It's My Jet Lag and I'll Cry if I Want To

noted

Its my Birthday today and I thought I would attempt to blog a few of my Birthday treats before I fall asleep, the only thing keeping me going at the moment is the coffee I seem to be mainlining, though hopefully soon I will be adding birthday cake to my sugar and caffeine intake. As you can see from the first image I got some beautiful leather notebooks for my birthday, the top one M got me (after several not to subtle hints) its from ArtisanGraham, the middle is an eco friendly nkuku, and the bottom one is a soft recycled leather journal from Barnes and Noble's that I bought myself along with a couple of novels. I really did need a new notebook and now I quite happily have three.

The next three items are gifts from my dad (my mother bought me clothes and a cute pair of polk-a-dot sketchers). The first item was a pendant made from a slice of a mastodon's tusk that will be the focal point of a beaded necklace. A lovely little vintage drawing and painting book , and a pretty little stone box.

The last item pictured is an agate pendant, that M bought me in San Francisco. It just looks like the ocean to me and makes me think of Bodega Bay. Frizbe dropped by with the girls this morning and brought me some lovely little birthday muffins, a little purple purse she knitted, and some lovely hair things too. I would feel spoiled if I wasn't so jet-lagged.

Mastadon pendant

vintage bird drawing book



pretty little stone box



agate pendant that looks like the ocean

Strawberry Quartz

strawberry quartz and silver bracelet

I treated myself to these pretty strawberry quartz beads while we were in Idaho, they were so sewat and summery I had to have them, especially with the dysmal snowy weather.

Home Again

Home again at last. I'm not quite sure if that's a good thing or not yet. We have been home about 3 or 4 hours, the house is a mess with gifts, laundry, and disemboweled suitcases littering the back room, boxed of American food stuffs piled on top of the counter, and a mountain of mail to tear through and mostly recycle. In the next few days I will blog all about California, and snowy Idaho. Right now I'm off to catch some zzz's.

Candy Apples and Holidays

red carnelian bracelet with apple toggle clasp

I made this bracelet last night while M and I watched Torchwood and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And as usual the sun has only made an appearance after I took the pictures. We are off on our trip to San Francisco and Idaho tomorrow, well down to H's favourite hotel and flying out on Monday. Thank god we aren't flying with BA this time, though M says he wants to have a look around the new terminal 5.

We will be back at the end of the month, the day before my birthday, so my present will be jet lag! Thank you all for reading my blog, if I get the chance I will update while we are away, so check back from time to time. And of course I will post lots of pictures when we return.

San Francisco here we come.

And Idaho too.

Garnet in Bloom

garnet bracelet with a silver plated blossom toggle clasp

This was meant to be a necklace, well the clasp was intended to adorn a necklace, but as I am woefully short of beads with our impending holiday this clasp has been appropriated into this lovely bracelet. I have just finished wearing it as wandered about the room, Thank god H is napping and M is at work, as I'm sure I looked like I had truly lost it, perhaps I have. I'm really pleased with the finished bracelet, I only wish the sun would make an appearance so I could take a picture with the light streaming through the polished garnet chips.

Jelly Bean People- Kids Crafts

H's Mr. Blue Jelly Bean


H's Jelly Bean People

You will Need:

paper

poster paints

little fingers

a pen

These little Jelly Bean people are quick and easy to make, and a good way to occupy little ones. Spread some paint onto a plate have the kids press there fingers into it and then finger print the paper one print at a time. Once the paint has dried you can then draw faces, arms and legs.

H had a ball painting them, and then drawing limbs and faces and constructing stories as to who his jelly bean people are. My favourites are Mr. Blue Jelly Bean, Mr. Wobbly Legs the Tall, and Jelly Dog which I think looks more like a rat but I am apparently wrong.

Banana, Orange Blossom Honey, and Cashew Muffins

Banana, Orange Blossom Honey, and Cashew Muffins

Ingredients
2 cups self-raising flour
½ cup Mexican orange blossom honey (or any honey)
½ cup milk
2 eggs
¼ cup melted butter
2 ripe bananas mashed with a fork
3/4 cup chopped cashew nuts
pre heat oven to 375° .

Place paper baking cups into a muffin tin, or grease and flour the muffin cups.

In a medium bowl mix all the ingredients except for the cashews, the batter will be slightly lumpy. Carefully fold in the chopped cashew nuts.

Divide the batter evenly among muffin cups filling them about two thirds full.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and spring back when the centre is pressed.

