Cake turned out great!

So I got up this morning and made the icing for the cake. It's more like a sugar drizzle. It smelled so good but cutting and eating a cake at 7:00 am didn't seem like a feasible thing to do.

Sammy and I went and picked up his grill and when I came home I could no longer resist. I cut the cake and had a slice and it was wonderful! It was super moist and the strawberries tasted so good. If you get a chance I would highly recommend trying this recipe!

Staycation

A lot has been happening in my world over the last week or so. I was so excited because Friday I went to the Orthodontist and ended up getting my permanent retainers put in. I'm on the books to have my braces taken off July 22nd! I'm so excited and can hardly wait. Since I've gotten pregnant I've been hoping that I would get the braces off before I had Grayson and it's happening! Going to have to wear a retainer at night for the rest of my life but it's totally OK because it's pink and my new straight smile will be worth all the money.

I also had to go have my eyes checked last week. As always my eyes had gotten a little worse so I had to purchase new glasses. They ended up having to order my glasses but I'm looking forward to having new frames.

I had an Anesthesiologist appointment this morning. I had to go and talk to him about my pain options during birth. I really don't want to have to use him but it's better to be safe then sorry. After the appointment we were supposed to leave for the Beach. Sammy's whole family is there this week. After much thought though we decided to have a staycation instead. There is so much still to be done before Grayson gets here in August. Did we want to spend over 1000.00 on 3 days vacation or did we want to invest that money into the house? In the end the house won so we have been busy working from home today. Our first big project this week is the front walkway so we'll see how that turns out.

Tomorrow we have to go and pick up Sammy's new grill. We go to a church called NewSpring on Sunday nights about 40 minutes from our house. For fathers day they were giving away a 500.00 prize to one lucky dad. Well Sammy ended up winning! We were so shocked because there were about 600 dads at Sunday nights service! We go pick up his new mac daddy 5 burner grill tomorrow and then they will be delivering steaks to our house later this week. Sammy's first official Fathers Day was pretty awesome!

I went to the Grocery store today to pick up ingredients for a new recipe that I found on pinterest. It is for a Fresh Strawberry Yogurt Cake. It's pretty simple to make. The prep time is about 20 minutes but then it has to cook for 1 hour. I made the mistake of deciding to start making this cake at 9:00pm so by the time I got it out of the oven a few minutes ago I was ready to go to bed. I'm going to let it cool tonight and then add the lemon glaze tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out. You can find the recipe here: http://www.aspicyperspective.com/2010/05/farmstand-fresh.html  Here is what the cake looked like when I took it out of the oven a few minutes ago. It's all I can do not to dive right into it right now! I'll finish it tomorrow, post pictures, and let you know how it tastes. I love pinterest but sometimes things are not always what they seem. Some recipes look so easy or look like they will taste so great and when i make them they don't seem that easy or seem to taste that great. Anybody else have that problem?

Sorry for the delay!

Sorry for the delay in getting the recent pictures put up. I purchased a new lap top with Windows 8 on it last week and I'm still trying to learn the operating system and how to do all the things I need to do. The pictures I have received are awesome and I'm so proud of all of you who have challenged yourself and learned new techniques!

Jan Crosthwaite - Wallasey U.K.

I modified the pattern slightly adding 11/0 seed beads to the outer edge of the 14mm rivoli.

I used purple lined purple 11/0 & 15/0 seed beads, 14 & 16mm swarovski crystal clear rivolis and 6lb crystal fireline.

Jen Amaral

This project has been my favorite so far, the earrings are very elegant and 2 people have already asked me to make them a pair. They make an easy and fun gift.  I used emerald Swarovski rivolis, and black seed beads.

Cheryl I, Lake wallenpaupack,Pa

I made the bracelet on page 41 instead of the oval link bracelet.

I used: 6mm gold dyed fresh water drop pearls, toho 11/0  gold, toho 11/0 rose gold, 6/0 bronze

More Project Pictures of the bracelet

Sharen Matye  Northridge, CA

here is my version of the Link Bracelet, made with 11/0 silver seed beads and

3mm gun metal crystal bicones

Jan crosthwaite   Wallasey, U.K.

Here is my entry for the latest project, i really enjoyed making this and found it quite easy. 

