Style it Yourself Necklace

I'm calling this post a SIY or style it yourself, instead of a DIY....

One of the things that I love about crafting and blogging, is that it has awaken the creative spirit inside me. I get inspired to try different projects all the time. When I go thrifiting, I see pieces in a whole new light!

Recently, while out shopping, my Sissy (sister in law) tried on an adorable necklace that she found just a bit too short for her liking. A few days later, I was a Michaels, digging in the clearance, in search of the perfect piece to finish my Upcycled Cuff Bracelet, when I saw a piece that reminded me of the necklace that Sissy didn't buy.

So I decided to try something new! For the first time ever, I bought individual pieces and put together a necklace for one of my favorites!

Here are the charms that I bought. The one on the right is the piece that inspired this necklace.

And the vessel for the adorable charms. I bough this 36" strand of chain and used pliers to cut it in half, because Sissy loves a perfectly 18" necklace. The findings are very easy to use and come in a variety of metal colors to match your every style! I didn't use the butterfly for this necklace, but I'm sure it will live on somewhere...

Here' I am wearing Sissy's new necklace:

I am calling this Style It Yourself instead of "do" because I didn't make anything here, just used my creativity to put some already made pieces together.

Sissy loved her new necklace!!!!

What do you think?

Nifty Thrifty! St. Patty's Day Edition!

Georgie and I love to throw parties! For me it's all about decorating, cooking and choosing the perfect outfit!

Each year we have an "I'm sick of winter" party, usually with a Hawaiian theme. This year, though, our party was delayed because we were busy with very important endeavors, you know, like going to Jamaica!

So we decided to have a St. Patty's Day party! I don't wear much green, so I set out to my favorite, Goodwill, to find an outfit.

I am serious when I tell you that I tried on every green shirt in the place! I ended up coming home with this sweater/tunic without trying it on just because it was only $1!!!

Now before, I show you the pic I should tell you that I forgot to take a pic until a few hours into the party and we were feelin silly and had given me a little shamrock forehead art.

Also, please excuse my necklace hanging off to the side, it has a mind of it's own.

Here's the outfit rundown

Tunic: thrifted

Gold heart choker: thrifted

Long gold chain: vintage

(meaning I stole it from mama's closed about 10 years ago)

Brown leggings: forever 21

Boots: Gojane.com

The necklace combo was inspired by one of my favorite style bloggers: J's everyday fashion. Check her out.

Here's the inspiring pin.

Check J out on Pinterest

Talk on her Pin was iffy on this long/short necklace combo but it inspired me and I like the way it turned out on my St. Patty's day outfit!

Where do you find your fashion inspiration?

Upcycled Cuff Bracelet

My serious love for upcycling now includes jewelry!

I had a cuff bracelet that I was so in love with, I kept it in my purse all the time and wore it very often.  It was copper and it had flowers on top in the same copper with rhinestones in the middle of it, it went with everything!

Here is what it used to look like:

Turns out, it's not a good idea to keep a bracelet in your purse for very long. After a few weeks, half of the flowers broke off. :( I hung on to it though, hoping I could turn it into something great. Or, I just forgot to throw it away for so long and then I saw it months later and had a good idea. :)

I decided that I would wear the cuff upside down (with the opening on the bottom) and I'd cover it with left over yellow fabric from the bulletin board. I figured I'd find an earring or pendant at goodwill or vinnies to glue on top.

In actuality I never did find the right piece while thrifting, but I found this pretty little ditty on clearance at Michael's

$2.50 good deal!  Here is a shot of the cuff after Georgie helped me remove the flowers that hadn't broken...

I cut the yellow fabric into a strip about 1" wide, but I didn't like the frayed edges....  So I looked around my leftover craft bin and grabbed some ribbon (left over from the wedding) instead.

Here's the wrapping in progress:

I used a dab of glue at each end to secure the ribbon. Also, I used pliers to snap the circle off the top of the pendant and then just glued it on top.

Here it is all finished

I love it because the beige ribbon is very neutral and the decal is two shades of pink, very girly and simple with a vintage vibe. It's definitely my new go to piece!

What do you think?

Chocolate - Cookie Dough Cake

The title just sounds delish doesn't it!!

We have a lot of family birthdays in March and so we had a little dinner party with some of Georgie's side last week to celebrate some of them.

I had been seeing TONS of pins (if you don't know what a pin is, well, then you should find out!) for cookie dough dip. Supposedly, it tastes like cookie dough, with out all the pesky raw eggs.