Remove from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool.

cook's notes: You could use pecans, or any other nuts in the recipe, I used cashews because the package has sat in the cupboard for ages unloved and unwanted. The muffins turned out light a moist, and I got good reviews from H, who recovered enough to stir the batter and nip off with a spoonful of batter to eat in the front room trailing batter on the carpet. And from M, who made happy noises on cosumming a muffin, so at the very least I managed to get rid of two freckled bananas that everyone else had rejected. The cashews blended well with the honey, and banana and the muffins tasted lovely with a little bit of butter.

Sardonyx and Me

amethyst, peridot, and sterling silver bracelet

As we will be going away on holiday on Sunday, I have forbidden myself to order any more beads. Obviously that wont stop me buying any if we just happen to be passing a bead store or two while in California or Idaho in the next few weeks. But it has the effect that I am limited to the oddments of beads and toggles that are in my bead box(s) which is not enough to make any necklaces but I have scraped together enough beads to make these two bracelets.

The first has small faceted amethyst beads and oval shaped peridot, with a bali silver toggle clasp. I know I have done several purple and green items, mainly bracelets but I just adore the colour combination. Something about the vibrant peridot mixed with amethyst just shouts spring to me. Thoughts of Irises, and lilacs, and purple tulips spring to mind.

close up of the bali silver toggle clasp

The other bracelet I made today is this one with the large rectangular sardonyx focal bead in the centre. I fell in love with the bead in the shop and had to have it, but wasn't sure wat to do with it until now. It may get taken apart and remade before I'm happy and M says it looks like a 70's watch without a face. Let me know what you think.

sardonyx, smokey quartz, black agate, and silver bracelet

Three Horsemen Shy of an Apocalypse

amethyst and black agate bracelet

Not a great deal of crafting going on as Plague has revisted our house, H is quite poorly with a cold at the moment and has stayed home from pre-school today. In an attempt to keep him occupied and not to pouty we have packed his little carryon suitcase, painted a canvas, and now he is napping with very little protest. You know you are dealing with a poorly child when there is no tantrum at being sent for a nap.

While he splodged paint on a square canvas from The Works I darkened a small canvas down that I previously didn't like. I'm still not sure about it but I think it does look vaguely better than it did previously. H says my painting isn't pretty becuse I was using black but his was pretty because he used blue and red. I felt inspired to paint this morning but found it difficult to paint while keeping H from spilling things or sneezing into the paint pots.

I should be cleaning the house but thought I would mess around with the new camera instead of my phone camera. So thats what I used to take todays pictures. A vast improvement over the phone pictures I think. The amethyst and black agate bracelet that I made last night looks stunning, and the light wasn't even that great. Baking to do later, something with bananas as I have a fruit bowl full and need to clear it out before we go away.

H's painting on canvas

And the Winners Are.....

First I want to say thank you to everyone who left a comment on the give away post. It was truly beautiful reading your lovely comments and reduced me to tears at the kindness and impact of a few nice words. So thank you very much everyone, I was very moved by the lovely things you said. It was also heartwarming to find a few new names in my comments. Thank you so much everyone. There will be another draw soon, though probably not until after we return from our holidays. I'm not sure anyone would want to win a draw for a postcard from California or Idaho... :o)


I have had M pull names out of a hat to get a fair draw.

And the Winners are...

drum roll please....

For the earrings the winner is: Bloggy Mama (Elizabeth)

I have e-mailed you, but if for some reason it has gone astray e-mail me at meridianariel@hotmail.com with your details.

and the tree painting goes to: Miaou

Can you e-mail me your details Miaou as I haven't got your e-mail address. meridianariel@hotmail.com

An Apple a Day

Carnelian and white onyx bracelet with apple toggle

Yesterday I wrote a craft challenge on the Mumsnet Arts and Crafts blog and this morning I made this bracelet. My inspiration for the challenge is Emily at The Black Apple. Her artwork and dolls, are brilliant, but beyond that I think that she in herself is a brilliant person, her blog is witty, amusing, incredibly talented, and inspiring. Recently I bought my first Black Apple print, the fern print, technically it was a present for M's birthday but that's just an excuse because I really wanted one of Emily's beautiful prints.

I had ordered the silver plated apple toggle clasp from a shop on etsy and all I could think about was how cute it was, and that it made me think of the black apple (aside from it being silver that is) I considered pairing the clasp with some onyx beads but then I took inspiration from the little red and white toadstools in the print and dug out red carnelian and white onyx beads.

close up of the apple toggle

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nephrite jade and black agate bracelet

Sunday Morning crafting-

As I had another apple toggle clasp I decided to make a green jade bracelet, but as I didn't have quite as many jade beads left as I thought it is now jade and black agate. It looks really nice on my wrist and I'm very tempted to keep it for myself and dig out a green t-shirt that has gone AWOL in the closet, Aside from the green Halloween t-shirt that says "wicked" across the front in gothic script...hmmm nah I'm not that cool to get away with that. ;o)

remeber the give away closes on monday so if you haven't left a comment please do.

