Giveaway Time!

It's giveaway time again!

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Good luck everyone!

Recipe Card: Chive Blossom Butter

Growers of herbs know... chives are plentiful! But what is there to do with all of that bounty, especially those gorgeous chive blossoms? Whip 'em up into some butter! Chive blossom butter is great on baked potatoes, melted on top of steaks, used as a gourmet treat to your favorite breads, and so much more. Here's a simple recipe that I'm sure you'll love!

Pick blossoms at their optimal state: when they are bright, fresh, and have not seeded. Wash and dry your blossoms in cool water.

What you'll need:

Butter

Chive Blossoms

Food Processor (a blender should work well, too)

Jars/container to store

Simply pop those whole blossoms into your food processor and whip 'em up until nicely chopped. This part smells SO good! 

Cut up your stick(s) of softened butter so they whip evenly and easily with your blossoms. Whip until blended well. Using a soft spatula put your butter into containers of your choice. They can be stored in your freezer for up to a year until ready to use.

Other great blended butter ideas:

Garlic Scape Butter

Garlic Scape & Italian Herb Butter

Chive Blossom and Garlic Scape Butter

Lemon Basil Butter

...have fun experimenting! Share your recipes and ideas here!

Final Clearance Sale Jewelry

In an effort to clear out and revamp my etsy shop I am having a final clearance sale on all of my handmade jewelry! The available pieces are all in this album on my facebook page. Simple hop on over and there's something that strikes your fancy just comment/message me for buying info! All orders have a flat rate of $5 shipping within the USA. Grab some goodies now before they're gone!

What's happening in my etsy shop?

Glad you asked! I'm revamping my shop to include wedding and party favors and decor! More on that coming soon!

Mint Matchbook Wedding Party Favors

Wedding favors can be something that sends your mind whipping in circles. It can be difficult to find that one something that not only thanks your guests but also celebrates your event. Our mint matchbook favors are 100% customizable and a great way to give your guests a little treat and a special memento of your big day. Have a selection of them at each table or at each place setting as an easy way to distribute your favors.

I recommend ordering at least two mintbooks per guest so everyone gets to eat one and keep one.

You can order either the bunting design in the color selection shown above or you can fully customize your favors like below.

In a hurry? Have too much to do already? Just not a crafty bride or groom? Let me do the work for you with a fully assembled order! Just open the box and start giving them away!

Have a limited budget? You're a crafty craftster? Order a DIY listing like the ones below. You get the same customizable designs but will receive a printable PDF to assemble yourself and stuff with your favorite treats.

View an array of custom designs before ordering!

Also great for business cards, like the one shown above! With full customization your choices are endless!

Visit my shop today for more galore:

You've Got Mail...

Picture this... I was working at a company last year bringing in over $25,000 in revenue per month and for Christmas my boss gave me a tiny silver charm (no chain, even) that was a computer, circa 1993, that said "You've got mail"on the screen. I couldn't find an exact replica of the charm online and it was too strange in the moment that I didn't even take a photo of it. A strangely small token of appreciation for five years of hard work but... that's another reason why I'm not at that job anymore.

Anyway... so I had dinner with my friend Jennifer Lisa who is a jeweler and I showed her the charm. It was too comical. She offered to make it into something fabulous and I was all for the reconstruction project. Luckily, the charm was actually silver (kind of a shocker!) and she was able to transform it into a sweet little bee pendant. She even included a chain! 

Jen is a great friend... she later made the wedding bands for my wedding. I've blogged about her a few times but you know... you can never have enough of a good thing! Visit her website here:

http://quenchmetalworks.com

Colors, leaves, weddings, and rings

Looking back at our wedding photographs I can hardly even believe that it was real. Time really does fly by the day of your wedding. We had so much fun (and many tears and frustration) planning the wedding and it's difficult to imagine that it's already passed. But, of course there is a huge beautiful future in front of us!

My sweet husband and me in our getups. Bryan got this gorgeous Robert Graham embroidered shirt on eBay! The hat is from a fabulous hat shop called Darling Delisle in Damariscotta, Maine.

Our custom made gold wedding bands were made by our good friend Jennifer Lisa of Quench Metalworks. Bryan's ring had a stamped bee on the inside, which is his nickname for me. *cute!*

We are in love!

Photographs are courtesy of our amazing friend and photograher Laurie O'Neil.

Wedding Decor

It's been three months since our wedding and I'm just now resurfacing enough to start posting some images of the big day! Having a backyard wedding was absolutely a dream!!!

Photographs are courtesy of our amazing friend and photograher Laurie O'Neil.

Our wedding cake was made by our friend Terri Lynn and it was AMAZING and delicious and more than we could have ever dreamed of. It's her special Swan Island Pound Cake... ooooh!

Cake Toppers: Han Solo and Princess Leia Pez People by artist Kelly Weingart of Spindleworks Studios in Brunswick, Maine.

I had the insane idea to made pickles and wine jelly for the guests. Making 100+ cans of goods was pretty tiresome for the bride-to-be to do at the end of a long summer of wedding planning, gardening, and more... but I'm so happy with our guests' reactions to the homemade favors. Well worth it. I would highly suggest having some good buddies on hand to help!

Thank the heavens for an amazing mother-in-law-to-be and bridesmaids and friends who helped sew about 100 yards of bunting! It was exactly what I was hoping the tent to look like and we were able to lighten our load of fabrics that my sister and I were hoarding for the last 15 years or so!

