Salutary Sunday...on a Thursday!

I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow morning, and I'm kind of stressed! I've been trying to get my house super clean all week because my brother will be staying here while we're gone and I just simply don't want to come home to a dirty house.

Because of that, I haven't read any blogs for 3 or 4 days, and I haven't blogged either! It's been a nice unintentional break. After this post, I probably wont blog again until Monday or Tuesday when I get back. We'll see.  ♥

So here's my Salutary Sunday post...on a Thursday!

Throughout the week I was working on my curtains that I'm going to put up in the bedroom. It's a blue background, and I'm cutting circles out of 3 different fabrics to applique onto it. I'm so excited that it's getting close to being done. I just have to put all the circles onto the blue fabric. Once I'm done I'll have a simple tutorial post for you guys!

While I was cleaning this week, I decided to do a 'deep' clean and went through some drawer in a side dresser. When we moved, we didn't go through it, just left everything in there, so it was messy! I found some old sewing projects that were half finished, so I decided to finish this one:

It's a rice bag for a kid! I think I meant to make it an octopus type thing, but there's only 7 legs...hmm...

I also made some new earrings and a bracelet...

While doing the dishes, I noticed there are flowers growing on my plant that I didn't know grew flowers! That was pretty exciting.

And lastly, I did a whole lot of reading on this here couch. It was wonderful. 

I love the accomplished feeling I get every time I read a book! I just finished Across the Universe, and while I LOVED it when I was reading it, I'm kind of 'eh' about it now. It wasn't the greatest book, but I'll definitely read the second book when it comes out!

So that's all I've done recently. Not too much, yet I've been pooped out! All I've felt like doing was reading.

Have you guys done anything?

House Love and Etsy

I'm sitting here working on putting my little Etsy shop together and watching the show Income Property on HGTV. Is that anybody else's favorite show?

The gist of the show is that a cute guy with a Canadian accent comes and remodels an area of someone's house that is being rented as an apartment, such as the basement or the upstairs. The homeowners have to pay for the entire renovation, BUT, they have an experienced guy who knows what he's doing design it. 

I must say that that is something I really really want to do, own my own income property. The couple on the show right now have a mortgage of 2,200 a month. They live on the main floor, rent their upstairs apartment for $1,000 and once the basement is renovated, they will rent that for $1,000 as well. Do the math. $200 A MONTH FOR THEIR MORTGAGE PAYMENT. What. The. Hell. 

How awesome would that be?! It makes so much sense to do that. I think I want the first house Vince and I buy to have an apartment to rent out. 

Anyways, Etsy shop. Whoa. I know. I'm finally working on it. 

So far I've put together the boring things such as shop policies, about me, etc. I have most of the pictures I need, but I want to take pictures of the necklaces on people. {Meaning, the ladies I talked to need to tap into their model because I'm coming for you soon!} 

I also need to write up the descriptions and take measurement of the jewelry. I also need to make more jewelry! I'm going to make some more earrings and bracelets, since I already have about 10 necklaces.

So, if you like my jewelry, keep an eye out! 

I'll also be having my own give-away once I open, too. ♥

Give Away!

Want to win some awesome earrings made by ME?!

Head on over here to Peachy Keen {a blog that I adore} and enter the giveaway!

Free earrings, woot woot!

Salutary Sunday

{Like the background color? It's fabric I bought while thrifting yesterday! I can't wait to use it.}

It's Sunday. Another end to yet another lovely week.

This week I made a lot of blueberry banana smoothies.

Want to learn how?

Add these ingredients into a blender and blend!

Simple as that.

I use this blender, and I love it for so many reasons. 

{Ignore my dirty dishes, please.}

{1} It's a single serving, just perfect for me.

{2} There is only 1 button to push.

{3} It's super small and compact, making it easy to rinse and wash.

{4} I got it on sale from Target for $14, and I've used it weekly for over a year without a single problem. I constantly use it for hard things, like ice and other frozen stuff.

Clearly, I recommend it and would buy another one in an instant if this one broke on me. I usually eat 4 or 5 smoothies a week, so I would be sad if I didn't have it!

I love making smoothies with frozen fruit because it's a lot less sweet than using ice cream. I guess that would be a milkshake, though? When I'm at the store and see a really good deal on fruit, like strawberries, blueberries, or bananas, I'll buy a BUNCH of it and then freeze it for smoothies. Blueberries were on sale for a $1 a carton, so I bought 6 of them, meaning I'll have blueberry smoothies for a while. I would have bought a lot more, but the limit was 6!

This week I also made more earrings! I've been promising to make gauges for a teen at my work and I finally got around to doing them.

Both green ones are for her, and they are size 0 gauges. I made the purple ones for me, and those are size 2. The swirly green ones are 2 3/4 inches long, the white and green ones are 2 inches long, and the purple ones are 2 1/4 inches long. 

It's been fun to mess around with the polymer clay. I've definitely learned quite a bit since I first started, and I can tell that I'm getting better. 

Here's an example:

Obviously, the first try totally sucks. It's not smooth, it's not rolled out to be the same size, and parts of it are shiny. I was reading a few tips on how to make the earrings and it recommended using cornstarch to keep finger prints off and to keep it from sticking. It didn't say anything about NOT using it on dark colors, though, and it made the black earring a little ashy colored. 

I also used a liquid polymer clay to make sure the white circle stuck to the black earring, and I thought it would dry clear. Well, it dried clear, but it also dried super shiny. So now I now not the put it anywhere except for exactly where I need it. I also know that I can 'paint' it over the whole earring to make it shiny!

