Clay Rings

I love to make jewelry.  It is all about creativity, and since everyone has different taste in what they like, you will have SOMEBODY say, "Oh, cool!  Did you make that!?"
Today I broke out the polymer clay I bought over a week ago.  I had seen a bubble looking ring on Pinterest that I wanted to try to make.
At first, I was going to mix yellow, turqoise and orange balls together, but I thought it looked juvenile with all the colors.  The example on Pinterest was multiple colored, and it looked great.  Mine, for whatever reason, did not.  I decided to make my first batch a single color for each ring.
I made two rings with the multiple sized clay balls, and I made one with a "knotted" look.  I have never worked with clay, so I am just experimenting. 
These will be fun summer rings to wear!

I can't wait to try this again.  I learned from a couple mistakes, so I think the next batch will be even better . .

I linked this post up to:

Blue Cricket Design

Blessed and Home Again

I just wanted to say hello to everyone and apologize for the lack of posts! What a busy but fun week I have had. I do apologize for the lack of new posts, but I got to spend three days in San Diego with my husband--without any kids. We usually only get away from the kids about one full night a year, so this was much needed and cherished.
Today, Ryan took one more day off work so we could spend the day at Knott's Berry Farm with the boys. We all came home sunburned, tired, but with huge smiles on our faces. I am blessed. We have a terrific family, and God has given me so much.
I am going to try a clay craft tomorrow afternoon--ack! I haven't worked with clay before, so I'll post the results tomorrow night. I pray you are all doing well and feeling blessed too!

Tea Table

"I've had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I can't take more.” “You mean you can't take less,” said the Hatter: “it's very easy to take more than nothing."
Alice in Wonderland, Alice at the tea party

Every year, our church's women's ministry puts on a tea.  This is not your ordinary tea.  There is a friendly competition to see who has the best table.  You see, a woman can sign up to hostess a table, which means she is in charge of the decorations, theme and favors at her table of 8.  This is right up my alley, so I am co-hosting a table with my mom.

The past tables have been A-MAZ-ING!  I have some ideas, but I'm not completely sure what theme I am going to pick for my table this year.  Here is the link where you can view a photo gallery of last year's tables (you can see how women go all out!), but I will post a few pictures of my favorites.

Friday Favorites: April 8, 2011

Can you believe it is April? Easter is right around the corner! Our church and our household are getting very excited for our Easter church services at the Bren Center at University of California, Irvine! Come join us if you live in Southern California!  You can find out more info at http://compasschurch.org/.

This week I've been playing around on the website called Pinterest. It is an amazing site where you pin pictures onto online "boards", and it saves them for you by category. For instance, I am planning an owl baby shower, and I have been "pinning" owl ideas on my board for the baby shower. I have boards called "Future Craft Possibilities", "Fashion", "Photographs", "Food Displays", "Books Worth Reading" etc. It is a lot of fun. If you have a creative personality, you have to try pinterest. It is an invite only site, but if you go request an invitation, you will most likely get invited to join within the month--that was my experience. Tidy Mom did a great spotlight and explanation of Pinterest, including pictures of her amazing board samples--check it out here. Have fun!

Now enjoy these amazing and creative posts from the week:

 A Day with a Domestic Engineer made homemade salsa.  Living in Southern California, it is always a good
idea to have a homemade salsa recipe on hand.  Mexican food is such an integral part of life here, and I'm not complaining!  I can't wait to try this--it looks delicious!



I loved this post from Sew Many Things to Say.  She recently got married and did her own small wedding in every detail.  Read the words.  She is in the midst of some financial trials, but she gives God thanks and praise for every blessing in her circumstances.  Plus, her wedding was beautiful--what a great attitude and a talented lady!



The Frosted Gardener remade a dresser for a client.  She refinished it beautifully, and I love that she kept the original hardware.  It works perfectly!  I have two distressed, black pieces that need to be refinished on the top due to scratches.  I need to get the guts to try!



Tip Junkie gave us a post highlighting crafting rooms that were beautifully done.  Oh, these are awesome!  Someday, when the boys go away to college, I can take over a room, paint it robin's egg blue and sprinkle it with fabric and an idea board.  For now, though, I am thankful to just enjoy these lovely examples and give cuddles to my boys.


