Dress for Success!

All across the world Dress To Success programs are collecting clothing and accessories for women in economic need to help them thrive in work and life. You can connect with your local chapter here.

In Bangor, Maine one blogger is doing something extra special. Suz of www.welldotoyou.com is documenting how to make the most of one dress in your wardrobe by accessorizing in different ways. She has collected accessories and clothing from various retailers, crafters, and jewelry makers and will document her daily outfits for the month of January. She will be donating all of the items collected to the Dress For Success of Southern Maine chapter.  You can view the Dress To Impres section of her blog and keep up to date right here.

I am mailing out these birch bark earrings tomorrow. I think they will go nicely with the LL Bean dress and really pop on the outfit. Birch bark is also a fun way to bring nature to your earlobes, especially in Maine. I'm eager to see how she incorporates these earrings into her style and also eager for them to be donated to a woman in the program.

You can see a larger portion of my birch bark and other jewelry here and I will be adding more soon.

Check out your local chapter of Dress For Success and see how you can help.

Recipe Card: Forgotten Cookies

If there's a cookie that reminds me of childhood it's, by far, the Forgotten Cookie. We always had the recipe taped up in my mother's cupboard right next to the stove. Our family friend Patsy would make them whenever she visited us. Upon finding the recipe, copied one day in haste, I see that it also says it's Aunt Filly's recipe, although I don't recall her making them. I'll have to inquire further!

The recipe (a copy, not the coveted original)

These are simple, sugar-filled cookies which give the feeling of eating a cloud filled with chocolate chips. Simply heavenly. Simple to cook and a great recipe for children to create (with the help of an adult, of course). These Forgotten Cookies are meringue cookies, called "forgotten" because the last step requires putting the cookies in the oven and turning the oven off leaving them overnight to "forget" and be found, happily, in the morning hours.

Ingredients:

2 Egg Whites

2/3 Cup Sugar

6 Ounce Pack of Chocolate Chips

1 Tsp Vanilla

Supplies:

Cookie Sheet lined with aluminum foil

Whisk or hand blender

Mixing Bowl

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium size mixing bowl mix 2 egg whites (forever) until they're stiff and stand in peaks:

Perfect peaks


Mix in sugar, chocolate chips, and vanilla. I was lucky enough to have my friend's homemade vanilla! Delicious!

Dollop the mixture onto the aluminum foil covered cookie sheet. Your cookies will fluff up while cooking to about 1.5 times the size of the dollop you put down.

Place your cookie sheet into the oven and *get ready for this* TURN THE OVEN OFF! Do not open the oven. Leave the cookies in the oven overnight (5-6 hours). They cook in a nice low decreasing heat. In the morning, you'll have some delightful goodies to test!

These make a great bake-ahead treat for parties in the holiday season when you just don't have all of the time in the world. And if you leave some in the oven for Santa I'm sure he'll be happy, too.

Take a Look at my Jewelry Box

 If there's anything that I love to collect it's jewelry. A second is pottery and we'll get to that in a later blog post, I'm sure. For today, I wanted to start a series with a little show-and-tell about my favorite jewelry pieces. Each piece of jewelry that I own has a story connected to them. We'll take a look at some special pieces in this on-going series. I hope you enjoy!

1) These earrings were a creation of mine under the guidance of Lisa Salsbury from Willow and Me Jewelry. Lisa taught a Precious Metal Clay (PMC) workshop at my former arts & crafts school Sweetland Retreat. Lisa is a wonderful instructor and taught me how to use this amazing technique to preserve my favorite tree's leaves. A friend of mine sent me some leaves from a magnolia tree in South Carolina. I was able to use them to imprint onto the PMC and fire the clay to form these silver beads. I love wearing these earrings and they always remind me of my time living in the South.

2) This is a ring that I wear every single day. Well, let me take a step back here. My boyfriend Bryan bought me this ring from Monkitree in Gardiner, Maine. They had listed a few photos of new pieces they had just gotten in from jeweler JudyB Designs from Portland, Maine. I "liked" the image on their facebook page and commented on how gorgeous it was. A couple weeks later Bryan gave it to me after he'd saved enough money to purchase it. He said it was our "going steady" ring (!!!). I wore it all the time and only took it off to wash my hands. One afternoon I took it off at a local restaurant bathroom to wash my hands and had left it on the sink by accident. I went in not ten minutes later and it had been stolen! I was inconsolable. I felt naked. I was beyond upset. Bryan ended up contacting Judy and had her create a new ring in the same design with an equally gorgeous piece of labradorite. Somehow it was even better than the first one. I wear it non-stop and now don't take it off when I wash my hands. Ever. Lesson learned. 

3) A gorgeous necklace by my friend Jennifer Lisa of Quench Metalworks. I've wanted it for so long {along with many other things from her amazing shop} and it came up for auction at two different fundraisers and I bought it both times! The first time I gave it to my friend Laurie O'Neil and the second time I finally got one for myself. I'm on a mission to "learn" to wear necklaces because #1 I'm really fidgety and play with them way too much and #2 I still don't know how to pair them with earrings which I have to wear all of the time. I'm learning...see the next item.

4) I won these gorgeous silver earrings from a giveaway on Sometimes Sweet's blog. These lotus  earrings are from Chrissy Gemmill Jewelry and they are simply wonderful. They're the perfect earrings to wear with necklaces and I couldn't be happier to have found them... or I guess they kind of found me! These are super new to my collection and I adore them!

