Weddin' Bells and Bouquets

Today my friend Vicky is getting married. This is the friend for whom I told I would make a wedding bouquet. Out of brooches. It was, of course, something that we had seen on Pinterest and was a very pinteresting concept. If you look at my first blog, you will see a picture of an example of one. We (myself, friends, her family, etc,) collected brooches, pendants, and even earrings to make this idea come alive. In case you are wondering, it takes a LOT of jewelry to fill up a big 'ol styrofoam ball. Since Vicky's wedding color is Tiffany blue, we had a lot of luck finding shades of blue, and sparkly items to decorate with. A side note: Vicky's mom was not at all fond of this idea, as she is very traditional. I was flying blind with this project, and was tormented with worry about screwing up a major part of the bride's big day. My friend Hazel came over to help with the pinning (and hammering-don't ask), and offered lots of great suggestions that wound up on the final product. Thanks Hazel!! By the time the thing was done, it weighed a couple of pounds and was the size of a human head. This was especially comical when Hazel decided to model it before it was secured to the base, and the head-like orb thunked to the floor. I wish I'd have had a video of that moment to add to the slideshow! Anywhoo, in the end, everyone loved it, including the bride's mama, and they all lived happily ever after.

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 I took the photos with my phone, and I wish it could have captured the sparkly-ness of all the crystals. Bee-you-tee-ful!

Barn Swallowed

As spring is slowly turning into summer, my eyes begin to roam the timeshare catalog to locate this year's summer trip. For the last two years, we have booked the Wyndham Smoky Mountains Resort in Sevierville/Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. My husband and a couple of our kids really like to hike the Smoky Mountains (notice that I am not included in that lot?), but after last year's bear experience, I'm not thinking we'll return for a third year. But I digress...
The first year we went, we were on our way to the Forbidden Caverns, a pretty cool cave, if you're into that kind of thing. As we were cruising up this two lane country road toward the cave I spied with my little eye a dilapidated barn, some weary outbuildings, and a sign that said "Antiques". At the time I was really into this show called "American Pickers". If you are not familiar with that show, the premise is that these two guys roam the countryside in search of valuable junk found in barns and outbuildings like we had just driven past. They then restore it and flip it in their store for ridiculous profit. I HAD to go there! Being the selfless mother that I am, we proceeded to the cave tour first and returned to the dusty barn afterward. Now, it was hot that day (I mean,meat falling off the bone kind of hot), and my husband basically was humoring me by letting me go in there to poke around while he sat in the air-conditioned car with the four kids. I could not get enough of that place and was M.I.A. for more time than I should have been and could sense the dark clouds of a bicker-fest quickly approaching. As I was collecting my dusty treasures to pay for them, my eyes spotted a bushel basket full of old bottle caps. Oh, you know the kind I mean if you are of a certain age. The ones that used to fall into a little metal can when you opened your glass soda bottle on the machine. The ones that were lined on the inside with CORK! I was so stinking excited, I picked through that basket for about 10 more minutes and came home with some super-cool caps. Totally worth the complaining I had to deal with when I got back to the car. I had some plans for these babies, I just didn't know what yet...

Fast forward 18 months when I'm cleaning a closet and open an unfamiliar bag containing my  forgotten bottle caps. By then, I had figured out what I wanted to do with them, but then couldn't locate them. I know this happens to other people, right? So, I got busy, and here's what I did with some of them:

This one is a bracelet. I think I'll put it Etsy. I made some into magnets for my awesome office taskboard (see "Oilpan, Schmoilpan") The one below had a scratched top, so I put a sticker on top and covered it with an epoxy dot. This one, or one similar, will be a prize to the 25th "liker" of my blog. Free stuff, Yay!!

This is on an 18 inch annodized aluminum chain. I don't know if you can enlarge this pic, but under the little boy with the crown on his head, it says "Sweet Prince". Awww.

Here's the back of it so you can see the actual cork.

BEE Picky :)

Bee-Licious

It's really no secret that I love the beach. This weekend some galpals and I took a much needed break to the Outer Banks, NC. Two hours from home, it's the perfect getaway for a weekend or a weeklong stay. A link to one of my favorite realty companies, www.beachrealtync.com shows available beach rental properties and their prices do fit every budget. By the way, I do not get sponsorship for the sites I point you to, I just like things and want to share.

