my world

I feel really blessed today and was thinking of all the homes where my creations have gone.

I’ve had such great feedback and have come a long ways from the early days. The ladies of Wabamun really got me going though, so thank you all so much for your support and encouragement. Thank you Janet and Andrea for the opportunity to display my jewelry in your shops. Thank you to the brides for letting me jewel your bridesmaids and darling flower girls. And a big thank you to every compliment, whether you purchased it or not - without you I couldn’t move forward!

I’m not getting an award. I’m just feeling thankful and blessed.

Yours truly,

connie

Have you ever drove up to the pumps only to find out your gas tank was on the other side?

Apparantly, the auto manufacturers made it easy for us….only thing is, they forgot to mention it! Or maybe I was away that day.

If you look closely at the little pump on your dash, it will show you which side the fill is on. The gauge above is telling us to pull up so the right side of your car is closest to the pump.

…I never knew! Please tell me I’m not the only one!

Maybe you’ve already heard of Etsy. But now there’s the Etsy miniblog where shops from around the world can be perused by category.

The Etsy miniblog is a mall without traffic, no lineups or grumpy people. And the best thing is everything is handmade!

Check it out. If you like unique things, you may be there a while!

etsymini.blogspot.com/

ArtisanJewellery.etsy.com

The kids and I finally made some lip balm on the weekend. It was a bit chaotic but nobody got burnt, the beeswax didn’t catch fire, and we now have 40 tubes of luscious lip balm!Each of the kids made their own batch so the following recipe will make 10 tubes!

Melt in microwave:
1/2 oz beeswax
1/2 oz cocoa butter

Add and stir:
1/2 oz oil (we combined apricot, almond, and jojoba)
1/4 tsp Flavor oil*

Stand up your tubes and fill them right to the top, otherwise there will be a bit of a dip when it cools.

*Some of the flavors could have used a bit more. Banana and Cinnamon turned out great but Root Beer didn’t have much of a scent. You can also substitute the butter and oils for your own preference - just keep the ratios so you don’t get gooey gloss.

All the ingredients can be purchased at Mountain Rose Herbs and I found more yummy flavor oils at mn77sota on ebay.

Another great gal, if you want small quantities of butters and oils, is Patricia Meeks . She sells 1 oz containers for only .99!

Have fun and protect your lips this winter!

She’s so pretty,
Who cares if she can’t sing!

We got sold on the Katana! A smooth sales pitch , do Bell employees get extra for selling this phone? My husband was smart and put his through the wash after only 2 weeks. He now has a slick Motorola Motokrzr and I am oh-so jealous.

When we purchased the Katana, we thought we’d find a cable to transfer ringtones from the computer. Wrong! After much ado, this is how it’s done:

You will need mobile browsing on your phone.

From your PC:

Download Audacity and LAME MP3 encoder

These two programs work together in order to save edited mp3 files.

Open your mp3 song in audacity and select the part you want. I just used 20-30 second clips.  Edit to your heart’s content and lower the bit rate so your file won’t be huge.

Export selection as mp3 and save

Now the mp3s need to be transferred to .qcp, which is the file format the Katana uses.

Here’s a handy dandy QCP converter

You can download the 30-day trial or buy the program for $15

Add your files, convert, and they are automatically saved. It tells you where under “output files”

To upload, go to: http://rumkin.com/tools/sprint
This part is really slick - just fill in the three little boxes and get your jump code.

Now you need your phone.

Start up the web and quickly (haha!) type in

http://rumkin.com/tools/sprint/jump.php and enter the jump code.

Easy! Your ringtones are now ready for assignment!

I’ve got to tell you though, the Katana sound is not that great. For some songs you will definitely need to equalize and turn down the bass, otherwise it’s pure fuzz.

I hope I spelled that right

Punctuation requires precise location in order for a sentence to read as intended. For example:

Let’s eat, Grandpa! and Let’s eat Grandpa!

Which do you think Grandpa would prefer?

That one reminds me of “The Land Before Time” where they sing about having friends for dinner. yum!

A very nice seller offers the following:

100% polyester, feels kinda like Satan.

I’m quite certain Satan isn’t made from polyester but the capital “S” really made me wonder…

Now I know I’ve made my fair share of errors and it’s really embarrassing when you’ve already hit the “send” button and can’t take it back.

Share your faux pas. I’d love to hear!

It’s an adventure, isn’t it? It all starts at the store with the big decision of what to buy! Apparently I’m not the only indecisive one. Two other women stood in the hair color aisle with me, faced with the same problem – what if I don’t like it!

For me, the necessity of coloring my hair was due to terrible blonde streaks I had donned in June. I had streaks before that worked but of course the next year when I went to purchase “the kit”, I could not for the life of me remember what brand I’d been happy with. I now make an oath to document such things for future use!

After mulling over hundreds of kits I chose Clairol Hydrience – Light Ash Brown. ASH was the key word because the blonde streaks I had painted were not really blonde, they were brassy!

So the big day of unwashed hair rolls around, I dug into the kit (reading all the instructions first because surprises are not fun here), and I wonder if I’d made a mistake buying the $7 kit and not the $22 one it was up against. I guess I will find out in the morning

This is the best show I’ve seen on television in a long time and it was canceled after the first season! A campaign led by fans bombarded CBS with nuts (watch the show to understand the significance), and CBS agreed to a second season (7 episodes so far).

If you haven’t seen Jericho, there’s still time to catch up before the new season begins!

You can watch full episodes online but if you prefer the comfort of your couch, watch the show Friday nights. If you like it, contact CBS at audsvcs@cbs.com to let them know you watched!

An SU friend sent me this site today. I think she must have read my mind because earlier today I was at the mall trying to find the perfect cocoa butter body lotion. Cocoa butter is great for dry skin, preventing stretch marks, and after sun exposure.

At Bath and Body Recipes, there are recipes to make your own sun lotion, bubble bath, lip balms, and lots more! If you’re crafty, you could make some great gifts for Christmas!

Some of these recipe ingredients can be found at Mountain Rose Herbs. I placed an order with them last week for some herbs, (I’ll tell you about that after I test it out!) I just wish I’d seen these bath and body recipes sooner!

If you try any, let me know how it turned out! I don’t know which one to try first but I’m thinking lip balms since we go through a LOT of those!

When my Aunt became a member of the Red Hat Society, I wanted to make her some jewelry in the red hat colors but it just wasn’t working for me. Then I found this great project by Lynn B. Krucke.

If you’ve never used polymer clay, this is a great place to start. I went crazy and made several hats for earrings, cell phone charms, key chains, and lapel pins. Lotsa fun!

Here are some of my other Polymer Clay creations.