Giveaway

Nephrite Jade and Amethyst earrings

As I have been blogging away here for nearly a year I thought it was high time I got it into gear and did a giveaway. The first item up for grabs is this pair of nephrite jade and amethyst earrings( the earring findings are silver plated.) And they will come to you in a small hand knit pouch.

also up for grabs is a small 5 1/2 in x 10in boxed canvas original painting. The painting is entitled Whispering tree, and is much nicer than the poor quality of the image below. My apologies for the poor image quality, but there is no sun today and there for no remotely decent images can be taken on my camera. All you need do to be entered into the draw to win is leave me a lovely comment. I will draw the name on Monday morning and the winners will be posted.

whispering tree painting

I promise to take a better picture if the sun actually appears in the sky and I get some good lighting.

thank you for reading my blog, my random witterings, adventures in crafting and baking.

Apple Brown Betty

apple brown betty

Ingredients:

Pastry for the pie crust
5-6 apples (I used eating apples)

1 cup flour
1 cup light brown sugar
½ cup butter (room temperature)
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 375° F

Grease and flour a pie dish and line with the pastry trim and crimp the edges.

Peel, core and slice the apples and fill the pie crust with them.

In a bowl mix the, flour, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon by hand until it becomes the consistency of damp sand.

Cover the sliced apples with the crumble topping completely.

Bake for 25 -35 minutes, until the topping is golden brown in colour.

Let cool and serve while warm with vanilla ice-cream, custard or cream.

cook's notes: This pie was for M's birthday today, he requested apple pie instead of chocolate, which is very odd if you know my husband at all. I considered making a plain apple pie but I thought it would be a little nicer to make an apple brown betty. It went down well M happy, and H too. And got a lovely compliment from M's dad who stopped by to drop off a card and birthday check. I used eating apples because I really don't like English cooking apples and we had an over abundance of apples in the fruit bowl hovering towards oblivion or at least rotten apple status. The apple pieces were still recognizable as apple and not turned to mush, if you prefer that I would suggest covering the pile for the 15 minutes with foil and then remove the foil and bake for an additional 25-35 minutes.

The only side effect is that I have had the song "Black Betty" stuck in my head all evening.

Tagged

Katy over at I'm a Ginger Monkey tagged me with a four things meme. So here goes my answers.

4 Jobs::

I worked in the school snack hut in high school (out of class early, free food, and $$$)

A temp job at a stamp producing company, rubber stamps that is, filling out orders fitting loads of little wooden stamp blocks onto a sheet of card..yawn.

a manager in the cash office at Target my manager Terry was a complete psychopath.

Working with M at the studio from time to time, obviously not too much now but I still balance the till and help bounce ideas around, make cards when needed and various other things.

4 Favourite Movies::


The Goonies as that was one of my favourite movies from childhood and I have been to where they filmed a little north of Bodega Bay in California.

Serenity brilliant sci-fi from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv show (we all know the movie didn't quite work)


Amalie- brilliant and quirky


The Lost Boys- another favourite from childhood, I know half the dialogue by heart, same as the goonies really. I'm not a total film geek but I'm definitely pretty close, narrowing down a life time of favourite movies is impossible. This is just the start of the list, the tip of a very big dvd iceberg.

4 Places I've Been::

Italy, on a bus tour, beautiful had a great time, I ran out of money though and the last few days I subsisted on rock hard bread rolls from the breakfast table that I secreted in my purse. Everything was great till the driver nearly passed out at the wheel and we nearly crashed into a ditch on the way back.

Paris with M for our first anniversary. We did it on the cheap side but had a completely brilliant time wandering around aimlessly.

Inverary Castle, Lock Fyne Scotland- Its where M proposed all those years ago. In a week we will have been married for 7 years, and he hasn't gotten fed up of me yet.

Portuguese Beach near Bodega Bay, Ca- Its one of my favourite places to go in the world, the English seaside cannot compare to the crashing blue grey waves of the Pacific, the salt spray sticking to your skin and the massive tree trunks studding the beach that just moved along by the waves and are different every time. The last time we went there there was a massive storm and we were unable to actually get to the beach, we just sat in the car and watched wave after tremendous wave crash down on the rocks and beach.