Infarrantly Creative redid her bathroom.  I love the softness in the final room.  Plus, she used lavendar.  My new house has no lavendar, and I miss it.  I was able to have plum kitchens in my last two houses, but this new house is less colorful due to the open floorplan.  Go enjoy her soft plum bathroom with beautiful paneling.



North Dakota Kitchen made "Cracked Egg" Cupcakes using white chocolate, cupcakes and lemon curd topping.  Beautiful and so fun!



Gluesticks made cinnamon bunny rolls.  They are extremely easy and amazingly cute.  I know my two little guys would gobble these up in a minute!



Savvy Southern Style revealed her new kitchen.  I love the fact she mixed beauty and function so well with her personality and style.  It is breathtaking and fun all in one.



Simply Julie gives a great tutorial on wrapping paper ribbons.  Someone wrapped a gift for Carter with one of these and I loved it.  I found this tutorial the next week and saved it!  Plus, she uses directions of folding things like a "hot dog" and "hamburger".  Oh, I felt right at home--back to the days in my classroom.


Does anyone else love chocolate lava cake?  If you haven't discovered the easy, small ones you can buy and quickly make in the cake aisle (I think by Duncan Hines), then this is even BETTER!  Days at Buttermilk Cottage offers a great chocolate cake in a mug recipe.  She even puts some nice dollops of ice cream on her final product--delicious!


Finally, I should Be Mopping the Floor shared her resurrection rolls recipe!  They are easy and are a great, sweet alternative to the resurrection cookies (which I can NEVER get to be hollow and can never whip the eggs correctly).  This recipe is FOOLPROOF!  I'm switching to this method the night before Easter!  My kids will absolutely love it--though Carter will lament the fact his marshmallows are gone (he absolutely LOVES marshmallows!--I'll save a few on the side so we can still understand the picture of Jesus's empty grave!)


Have a great week, everyone!  Enjoy all the creative juices and have a blessed and fruitful week!

A Philippians 2 attitude--Even in a Blogging World

Tim Challies, a pastor and Christian author, wrote an excellent article on his blog this morning. He talks about fighting the urge to constantly check your number of readers and followers. Instead of caring so much about pleasing people you will probably never meet, he reminds us to focus on our direct circle of influence we have on family and friends. He wisely muses that it wouldn't matter much if he had thousands of happy readers but was neglecting his wife and treating her badly. Who is in your direct circle of influence at home?  Are there times you need to shut the computer and attend to the needs of your husband, kids, or friends?  How much time are you serving at church in comparison to your time spent blogging?

Bloggers often remind us to just blog because we love to do it and not to worry about popularity in the blogging world--don't obsess over numbers. Christians need to take it even a step further--we need to do everything in humility and for the glory of God, not ourselves. We can celebrate the creativity God gives us, but we need to make sure we do it while pointing to Him and encouraging others. Remember you are Christ's ambassador--His representative. As a Christian, we know every moment will have to be given an account to God someday. Do your readers know you are a Christian by your words and behavior, not just your profile paragraph?  Are you making sure you spend time in the Word and prayer daily--especially in comparison to the priority you give to blogging? . . . A thought for the day. . . I'll be thinking about what changes/application I can make.

Philippians 2:3-8
³Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Here is a link to Tim Challies blog post, which is written and explained much better than my post.

Dahlia Flower Pin

Dahlia petals spring forth with light
To guide us through the darkest night.

Dahlia's Delight by William Schmidt

I am in serious love with this flower pin.  I won't lie, though.  It was time consuming to make this.  I have a template now, so it won't be AS hard to make next time. 
I first spied this pin at Not Martha.  If you click on her links, she gives an AMAZING tutorial on how to make this.  I didn't even attempt to make a tutorial since she did such a great one.

I am HORRIBLE at taking mirror pictures--thus the lack of pictures of myself on my blog.  I tried having my 5 year old take the picture and, let's just say, photography is not in his future.   Anyway, I apologize about the camera showing--you get the gist as to the size and look of the pin.

I linked this post to:

Blue Cricket Design