I had the brilliant (if I do say so myself) idea to use it as a filler between two chocolate cakes! Right now you are dying at the thought, I know. :)

For the chocolate cake, I always use the same recipe, One Bowl Chocolate Cake, from Allrecipes.com - this is also the recipe that is on the backside of the Hershey's Cocoa container. It is by far the BEST chocolate cake I have ever made or eaten. And it's beyond easy to make. I must have been having a bit of a blonde day, because when I made this, I put about a cup too much of cocoa powder in the batter! Silly me :) I decided to go ahead with it because the batter tasted good. The cake was fine, a lot more rich than usual but still yum-city!

Here are my cakes just out of the oven. When I am stacking cakes, I like to line the pan with parchment paper because it makes getting them out of the pan a breeze! No matter how well I grease the pan or how long I let them cool, without the paper, I always have chunks of cake left in the pan!!!!

For this cake, I knew the filling would be thick (like cookie dough) so I wanted to make sure the layers were fully cooled before I tried to spread anything in between them. So, I made the filling and the frosting while the cakes were baking and put all of it in the fridge over night. I used Mom's Frosting for this, and you'll remember it works best if it's refrigerated anyway.

Now, for the best part, the cookie dough dip!

I began with this recipe from What Megan's Making......

When I was just about finished with her recipe, I realized my mixture could never be called a "dip" it was very thin and didn't look like her picture at all.... This never happens to me!!! My recipes always turn out...

So I read back over her recipe and realized that I used 3/4 cup of brown sugar instead of 1/3!!! What is wrong with me tonight, I tell ya!!!!

I decided I would try and salvage the dip because it tasted great..... So, I thought, flour! It's in cookie dough but wouldn't be dangerous to eat in the dip! I ended up adding a cup or a little more to get the consistency how I wanted it and because it dulled the flavor a bit, I added about 1/2 cup extra powdered sugar as well.

The result was perfect!!!!! I felt like at first, the dip tasted good but the cream cheese was a little too overpowering to actually call it cookie dough dip. After my mix up, though, it was almost identical!

The next day, I checked on all my ingredients while at home for lunch and found the cakes to be fine and the frosting perfect. The cookie dough filling, though, was too cold, too hard, not spreadable. I decided to set it out for the afternoon so it would soften up.

When I got home from work, everything was perfect and ready to be put together..

Here is my completed work.

I might make good tasting cakes, but pretty, they are not :)

Time to cut into it!

The result was amazing! Everyone raved about it and  I couldn't be more excited to have made something that I've never eaten before!!!! I will definitely be making this again!

Have a fab day!

Jamaica concluded!

And here we are at the final chapter of our Jamaican vacation!!!

We had to take a UP style excursion while in paradise! So we decided to go on the guided dune buggy tour!

Hey Goat! (just a little inside joke for my friends!)

The last adventure of our trip was one that we were strongly looking forward to. One of my vendors at work, has a jet ski rental in Negril, Jamaica. It's about an hour and a half away from Montego Bay. His best friend/business partner is from the UP but living in Jamaica for the winter! He called Peter and arranged for he and Phil (their Jamaican business partner) to drive to Montego Bay, and pick us up! We were so excited not only to see Negril and go jet skiing, but also to get a chance to see the real Jamaica.

The following pictures are from the property where Phil and Peter both have houses, they live up in the hills outside Negril and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

This is a house in the village on our way up to their property.

Phil is cutting a fresh coconut for Georgie and I to try the water.

Sippin fresh coconut water for the first time

The view! The blue in the background isn't just the sky but also the ocean/beach of Negril.

We were so fortunate that Peter and Phil took us to the village and showed us around. One of the amazing things that we got to see was an elementary school. Normally the children wear uniforms but it was Jamaica day so they dressed in their flag colors.

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They were all so eager for attention and hugs, they were really sweet and I wanted to scoop them up and take them home with me.

FYI, these kids were not nearly as interested in Georgie as me :) They must be good judges of character!!

 I am thinking of putting together a care package of school supplies for the kids and sending it to the school, they don't have much. If anyone is interested in contributing let me know.

This is the gorgeousness also known as 7 mile beach, in Negril.

This is Auntie Doris's place! The green building behind us is her 9 room hotel, literally it's 30 feet from the beach! Where you see us is at her bar! I could waste a few days sitting there, easy!

This, is Bigg's! Believe it or not, it's where we ate lunch! One of the things I really wanted to do was eat where the locals eat! We had a chance to do that for breakfast and lunch on this day. Biggs has the best chicken I've had all week, he cooks it in a grill made out of a 50 gallon drum! George also had some fish and rice that was awesome! We even bought a small jar of his Jerk sauce! Georgie loved it!

That's it for our Jamaican adventure! I hope you enjoyed the ride! I'll leave you with a couple of "evening out" pics of me and my love!