Cyber Monday is HERE!

SALE!!! 40% off Coupon for Pixie Dust Necklaces at Market1

I don't know about you, but this Thanksgiving after the turkey is eaten and all is said and done I plan to plant myself on the couch and do nothing but sip tea, wrap myself in a blanket, and watch a movie with my laptop close by.

Last year I went to the Wrentham Outlets, which open up at midnight Thanksgiving... I left home at 7:30 pm and arrived by 8 and was one of the first 50 cars in the parking lot... that changed very quickly, (if you arrive much later the back up is a miles long just to get a parking space ~ no thank you)  So anyhoo,  I was all excited about being so early and walked myself over to my store of choice to wait.... I thought maybe, just maybe they would let customers in a bit early???   NO WAY!  I waited the full 4 hours in freezing cold temperatures, I was under prepared to say the least. If I ever do this again I will take a tip from the countless teenagers who happily bustled past me, warm and toasty in their Uggs, Juicy Couture Sweatpants, and Northface jackets ~ plus hats, scarves, gloves, and coffee.  Some even brought fold up camping chairs and rolling luggage to store their purchases.  I am such a novice.
Once the stores finally opened I spent two hours attempting to shop ~ didn't really end up with much other than an extreme feeling of the need to spend spend spend ~ fueled in part by the playing of "Wizards in Winter" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra over the loudspeakers over and over and over. 
Well, in honor of my lesson learned I am offering a coupon for 40% off anything in stock in my Etsy shop.  The coupon will only be good from 10 pm Thanksgiving until noon Friday. 

And now, back to baking, two gingerbread cakes done, pumpkin/vanilla pudding and cookies to go!

Video Review on You Tube

I was lucky enough to receive a wonderful surprise from a client yesterday in the form of a video review of one of my personalized Message in a Bottle necklaces.  What a sweetheart!

Thank you!

Stocking Stuffers ~ For Girls

I can hardly believe that it is that time already ~ but I must admit, I am way more excited than I have ever been for the holidays.  This year both my little girls will be old enough to really experience the magic of Christmas and I can't wait to see it through their eyes!  I started early with my shopping this year as I have made the choice to try and support local and/or handmade as much as I possibly can this holiday season ~ that being said you need to have your ducks in a row early as custom and handmade take a bit more time.  I already have purchased quite a bit and in my own personal Etsy shop I am seeing orders for the holidays start to come in.  Every year I have a difficult time shopping for stocking stuffers for everyone in the family and usually end up sticking to the standards of candy, coloring books, toothbrushes, stickers, etc... but this year I want to make each stocking a bit more special and am filling them with handmade treats from many artisans.  Below is my list for little girls ~ many of the items are what I have already ordered for my girls and a few are ones that I can't get as their stockings are already full!  but there is always next year :)

And here is my list!

Custom Headbands

This headband is a custom creation made by Molly over at MaxineandNormaJean I have two custom headbands ordered for my girls in the colors of the rainbow and I know my girls are going to adore them!

Handmade Soaps

These cupcakes look (and smell) good enough to eat!  I bought a 3-pack of these sherbet scented soap confections  from burntmill and I can't wait till my girlies see these!

Rings

Cute is the first word that comes to mind with these heart shaped cookie rings!  I purchased two of these from ScrumptiousDoodle.


Now for some edibles!  I absolutely will be visiting a local shop to purchase some chocolates for our stocking this year.  We love the Hot Chocolate Sparrow located in Orleans, Ma.  This Cape Cod gem is open year round and not only has amazing coffees but has a ginormous (is that even a word?) chocolate bar! 

Here is a picture of our youngest about to eat her first caramel apple this fall at the Sparrow!

I was browsing on Pintrest today and came across an amazing blog by Bakerella Amongst some amazing cupcakes, cakepops, and desserts were these amazing handmade gumdrops.  I will be making these, but in my excitement I already told my girls about them so they will not make it into our stockings!

Have you ever seen anything so pretty!?!?
YUMMY!

As for other stuffers, I do have to add in some standards that I always had in my stocking, like coloring books and crayons.   Since my girls love it I will also probably add in a nailpolish for each of them too ~ maybe some by Piggy Paint. 

And last but certainly not least here are my own stocking stuffers!  A little extra glitter during the holidays never hurts!

A pinch of pixie dust...

Check This Out!

I have in recently participated in a few amazing giveaways on Facebook and doing so have been exposed to some amazing shops (both on Etsy and not)  One of those shops is Vintage Lucy's.  Over at VL they create amazing boutique shirts and clothing for girls and women, and more!   They are running a fabulous giveaway on their blog so check it out ~ and become a fan on facebook while you are at it, I am!
http://vintagelucys.blogspot.com/2011/11/rocker-chic-giveaway-hooray.html#comment-form

It's Halloween costume time and I am just about finished with my girls' costumes.  I had them try them on yesterday for a test run to see how they fit and what other adjustments I may need to make.  Boy am I lucky I have girls ~ I would be so lost if I had to make a ninja or power ranger costume!

Before I get started with the details I want to give a quick shout out to Kandis of Wish Photography, she is an amazing photographer who has quickly become an inspiration for me when photographing my girls.  I recently purchased photoshop elements after seeing her beautiful work as well as some of her photoshop actions.  I used many of her actions to edit the photos I took of my girls below.

Here is a shot of both of them, here Lauren is putting a spell on her little sister!

