out! I promise you'll be hooked!

Happy Birthday to Me (and him)!

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthhhday to meeeee, happy Birthday to me!

If you'd hadn't guessed already today is my birthday! My 31st to be exact. Can't say I am very excited to have aged another year, but I did have a wonderful day! My hubby surprised me with flowers in the morning and a very "heartfelt" card! he usually gets me funny cards so I was a little surprised to get such a mushy card from him until I saw his little note under the mushy quote! Enough said!

That's how it goes from here on out. Once you turn 30, your birthday celebrations are more and more subdued, and people have wished you so many happy birthdays, that they can't think of any more creative ways to tell you how special you are! They just look for it already written in a card! I confess, I did it to him too on his birthday last week! Yes, his birthday was last week, he's just a mere 6 days older than me!

The kids made me some cute cards, daddy took care of dinner and bought us all cupcakes too. He thought he was hilarious putting all 31 candles on top of my cupcake!


When they were all lit my four year old exclaimed, " the fire department is going to come!". Ha! he also asked if I was going to have a pinata! You do know a Pinata is the true sign of an awesome birthday party, right? Sorry no pinata!

Since we went out to dinner for the hubby's b-day last week (and you practically need to take out a second on your home to pay for dinner and a babysitter these days!) I opted to keep it casual today. I'd much rather be in bed early with a new movie anyways!

So since I'm celebrating my second year in my 30's, I'd like to celebrate with you all with a giveaway! The winner will be able to choose one of the vintage charm necklaces shown below! To be entered, just leave a comment with your name, the necklace you'd like, and a way to contact you. The winner will be drawn on Monday April 20th.

OK, off to enjoy the rest of my birthday! See ya!

Happy Weekend!

Hope you all have a great weekend! I'll be spending mine in this fabulous beach town:

Capitola, CA! Can you believe my husband grew up here? We visit a lot since he has family here, and you won't hear me complaining about it!

We'll probably eat here:And I will definitely be spending some time at my favorite antique stores like this one:


Center Street Antiques, Soquel CA.

Hope you guys have a great weekend too!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Three years ago today you entered my life and immediately it felt as if you'd always been here. While your brother is special for making me a mom, you are special for making me a BETTER mom! Your sweet and gentle nature is a blessing to our family. We all cherish the hugs and cuddles you are so generous in handing out! I love you my, sweet, sweet boy! You make my life brighter each and every day! Happy 3rd Birthday!

Love and kisses Forever,
Mommy

Sneak peek

Here is a sneak peak of some things I have been making lately. My poor Etsy shop is sooo barren! I plan on plumping it up in a few days!

Anything your heart desires

Doing some late night browsing on Etsy and came upon a few interesting things. I think you could find just about anything on Etsy! All I can say is Hmmm?


SillyVilleNailzimageSweetnewbeginnings

I'm a little scared to be honest of the last pic! That IS NOT a real baby!!!


Not everything I can upon was disturbing though. I did find this adorable dress for my daughter!

Bossy Baby

Don't ya just love Etsy!