I turned an old suitcase into our card collection box. This was a fun and easy way to add some fun to the decor and to tie into our registry wish for a dream honeymoon fund! 

Giveaway Alert!

Time for a good ol' fashioned giveaway!

Head on over to my facebook page and get in on the contest!

Simply "like" the post on facebook, comment on the photo on facebook, and/or share the post on facebook and get up to 3 entries in the giveaway!

**Please note that commenting here will NOT get you entries into this contest (although you're welcome to comment here, too!). Please head over to my facebook page to enter the contest.

Best of luck to you!

Something Blue

A little something blue from our wedding:

My Great Aunt Josie was a very big part of my life. She was like a grandmother to me so when I was searching for my something blue, a swatch from her old house smock was just the thing...

(Photography courtesy of: Laurie O'Neil Photography: http://laurieoneil.com/)

Mintbooks - Wedding favors

Oh hello there, my blog-lovin' friends! It's been a wee while since I've posted but there's very good reason... in April I got engaged and then on September 22nd we just got hitched! So I've been in wedding la-la land for ages, it seems like, but I'm back and ready to craft! And post more!

The good news is that with the wedding came a lot of new crafts... many of which I've been eager to share with you on my blog! So stay tuned for more posts!

Today's post is all about a very special project that was one of the first we created for our wedding. Mint Matchbooks or Mintbooks, as I like to call them. We made these way back in May and kept them right up until our wedding at the end of September. They were a huge hit at the reception. We also created some mini cake stands (which will be featured in another blog post coming up soon) that were part of the table decorations. We had these mintbooks on the stands at each table as an extra favor for each of our guests.

I'm now offering these mintbooks for special order in my Etsy shop! Customers can customize their mintbooks with their own names (and wedding date if they like!). Simply visit my shop listing and contact me if you'd like your own order (or leave a comment here).

Wedding crafting may have become an addiction for me...

Recipe Scrapbook

For many years I've had this recipe scrapbook. I'd started it when I lived in Charleston, SC and soon after moved to New York and then to Maine... all along holding on to the book but losing sight of the project in mind. Last weekend I found myself awake early on a Saturday morning and digging through my pile of loose recipes, handwritten family recipes, and a piping hot cup of coffee. I grabbed some tape and decided that I would sit down right then and there and complete my project.

Complete my project? ...well maybe not. But I was able to put all of my loosy goosey recipes into the scrapbook and am determined to keep it up with new recipes over the years.

I had so much fun playing origami with my recipes and creating new ways to attach them to the pages. A little twine bow here, some more green tape there, and some idea clippings from my favorite magazines. Sure. 

And what fun it is and will be to unfold those recipes and re-discover ideas. The very next day I discovered Pinterest where I created a folder/file/whatevertheycallit for recipes. But I still love my handmade recipe scrapbook. Stains and all.

Someone seems to have a case of spring fever

I may or may not (definitely may) have spring fever. 

I miss my garden, the warm sun on my back, eating veggies and fruits fresh from my yard...

Here's a little photo collage of some of my past gardening fun:

Garlic is my very favorite thing to grow! We just planted about 40 cloves plus another 20 rounds and 100+  bulbils. I'm anxious to have enough garlic to get us through the winter and then-some. We eat a lot of garlic!

The first couple of years I grew tomatoes I probably grew eight plants or so. Then last year  I said, "I'm growing any this year! I'm taking a year off." Then I found a packet of seeds and figured "what the heck..." and grew 21 plants (plus I bought another three from the local nursery for good measure). Then last year I learned how to can so... I'm probably going to grow about 40 tomato plants this year so we have enough to get through until the next season! I just love making chili and sauce and salsa!

We are blessed to have some gorgeous apple and peach trees in our yard, too. The peach tree is the smallest, saddest fruit tree you've ever seen. It looks like a soft wind could knock it over. The first year we had a miniature peach grow. Just one! Then in 2010 we had a massive harvest of peaches! The photo above shows one of the three bowls full we harvested. Amazing. Then in 2011 we had none again. I was told by a local farmer that in Maine the peach trees rotate every other year on production. I guess we'll see what happens in 2012! In addition, we have strawberry plants that were transplanted from my friend's farm so her donkeys wouldn't eat the strawberries -- lucky us! We also have a gorgeous little nest (complete with glitter streamers) that robins lay eggs in just about every year.


Aaaah.... soon it will be time to head outdoors again for the happy harvests of spring!

AND... I ordered these crazy looking squash that I'm SUPER excited to grow and eat. They're called Yugoslavian Finger Fruit Squash:

View all of Kenyon Organic's heirloom seeds here.

Happy spring dreaming!

Etsy On Sale Starts Now

I've seen a lot of people trying Etsy On Sale lately and I thought I'd give it a whirl! I have posted my entire 

Paper, Arts, and Cards section on sale for 30% OFF!

Have a look around:

Give Etsy On Sale a whirl by clicking this link!

Vintage Finds

I've been having way too much find scouting out fabulous vintage finds for my etsy shop and even more fun photographing the finds. The most difficult thing is parting with them! But knowing they're going to a good home helps! Here are some recent finds:

Hobnail Milk Glass Tumblers

Black Lotus Bowls

Stacking Teapot Cream and Sugar Set

Mother of Pearl Buttons

Teal Kitchen Utility Scale

Hope you've had as much looking as I've had hunting!

Click the links to visit my etsy shop to see more.

Check out my twin sister's etsy shop to see her paintings featured in most of these backgrounds.