5) These are a pair of earrings that I made a few years back as a collaboration with my friend Bob Matus. Bob is a woodworker, lobsterman, photographer, and I'm sure he has many more tricks up his sleeve. He made the wooden hoops and I simply added the dazzle beads. His etsy shop, Heron Cove Wood Carving, has some wonderful items: hair forks (I have the whale tale!), spoons (yep, got some of them, too), and some more earrings! I wear these at least once a week. A personal favorite and I remember the beautiful day when we had our little crafty afternoon and made them.

Isn't it funny how these items, no matter how small, can hold such memories?

Big Giveaway Feature

My birch bark earrings are among the many GREAT giveaways this week over at

Freckled Nest

Be sure to head over there and check out the many items being given away by November's sponsors. Just think of all of the goodies you can get for FREE... I see a thrifty Christmas in your future!

A sneak peak at some special pieces...

 I've been really getting into making necklaces lately. I am an earring girl, through and through. I've started purchasing some necklaces for myself and I'm "learning" how to wear them regularly. It's started a resurgence of me making necklaces, which have been so popular that they don't make it to my etsy shop... my friends have been purchasing them so fast! So today my goal is to make several necklaces to post to my shop so everyone can share in my new passion!

Asymetrical necklaces are a treat. This piece was made with a found resin and floral charm. Found in the sense that they were originally a pair of earrings and I lost one of the earrings. I've been holding onto this charm for several years waiting for it to tell me what it wanted to be. Now a friend owns it and it has a brand new journey to enjoy:

Another magical piece that I've enjoyed creating for special requests: Bracelets. If there's anything I'm less apt to wear than a necklace it's a bracelet. Again, earring girl here. But a couple of my friends have been asking me for bracelets so I answer the call. And what a pleasure it has been to make them! I even specially bought some nice rainbow agate and fire agate focal beads to make more bracelets for my etsy shop. 

This first bracelet is made of enamel covered penny beads that I get from a local bead shop (who gets them from a local bead maker) here in Maine. These four penny beads represent my friend Alisha's four children (3 boys and 1 girl). 

Here are a couple examples of some earrings I've created with these same penny beads:

More necklaces, bracelets, and Constant Galore coming soon!

Teacup Pincushions

A couple of years ago I grabbed some great vintage teacups and my sewing needle and whipped up this idea for pincushions. I was collecting teacups with no real purpose in mind. Here and there I would pot a plant in this one and use that one as a catch-all on my desk. Then I thought: pincushions. Sturdy, classy, and those little saucers would hold all of your odds and ends!

This yellow vintage one was the first of them all (already sold!) : 

And a fun collection of colorful teacups and even more colorful fabrics and I suddenly had a collection of these things. You can find many of these and more still available in my etsy shop:

1) This rad yellow milk pitcher is fitted with a bright purple floral fabric 2) This pastoral scene is complimented with the red floral fabric, no saucer 3) That dahlia fabric is just stunning 4) Gold rimmed with pansy fabric 5) vintage Japanese pottery with floral cushion 6) bright red cushion with black and white checkered saucer.

A gorgeous frosted Pfaltzgraff cup and saucer with the dahlia fabric cushion: 

So fun to create and super colorful to dress up your sewing room!

Visit the pincushion section of my Etsy Shop for more details and other styles.

You can find my entire shop here. 

Recipe Tutorial: Super Simple Pimiento Cheese

Let's chat a second about cheese. It is a delicious creation which, I can only assume, was sent down straight from the heavens. Add in some pimientos and now we're talking about a delight sent down from a heaven full of rock stars. You know, the ones that you wish you could party with. Well, that's how I felt the first time I had pimiento cheese.

I was living in the sunny south in Charleston, South Carolina. I remember going to a little cafe in some small town in the "upstate" and seeing grilled pimento cheese sandwich on the menu. Well, now they had my attention. I ordered it wondering what it would be like and when it arrived I realized that I had made one of the best discoveries of my lifetime. Classically served between two slices of white bread, grilled to perfection, and a sweet tea on the side: Rock Star Heaven.

So I began asking local friends for recipes and did some of my own tweaking and came up with this super simple recipe that anyone can make. Have at it! Try it on a sandwich, with crackers, pretzels, or on top of a burger. And I'll tell ya, this recipe is highly adored by my favorite blogger at 145 Crazy Road!

Ingredients:

2 cups of shredded Sharp Cheddar

4oz jar of Sliced Pimientos

1/4 cup Mayonnaise

Salt & Pepper to taste

Tools:

Small Food Processor

Spatula

Let's talk EASY recipe: Put all of the ingredients into the food process (include the liquid from the pimiento jar) and whip it up until the ingredients are all blended together well. Place in the refrigerator overnight and it will thicken up when it sets.

And there you are! An easy and delicious item that can be used for lunch sandwiches, potluck dip, burger toppings, and so much more. Some other variations include adding garlic, pickles, and other ingredients. I find that this recipe is super simple and always a huge hit! Enjoy!

About the author: Joy Ribisi traded in her sunny summer-all-the-time-beach-cruiser-flip-flopping-Southern-living ways for the quiet farm life of New-England-log-splitting-snow-shoveling-earth-digging-lake-swimming life in Central Maine, some things never change. Like enjoying comfort foods.