Soda Tab Earrings in My Craft Shop

Well I finally put together some more earrings together and love the way they look. You can find them on my shop (up on the top on my navigation bar)

Keeping your mind at work and hands busy will keep you out of trouble..

1 Timothy 5:12–13


12 Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. 13 Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to.

 
I always liked this scripture. It is the epitomy of human life as we know it. To summarize Zig Ziglar, one of the world's motivational speakers, people with nothing to do, or no goals tend to fall into depression and are very negative. Why? Because they have no drive..no hope.
 
I feel that if one feels no purpose, drive or has something to keep them active, they fall into a state of "uselessness" and are stagnant. I always notice that the ones that tend to have the most drama, tell the most gossip, entertain the most outrageous ideas, usually are those who are not sure on what to do with theirself or need to be doing more to their life. I will call it idleness.
 
For discretion's sake, I will not mention any references of people who mimic this in my life. I try to avoid getting caught in this vicious lifestyle by keeping myself busy. Thus..my craft escapades.
 
However, if one were to ask me the first step to avoiding the trend of idelness, first things first, get a relationship with God. If you are willing to try Him on for size, the only thing I guarantee you to lose is some pride..and Lord knows we could all go without a little of that.
 
Secondly, once you have made a step forward, get yourself involved in something- a hobby, work, a social group..but if you choose to do the latter, please keep yourself away from shameless slanderers! What I mean is misery loves company and if a bunch of people who like to do a whole lot of nothing get together..well, I am sure you can picture the rest.
 
The Lord instructs us that idleness leads to no bread on the table. In addition, we become gossips, and hurt others. Gossips are nothing more than glorified insecure people who want others to see them look good by critiquing other things that would be looked down on by them.
 
Enough of my soapbox. Summary: Idleness=Trouble. Get a hobby.
 
On this note, I am very excited about my newest craft I have started for this time period has been getting my creative juices flowing. I plan on making a stock of these items so I can take them to the flea market next week or so and see how they do:
 
Here is what I have started on so far:
 
Soda Tab Jewelery
This was sooooo fun! So far I have a collection of earrings I have made and will get those pics out soon.
My fav. has to be the lady bug ones I did:
 

And.. I finished my first bracelet. I will be adding a little more flourish with cute ribbon and some that has a little more transparent ribbon..but for now, I am just happy they came out great.

I am taking personalized orders if you would like a bracelet or earrings for your very own- right now they are going for $5.00.
 
I am making some custom Alabama Roll Tide and Auburn Tiger ones .. (WAR EAGLE!!!) you can probably guess which ones I am going to wear..

Nothing's Better than a Good Read..

I would just like to take this time to announce how thoroughly I am enjoying the book series "Fallen" by Lauren Kate. I can't recall how I happened to stumble across her books, but I instantly downloaded it to my Kindle after hearing about it's romantic supernatural theme--for all you Twilight lovers, if you haven't read this one, I think it will be on your list. As far as I am aware, right now the Fallen Series consists of three books, Fallen, which was released in late 2009, Torment, which was released late 2010, and Passion, which will be expected to probably come out Fall of 2011.

If Lauren Kate's topic of teen love between mortals and angels don't get you, the cover illustrations definately will. Bordering on a mixture of gothic and drama, I give the illustrator a 2 thumbs up.

Fallen gets a little stale when Luce gets frustrated and can't figure out what's going on with Daniel but the plot develops further in Torment and to prevent spoilers, I will just tell you to hang in there until closer to the end of the book of Fallen and middle of Torment to get more answers.

Although I don't believe in any of this stuff, it's a great read and I definately am enjoying Torment, looking forward to Passion!



Hope you enjoy or have enjoyed also!

Cupcake Pops

I had honestly meant to post this sooner rather than later, but along with many other items in my house, my camera usb cord to upload the pics decided to walk off and hide. I decided in answer to that after scavenging the place up and down, it was time to clean the house..especially since the place looked like a warzone after Christmas.

First, I will as promise, share my cupcake pops experience. I thought it was an excellent ideas as favors to Madeline's upcoming first birthday and was excited to see if they turned out remotely as cute as what they appeared when I first saw them online. They cost WAY less than trying to buy them already made as well.

Of course, in every situtation where I find myself mimicking a craft, nothing ever goes as perfect as you think it will in your head...as it did not with me.

So I shall start first with the ingredients really needed:

1 box of red velvet cake mix (or whatever type you wish)
2 cans of 16 oz Cream Cheese cake frosting
2-3 bags of your choice candy melts, I chose red, white, and chocolate
Sprinkles and Red M&M's (not required)
Popsicle Sticks
Styrofoam square
Wilton Tulip shaped Cookie Cutter
Treat Bags

For viewing purposes, I have included my lovely display of items gathered:
                                                 
Now, notice the tulip cookie cutter I am holding. I bought this seperately at Hobby Lobby thinking it was the same as the one requested to make the cupcake pops. Don't make the same mistake I did. You will need the Wilton tulip that comes with a pack that looks like this:



The difference is the cookie cutters in the pack are a lot smaller and will form the dough better for the cupcake pop. Mine turned out too big to create a cupcake, so I had to form it with my hands.

Before I get ahead of myself, you will first want to bake the cake as instructed from the back of the cake box. Let it cool, and take the cake and put in the blender and pulse until ground up in crumbs.

Once the cake was ground up, I put the cake in a bowl and stirred in some cream frosting a little at a time until the cake was easy to form in my hands. If the mixture is falling apart, you will need to add more.

Once I was able to get a good consistency, I took an ice cream scoop and scooped the dough into balls. I put them on a wax lined pan and in the freezer they went for 15 minutes. You can put them in the fridge too, but it may take about 30 min instead. Multi-tasking works best for time conserving, so while you wait on your little freezer-balls, you can heat up your candy melts. I started with the chocolate first. Heat in 30 second increments until smooth. If it seems stiff, you can add a small amount of vegetable oil.

Once the doughballs were firm enough, I took them back out and (at this time found out the tulip cutter did not work) prepare to shape them into cupcakes. If you do have a tulip cutter that works, shape the balls into an elongated oval shape and press the tulip halfway into the ball. This will form a little bottom ridge and you can shape the top into a rounder cupcake shape. Pull out and put back on the pan. Continue to do the same with the rest.

For you poor saps like me, do your best to flatten one end against your hand and then slightly roll with your hands like you would clay, this will create the bottom part of the cupcake. Round out the top as best as you can.

Remember the chocolate melts? These come in to play now. I made sure the chocolate was smooth enought that it dripped.

Because the melts cool  quickly, you will now dip the bottom of the cupcakes in the chocolate melt, swirl, and place back on wax lined pan. I put the popsicle sticks through these immediately to avoid cracking the chocolate later.



Pop these sucker's back in the freezer for a couple more min to set and heat up your top color for the candy melts. My choice was red and white chocolate to make coral pink.

Dip the top of the cupcake into the pink, swirl, top with sprinkles and a red m&m for a cherry and set in the styrofoam board to dry.

 

When dry, add a treat bag and tie with ribbon.

And you have a cute cupcake pop assembly! I got a lot of compliments on the taste of these, and tried them myself..sort of resemble zebra cakes!