Prior to this trip, emails were flying back and forth all week; who is bringing what, all that. Much attention was paid to the liquid part of the weekend, a.k.a. Happy Hour.  I decided to bring Margaritaville and supplies, plus a bonus cocktail, The Skinny Bitch Cosmo. My grand plans included making everyone souveneir glasses which look like this one I made last year:

In reality I ran short on time to get the glasses done, but what I did do was this:

Dang if it didn't work out better, becuase the screw-on lid made the drink portable which meant it could go in the cooler and to the beach. Genious! I threw a lime slice in there too which made it extra tasty! If you like super sweet drinks this is not for you. It's somewhat tart and refreshing. The recipe is as follows:

2 oz. mandarin vodka (I think any citrus vodka would do)
2 oz. diet cranberry juice
2 oz. sugar-free margarita mix www.bajabob.com (I think Amazon also carries it)
Lime wedge

Oh, another delightful tidbit about this recipe is that you put the ingredients in and just shake it up and refrigerate. I suppose it could also be frozen if you left enough room for expansion.

P.S. There are roughly four servings in this jar. Make sure to have a DD.

Bee Sunny :)

Oilpan Schmoilpan

Top 'o the mornin' and Happy St. Patty's Day to you! Got lots to do this fine day. Clean, launder, drink green beer, and watch the Hoosiers win against VCU!

On Pinterest a few months ago, I saw a pic of someone who had used this pan to make a huge ipad replica for children to learn letter recognition.

Then I started thinking of all the other cool things that could be made using this $10 item from Wal-Mart (it can be found in the "man" section, where all of the car supplies are). What I decided to do was use it for the empty space above my computer desk which was just begging for some sort of organizational tool. Begging.

Ta Dah

Not pleased with the quality of this image. I used the Bloggie and it is, for sure, not a picture taking device. You get the idea though. I'm not sure how I want to finish "decorating" it yet, so some ideas would be appreciated.  The cute little windowed tins came from this cool site:
http://www.specialtybottle.com/ 
They are not magnetized on the back, so I did that myself. They are amazingly inexpensive, though.

Bee of good cheer (sláinte-pronounced

"sloynta")

P.S. Many thanks to my friend Mimi, who tweaked some things on my page to make it look nicer. Read Mimi's blog, 5th Grade Rocks, 5th Grade Rules, by poking the button to the right side of this page.

Feelin' Kinda Bloggie

My son, for Christmas, received a Sony Bloggie videocamera from his father (my ex) to encourage his You Tube movie-making skills. An example of these fine skills can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMkJGCGmfRA&feature=plcp&context=C441ad62VDvjVQa1PpcFPdr7TfwHkgYbRRWZhO7z_ASctP239fMYA%3D

I am so proud.

At first I was like, "What the WHAT?" I didn't see why a 12 year old child would need such pricey equipment. Weeeellll, times they are a changin' and now that I am an official BLOGGER , I feel that I need, NEED, one of those Bloggies. Problem is, they are rather costly, and I'm not about to go out and buy something that the kid can share with me. Only he doesn't want to. He has never used the daggone thing more than the couple of times that I have seen, and he won't share with his mother? Luckily, I know where he keeps it, and I'm going to steal it when he is out of the house. He happens to be out now...heh, heh, heh...

By the way, the reason I'm so covetous of this small electronic device is that it plugs directly into my USB port, I don't have to mess with taking out memory cards, copying the pictures I want, blah, blah, blah.

My freshly uploaded photos below are of the hurricane/apothecary jars I made last weekend  from the Sid small vase from Crate & Barrel ($6.95) glued to a glass candlestick from A.C. Moore ($2.99). I couldn't find what I wanted at Dollar Tree, so I had to spend a little bit more than planned. The results were worth it though. Take a look:

I had the tiniest bit of difficulty when I realized I was actually videotaping the jars, but it only took me a sec to figure out the camera feature. Still need to work on finding out if it has a flash, though.

Bee Stealthy (ever notice that stealthy has the word "steal" within it?)