Did you guys do anything productive this week?

Saturday Love

{1} 

I have to own this:

{Buy HERE. Found via.}

{2} 

And this:

{Buy HERE.}

{3} 

Aaaaaaand this:

{Buy HERE.}

{4} 

Some new belts I thrifted today.

{5}

Some bowls I also thrifted today.

{6}

Earrings I made for a teen at my work.

{7}

This AWESOME magnet I got for Christmas.

{8}

This cute little plate I bought on clearance the other day.

{9}

Naptime with Roxi.

{10}

One of the THREE teapots I got for Christmas. Aren't the tiny cups just darling?! I can just imagine my future kids playing with these and loving it.

{11}

The shelf in my craft room that displays the camera my grandma gave me.

Hope you notice some things you love this weekend!

Salutary Sunday

While I'm longing for this:

and am stuck with this:

I am not complaining because I get to create things like this:

{Click to make bigger.}

Last week one of my best friends Veronica came over to watch a movie and eat dinner and we also made jewelry! I totally spaced taking a picture of her cute necklace, but I'll try to remember next time I hangout with her.

I've also been making a lot of sparkling drinks.

I put about 1 tablespoon of juice concentrate into a cup and fill the rest of it up with sparkling water!

And lastly, I enjoyed breakfast for dinner last night as I watched the snow fall.

Joy of Love Day 14

Today's assignment was to take pictures of our wedding band or jewelry. If you remember, I did my 'wedding band' tattoo the other day! And since Vince doesn't wear jewelry, I had to do my own. I've taken pictures of a lot of my jewelry anyways, and I didn't feel like taking a picture today so I'm reposting one. This will be in my Etsy shop eventually and is possibly my favorite piece:

The reason I didn't want to take pictures today is because I didn't want to do ANYTHING. I've had a 4 day weekend {!!} and did something all day every day for the past 3 days and just wanted a day to relax. So I laid on the couch and watched Bones on Netflix, various shows on TV, read Wicked Lovely, ate GF mac and cheese that I made 5 days ago, and spaced out. It was awesome. And then Vince got home and I felt super lazy, so I made some BLT's, one of my top favorite foods. 

Anyways, happy love day! 

And for those of you that don't have a lover, check out Danielle's post, it's pretty great.

Salutary Sunday

Today was a very lazy, yet productive day. 

I started the day off with a cup of mixed half decaf half regular coffee {because regular coffee ruins my belly}... 

{Aren't I stunning first thing in the morning? Sometimes I think I just shouldn't take a shower and walk around looking like this...  :-P }

I then did things around the house like laundry, stirred the compost bin, sewed a new zipper in a jacket for a friend of Vince's, and watched the dogs play in the backyard.

I also brought my sister her camera and saw baby Alyla and Nick's family, then Vince and I went and hungout with my dad, stepmom Pam and brother Will. Will kept telling me he was Avatar the last Airbender and was showing off his wind, earth, fire and water bending skills! He did take some time off to play the didgeridoo, though. What a cultured kid, I tell ya...

After hanging out there we came home and made a wonderful salad consisting off lettuce, red bell pepper, avocado, tomato, parmesan cheese, peperoncinis, and CAPERS. Oh man, capers are delicious. 

For dessert I had some papaya and cool whip, though it wasn't very good...the papaya wasn't sweet enough, so I only had a little bit. 

All in all it was a good day. 

 But anyways...on with the Salutary Sunday post!

This week I made some more jewelry. Yay!

 I made this yesterday and I am IN LOVE with it.  Luckily I have enough beads to make more than one because I don't know if I'd be able to sell it! I also went and bought some new beads today so I'll be making some more stuff soon. ♥

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Review

I was contacted a few{?} months ago about doing a review. I was stoked because I always love free stuff, and if I truly liked it, then I would want to share it. If I didn't like it, I would just write a bad review. Simple enough.

The review was originally just for a disc that I use when I play disc golf, but after looking over my blog the guy also noticed that I make jewelry, and his mom happened to sell beads, so he offered to send me gift cards for both sites. I must say that I absolutely love both!

This week I am going to write a review on Auntie's Beads, and then do the disc next week.

The items I got were a few strands of beads: these beads and a strand of the top beads on the earrings I made. {I couldn't find a link on their site.}

I also got a grab bag full of clasps and some glue.

I really liked everything I got, especially the clasps. I absolutely love finding cute ones.

I decided to make a necklace and earrings for my stepmom for Christmas using these beads, along with other I already had. Here's how they turned out:

This was my first pair of earrings and I was pretty stoked at how they look!

Overall, I really like the website. The only thing I didn't like was that a lot of the beads were out of stock, and it doesn't say it on the homepage, you have to actually click on the beads/item and go to a second page. Other than that, I was happy with everything.

If you are looking for some beads {that you can't find at a local place first!} then I definitely recommend Aunties Beads!

Saturday Love

I've decided that every Saturday I will do a list of 11 things I love!

This will be the first list {in no particular order}...

1. Winter Crocs.

2. Even though I was this over a week ago, this man still amazes me. Watch the ENTIRE thing. Seriously.

"Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns reaches out to GLBT teens with a personal story and a message of hope."

3. Big House Red Wine.

4. The days of wearing shorts.

5. These two loves in my life, William and Roxanne.

6. Making jewelry.

7. Blue Foundation Remiiiiix.

8. Odwalla Carrot Juice.

9. Teavana Tea Sets

10. This loser with his 'winter hair'.

11. Libraries. {{And not just because I work at one!}}

{{Photo Cred}}