For both dresses I purchased the Sweet Little Princess dress pattern from Katydids on ETSY, I used the base pattern for both dresses, adding embellishments and belts to both.  Here is a picture of the pattern I purchased ~ which I highly reccommend, it was very easy to work with especially for me who has had no formal sewing lessons.  Each dress took me about 3 hours to complete each dress, both girls are wearing the same size as they are 2 1/2 and 4 years old and they fit great with room to grow.

Both my girls are wearing wings that I purchased from OnGossamerWings, Angelia was wonderful to work with and created custom wings for both my girls.

As for the details here is Lauren's costume

When asked what she would like to be for Halloween she told me a princess so I asked her what kind of princess, only to have her anwser, "a rainbow peacock fairy princess mom!"  I should have known (yeah right!)  So I made her tail ~ which I attached to a belt, so that she can wear the dress without as well ~ after all this dress is built for spinning in!  I used a variety of Amy Butler fabrics to make her tail cutting each "feather" by hand with pinking shears and attaching them to a tail shaped piece of fabric.  I made her dress from a variety of costume and special occassion fabrics as she kept asking me to add more color to add to the "rainbow factor"  Her front bodice has some ribbons on it ~ you can see it here:

So what I still need to do for her costume is I promised to add crystals in all the circles on the ribbon so each circle will have a color of the rainbow.  I also need to figure out what to use for shoes, the pink ones aren't quite right so I might get her silver or black shoes and made shoe clips to match the headpiece I am mading with peacock feathers and rhinestones. 

Now for Riley's!

Riley wanted to be just like her big sister but she also wanted a butterfly so she is a "rainbow butterfly fairy princess"   For Riley's costume I added an extra long over skirt that I then randomly sewed in spots and added crystals to create a "poufy" fullness. I have a little bit more work to do on her skirt to reach the exact effect I am going for.  I added some fake butterflies to her bodice and will be attaching a large rhinestone to the front full of rainbow colors.  Riley's dress also has a belt which is removeable and Lauren loves it so much I am making a few more for them to wear and swap with these dresses as well as their regular clothes, they are attached very simply with velcro.

Ideas are Brewing!

Wow!  It has been way to long since I have even looked at my blog ~ nevermind written a post!  So let's see, I obviously need to post a new birthday party idea soon and since my daughter is turing 4 next week I will be featuring her birthday party ~ Party Like a Princess!!!  She is a Cinderella girl through and through ~ if she could get away with wearing her cinderella dress to school she would wear it every day ~ along with some funky striped leggings, pink cowbow boots, and her favorite striped sweater of course!  Since she is only turning 4 this party will still be mostly of the family type ~ we are not ready for a kids party yet in our house!  I will share lots of princess party ideas (focusing on Cinderella) many of which I will use ~ and I will let you share in the process as I make my first princess dress cake ~ I am so excited, I can't wait!!!

The Birthday Girl

New for Fall & Halloween

What better way to accessorize your fall and Halloween outfits???

FREE Pixie Dust Necklace to my 100th fan on Facebook!!!

That's right!  I am giving away one free custom pixie dust necklace to my 100th fan on facebook! 

The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

Thank you so much to karinagracejewelry for including my pixie dust in her amazingly stunning treasury!

Crazy for Owls!

I don't know about you, but I have a thing for owls ~ I don't know why they are so popular  but I love them!  If I could pick any theme for my daughter's room it would be based on the owl bedding that I saw in the Company Store kids catalogue, I love it!

In fact I love it so much that I made a pixie dust necklace based on it!

Owl Pixie Dust

And now, I am basing a birthday party on it!!!  Crazy or cute??? You decide, I think it's crazy cute!

Happy Birthday Banner by craftysweethearts

Owl masks by FunnySideofLife

Adorable Magnet Favors by CherryCute

Owl Pinata by Birchangel

Owl Party Hats by kreativekelors

This shop has tons of owl themed party decorations from hats to cupcake toppers to invitations!!!

Fondant Owl Cupcake Toppers by Freyascakery



New In My Shop!

Supercute Easy Ideas Number One!

Well I for one love to recycle jam/jelly jars, mason jars, basically if it was once in the fridge and made of glass I save it and use it!  I usually clean my glass jars in the dishwasher and remove the labels and I have an entire cabinet set aside to store them.  I use them for organizing my beads/supplies, hand mixing and dying glitters for my pixie dust necklaces, my daughters love to grab a jar and fill it with water and stuff them full of wildflowers, and now today I was looking for a candle holder and found myself digging through my jar cabinet and pulling out one of my favorite jam jars.  I was going to put a tealight inside but the botton of the jar has a slight "bubble" to it.  I was sitting at my desk looking for a votive holder and then I saw my bag of beach sand (usually reserved for my pirate's treasure bottles!) and filled my jar up about 1/3 and then pushed my tealight into it.  Voila!!!  I pulled a seashell out of a jar on my endless bookshelves and now my tabletop is complete!

Corrinna's Big Giveaway!

Stay tuned to win an amazing amount of loot including a $25.00 gift certificate good for anything in my ETSY shop!  Corrina's Big Giveaway!

Mermaid Magic

Here are two examples of customized mermaid necklaces.  The first is "Mermaid Magic" the bottle is filled with tiny glass bubbles, Swarovski crystals, and a itsy bitsy shell.  The second is very similar with the glass bubbles, shell, and crystals, the map is customized with "Lauren's Treasure" and a silver key charm.