4 Places I've Lived:

New York- In an old farm house that was surrounded by fields and the fields were surrounded by woods.

In a camper van driving across the US when I was little. It kept breaking down and a trip that should have taken a week, took several, I thought it was a grand adventure, my parents me, 3 dogs, 3 cats, and a big jade plant, that fell on me. The table had a map of the USA on it so every day we would look at what state we were in and what the next one one be.

Santa Rosa, Ca- I hated it while we were there but now that I haven't been for over 5 years I miss it, I miss the mall, I miss the location so near to the coast and Sonoma, In a week and a half we will be flying to Cali so I will get to snoop around my old stomping grounds, see what has changed and what should have changed and hasn't. I can't wait.

Northern Idaho- technically its were my parents live, and where we just go to stay on holiday, but its a home away from home, with my dad's wonderful home cooking and the dogs for H to run wild with. Its such a great area in the forrest and the people in the town are friendly and nice. Its a great place.

4 Favourite TV Shows::

Supernatural- Its great, gothic horror, sarcasm, and great rock music... and the actors are cute too

CSI- Vegas is best, but New York is growing on me, and David Caruso is over the top hysterical in Miami.

Dexter- a new favourite, a likable serial killer.. if my dad had cable I think he would definitly appreciate it.

Boston Legal- yep its a lawyer show, but were I hated Ally McAnorexic I love boston legal its a very funny show.

4 Favourite Radio Programmes::

Don't really have one... I don't really like English radio all that much.

Radio 1- is just annoying pop noise

Radio 2- is musical tourettes (sp?) it just spits out random bits of music with no relation to anything else.

Classical- is music to crash your car by, becuse you are either falling asleep to it or being scarred to death by opera.

i have no specific programs that I listen to regularly.

4 Favourite Foods::

Italian- pasta with an alfredo cheese sauce ( I make a damn fine one, you can ask M and H they will agree)

Vietnamese- lemongrass chicken yum yum

Thai- Tom yum soup or green curry

dark chocolate

4 Places I'd Rather Be::

In a coffee shop inside a book shop, my favourite places to be.. the smell of coffee mingling with the scent of paper products... mmm

In a city just wandering around looking around the shops and soaking up the atmosphere.

In a tidy and clean house istead of the cess pit this one is.

on holiday in California all ready without the packing and flying bit.


...time to randomly tag some people I know.


Frizbe consider yourself tagged
same goes for you Miaou
and you too Laurie
Last but by no means least.... sky rocket sews

Crafting to Boston Legal

cherry adventurine and peridot bracelet

russian adventurine (I think)

dolomite and silver bracelet

WIP-
I haven't had alot of time to craft the last few days, and am running low on a few bead essentials. But with what bits I have left in my beading stash I made these three bracelets lastnight. I'm quite happy with then except for the clasp on the adventurine one, its nice but just dosn't work with the rest of the bracelet. On the plus side in the post this morning came an order of toggles from etsy so I will have a play tommorow with my new toys!

I have also been working on some ideas for my vintage craft swap and deciding what to put up for a blog give away so check back in a day or two and see what you can win.

Corn Bread Muffins with Honey Butter

corn bread muffin

Ingredients
3/4 cup cornmeal (semolina)
1 cup self Raising Flour
1/2 cup white (caster) sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk (any)
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

grease muffin tin or line with paper muffin cups.

Combine cornmeal, flour, sugar. egg, milk and melted butter mix until just until blended. *

Scoop batter into prepared muffin pans. The batter will be very liquid because of the amount of milk and melted butter this is fine no need to worry it will be absorbed by the cornmeal/semolina.

Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top of muffins before baking if desired.

Bake for 15- 20 minutes remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes before removing from the muffin tin.


*Fresh chopped jalapeno peppers can be added at this time, as can chopped red pepper and/or tinned corn kernels(about ½ to 1 cup worth of sweet corn). I left the muffins plain so that they could be topped with honey butter.
Alternative cornbread method: use a cast iron skillet, then add a fine layer of half/half or light cream to the top of the batter before baking.

Honey Butter
½ cup butter at room temperature
1-2 tablespoons honey
Mix the honey and butter in a bowl with a spoon or electric mixer. The amount of honey is to taste if you like the butter very sweet add more, or use very little for the slightest hint of honey. Place in a small bowl or ramekin and refrigerate until needed.

honey butter

cooks notes: worked great everyone happy and only about 3 muffins left from a dozen. H says "dewishous."