I used size 11/0 & 15/0 seed beads in silver lined crystal and 11/0 silver lined blue for the joining bands. I'm still searching for a suitable clasp! 

It's been lovely seeing all the fab entries for the beadalong.

Fiona

I have used gunmetal (haematite) size 11s and size 15s and AB crystal size 11s for the connecting rings.  As I had made 6 big rings I decided to use them all and make it a bangle with no clasp.

I didnt enjoy doing this one as I found the big rings really tough to join up.

 

More Project Photos

Here are two more great projects that I received this week from the Bead Along:

~Jen
I used Midnight Blue seed beads for the ovals and Royal Purple with Charcoal seed beads for the links.

Patty Penich   Derry, PA

 I changed the center rings a bit.

I  liked the gold shown in the magazine , so I used metallic dark gold 11/0 seed beads for the large rings 

and the base for the smaller rings. I used 4mm hematite color pearls for the accents.

 I also added a safety chain along with the magnetic clasp.

Necklace Bead Along Pictures

Cheryl Intartaglio. Lake Wallenpaupack,pa:
 I changed my necklace by using three earring components, and I followed the directions on page 71 (Tsarina) for the necklace. I used 11/0 silver lined rosaline,15/0 semi  matte purple, 15/0 semi matte dark rose, 4mm bicones in dark purple and rose. 

Becky aka (Marcella) Forest City NC

Cheryl Hall, Butler, Pennsylvania

I used Toho bronze 11/0's, Toho 15/0's color #262M. I used swarovski crystals in purple, blue, & green opal colors. My jeweled rings were made differently than the instructions. This got a bit tedious for me & I will confess that I haven't put the clasp on yet, but I'm glad it's done ! Ready for the next project.

Jan Crosthwaite

Wallasey U.K.

here is my entry for the beadalong, never thought i would get it finished!

i used 11/0 & 15/0 seed beads in silver lined crystal and 6mm crystal bicones in capri blue. i made the earrings into a drop.

Bonnie French

 

Crystal Lattice:

11/0 Toho Matt PF Galvanized Gold

8/0 Czech Metallic Beige Matte

6mm Bracciated Jasper rounds

 

Summer Lace:

4mm Brown glass pearl

6mm Brown glass pearl

11/0 Miyuki Galvanized Silver

Fiona - UK

11/0 duracoat pewter seed beads

15/0 gold seed beads

4mm swarovski bicones in emerald, light topaz and AB siam.

Sharen Matye

Northridge, California

Hello everyone,  It is so fun to see everyone's work.  Here is my bracelet for May 13th.  I used Miyuki 11/0 gold and 15/0 black for the main body of the bracelet.

the rings I used 4mm bi-cone crystals in black, red, rose jade, med aquamarine, period.   This project was very challenging.  I started it 5 times before I got it going.

Barb Tarcza

TOHO Bead Round 6/0 Gilt-Lined Aqua Opal

TOHO Bead Round 11/0 Opaque-Lustered Pearl Crystal

Swarovski 5000 6mm Faceted Round Light Turquoise

Swarovski 5000 4mm Faceted Round Light Turquoise

Pat (Jones)  Huntsville AL

For the necklace: Size 11 silver-lined brown seed beads and drk brown 15 seed beads around dark cream rat tail.
Slides are fire opal bicones - 15/0 brown and 15/0 orange seed beads; silver- lined brown seed beads and orange 15 seed beads. Clasp is gold color lobster clasp. Really enjoyed this one!

 

For the bracelet: Size 11 multi-colored beads for the large rings and size 11 yellow with size 15 green embellishment on the smaller bands.

A..n..d FINALLY got one of my right angle weave increase practices to come out correctly. Used two colors (thank you for the idea...you do that in some of your videos) and once I could see it better I got a decent weave. Hopefully will be much better at it by the time I try the earrings

 

Check out this interesting article!

I get a great email from one of the industry retailers each week. Normally I delete it and go on about my business but a headline caught my eye and I read one of the articles. Its pretty interesting. Check out this link about the story and let me know what you think.

You can find the article here: http://www.accessoriesmagazine.com/70258/kate-middleton-driving-trend-toward-tiny-handbags