Happy Easter

hardboiled eggs dyed with food colouring

Here it is a lovely snowy Easter Sunday, H is hyped up on jelly beans, chocolate eggs, and cake batter. In fact he is the only kid I know that we had to go wash his hair out in the sink because he got cake batter all over while litterally licking the bowl. The hardboiled eggs look great, the one that is crackled was one that he dropped on the table so we cracked all of the shell and dipped it into the food colour. It lasted all of about 3 seconds after this picture was taken as he devoured it.

The cupcakes are standard yellow cake with mandarin orange icing, coloured orange to match H's sweater. This was apparently very important, not red, not yellow, not green, but orange. With little eggs on top, the icing is lovely, I know because Starbuck nearly begged for some, he almost looked cute. No crafting aside from the cupcakes, though I did tidy out my beads and drew a few jewellery design ideas to mull over later.

hope everyone is having a lovely Easter Sunday.

Easter cupcakes a la orange

Rocket Road (a rocky road recipe)

Rocky Road

ingredients:

200g dark chocolate (2 x 100g bars)
2 cups mini marshmallows
1 cup pecan nuts (toasted)
1 cup short bread or other biscuits (butter cookies) broken into small pieces
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons caster sugar
¼ cup cream

Line a 8x8 square pan with waxed paper

Melt the chocolate and the butter in the microwave or on the stove top, add the cream, sugar, and mix thoroughly.

Add the nuts, biscuit pieces, and the marshmallows. Mix until just combined.

Spread into lined pan and refrigerate until firm.

Dust with icing sugar and cut into squares or rectangles.

You could try adding dried fruit (cherries, raisins, coconut) or candy (m&m’s, reece’s pieces, Turkish delight cut into small pieces)

cooks notes: This is the first time I have tried to make rocky road. I'm one for going my own way in the kitchen and figured I would have a go and see what happens as Rocky Road is M's favourite treat from Starbuck's and as it is his birthday next week I thought I would give it a go. One of the bars of chocolate was 85% and the other was 72% so it made for very dark and rich rocky road. I'm happy with the outcome H says "The Rocket Road" was better in the bowl when it was still warm and he got to steal some of the mixture. I shall see what M's verdict is a little later when he finishes with the wedding he is shooting today. I like it anyway and will probably adapt the recipe again next time. Which may not be that far away as M says he wants a rocky road birthday cake. hmmm

The Briar Rose

briar rose garnet and sterling silver necklace

another view

I completed this necklace about 5 minutes ago. The pictures are of rather poor quality due to the light being rather absent but I'm extremely happy with the finished necklace. I love the rose clasp and the garnet is so vibrant in the 5 minutes of nice light I got when half finished with the necklace. When I get some better images it will be added to the etsy shop though its lovely and I'm sorely tempted to keep it for myself.

Next I am going to attempt to make yet another felt flower to use up this bit of felt that keeps taunting me, and I might even manage to get my knitting out again over this long Easter weekend.

Its M's birthday next week so I have to do some shopping for that...but I will not say what on the off chance that he may actually read this blog...you never know he might... I will say he has bought himself a Nintendo DS light and brain training, and super mario brothers for H when we fly to the states next month. very generous I thought.

Baubles, Bangles, and Beads Oh My!

cherry adventurine, nephrite jade, and sterling silver

garnet and silver bracelet

I haven't got much crafting done this week as it has been busy here this week. Monday we had the loft ladder people come and install a brand new wooden loft ladder. So now we we be able to sort out the attic and turf out all the stuff that has gone up there to die. Yesterday we had a lovely family trip out to Cadbury World with some vouchers from tesco's. S o we only paid 95p to get in and ended up with a bag of free chocolate worth more than that. Sadly I am not a fan of cadbury's chocolate, I prefer good quality dark chocolate, but M and H were quite happy.

The two bracelets I made this morning are with left over bits of beads as I am waiting for a bead delivery that should have come monday morning but is still not here. The cherry adventurine and jade is my favourite, I wasn't sure at first as I don't tend to wear colours that are that bright but it looks good and espcially with the beautiful sterling silver clasp from BobbiThisnThat , it arrived in the post this mornign with a few other goodies I ordered and I couldn't wait to put it to good use.

Everyone seems happy with their Vintage Swap partners, so hopefully everyone is crafting happily. I will start crafting for my swap partner Mel of Skye Rocket Sews ( I just love the name of her blog) on friday when H is at school all day and I can craft happily without interuption.

keep a look out becuse its my blog-iversery (spelling?) soon and I will be posting some give aways so keep a look out and post some lovely comments.