Artisan Whimsy and Meal Plan Monday

How was your weekend? Mine seemed to pass in a flash, but thinking over how I spent the days I did get a lot accomplished. Weird right?

Moving on. . .If you are in any way interested in the bead and jewelry online presence, I'm sure you've heard about Artisan Whimsy by now. If not, let me go ahead and mention it. It's an online community of other Bead artists/makers, beaders, and jewelry artists. I'm still not completely sure what direction this site is headed, but there's a forum, chatting, tutorials, giveaways, and LOTS of bead-y friends. Head on over to Artisan Whimsy and sign up.

Oh, and each month they'll be selecting two artists to spotlight on their Pintrest Boards. Guess who one of the ones for October is. . .ME!!! Head over there to check out my board (link above) and the rest of the Artisan Whimsy Pintrest Page.  You should also take a peek at the other spotlighted artist, Rose Dilly Zawchenuk. She's got some gorgeous pieces!


I don't know what took me so long to get today's menu made, but it was like pulling teeth to come up with ideas and it's still nothing spectacular. Oh well, it's done now at least.

Breakfasts: Juice, Yogurt w/ granola & fruit, Oatmeal/Grits/Cereal w/fruit, PB&J Turnovers (recipe in last week's post)

Lunches: Hummus pitas w/veggies, Juice, Grilled cheese w/soup, Leftovers, PB&Js w/fruit

Dinners: 

Mexican casserole

Mushroom stroganoff w/green beans

Potato Soup

Mac-n-cheese w/broccoli

Grilled turkey w/cauliflower gratin & salad

There's much more Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

While the menu took me forever, I did get some other tasks accomplished.
New Earrings listed

Pink Glam Earrings

All Shabby Beads on sale 20% off!

Shabby Beads on sale

That's all I've got for now, except a really long to do list. I'm heading out to hop on it. How's your Monday looking?

Link-a-palooza and other Randomness

Today I just want to share a bunch of randomness with you. S'alright? I apologize for the rambly-ness of  my recent posts.

First, if you're looking for my Bead Soup reveal, there's a link to it just up there /\ below my banner. . .see it on the left? Next to the Home button? There ya go! I thought that might be the easiest way to keep it available.

Fruit at the local Farmer's Market

I don't think I've outright mentioned that Pat and I are doing this whole healthy diet thing. He's the researcher for these things, I'm just the planner. I didn't post my menu for this week because it took me a little longer to get in the mindset and since we were preparing for Issac, I wasn't sure if we would actually get to eat the meals I planned. By Tuesday afternoon we weren't in the direct path of the storm and I had it worked out. Here are the basics of what we're doing (I think).

• We're cutting back on our animal product intake. I cannot go full vegetarian or vegan. . .I like cheese, bacon, and butter a little too much. (Probably how we got in the shape we're in to start with.)
• As well, he says we want to eat as much 'whole' foods as possible. Basically, we want as little processing to go into our foods. So, fresh over frozen or canned. No problem. . .I think fresh tastes better anyway. 
• The processed bread/cracker/pasta items we DO eat need to say 'whole' in the first few ingredients. . .or something like that.
• We've also continued to juice for at least one meal a day (breakfast or lunch work best for me). 
• Oh. . .and there's something about cutting back our sugar intake. Whatever.
• We had planned on trying to be more active, but have gotten cooped up inside because of the storm. Now that it's passed, we hope to work on that a little more.

So that's the general gist I have of it right now. I haven't completely figured out all the rules, but I'm trying. Pat bought  me a vegetarian cookbook (I like books) and I actually cooked Tofu earlier in the week. It was. . .okay. For now, I'm feeling kinda crummy, but I've been told that it's a fairly normal feeling when all those toxins start to leave your body. I'll ride the wave for now.


Since I'm going with randomness as today's theme, this seems a fitting time for a

• This is a little late, but Michelle Mach has a list of Beading & Jewelry Making contests for Summer/Fall 2012. Shoot. . .some of the links she has go into 2013. What a helpful gal she is!
• GIVEAWAY: Anne Gardanne of Gardanne Beads is having a giveaway of two sets of her beautiful wares. Check out the rules and how to enter on her blog. 

  

  Just one of the yummy sets available to win

• If you still haven't seen Lesley Watt's (The Gossiping Goddess) cool tutorial for these little bracelets you must have been hiding under a bush. Welcome back to the world and check out this fun bracelet  tutorial now!
• Social Media is a topic close to my heart. I plan on writing up a post at some point on how I determine if I will follow you on Twitter. In the meantime, this post from ProBlogger on the 10 Rules of Social Media Engagement is a really great overview on how best to use social media.

Now let me share just a little shop news and I'll be out of your hair for at least the rest of today.
Some of my Shabby Beads were featured in this brightly hued treasury.

Hot Pink and Blue Treasury

On Sale

Unearthed Necklace

 New

Heavenly Earrings

I just have to mention how excited I am that the College football season has started up. I'll  be rooting for the Alabama Crimson Tide tomorrow night and I cannot wait!! Roll Tide!

With the sun FINALLY out after the storm, I'm hoping to soak it up and get my creative juices flowing again. . .and get my butt OUT of this computer chair. What are you hoping to accomplish this weekend?

Introducing Shabby Beads

Hey y'all!
I've got just a couple of quick things to share today.

First, apparently I've had a brain fart all week and forgot to mention that you have until midnight tonight to vote on the Silk Color Palettes over at the Marsha Neal Studio Blog. Mine's listed there, but no pressure to vote for me. There are definitely some really beautiful choices.

Secondly, I finally broke down and listed some of my Shabby Beads in the Etsy shop. Eek!! I had a friend ask if I made any beads. That was the simple kick in the pants I needed to get those beads up. Here's a sampling of them.

Turquoise, gray, and hot pink tubes

Light green, yellow, and red saucers

Violet, pink, and yellow rounds

I'd love to hear what you think of this addition to the shop.
Thanks!!

I Got a Touch of the Monday Funk

I'm in some kind of funk today. Maybe I just stayed too busy over the weekend, maybe I'm tired, maybe I'm just feeling lazy, or maybe it's hormones. Who knows! Whatever it is, it's keeping me from being my usual Monday-productive self. I'm running on auto-pilot and was able to get the menu made, the laundry started, and the dishes loaded; but past that I'm just a little blah about doing anything else (creative or otherwise). Part of my Monday auto-pilot programming is to share the menu for the week, so let me do that.

Breakfasts: Cereal/oatmeal, carrot muffins, breakfast burritos, waffleized monte cristo, ham omelets, blueberry greek yogurt pancakes

Lunches: bean butrritos, leftovers, ham sandwiches, soup w/grilled cheese, chicken salad sandwiches, pizza puffs, ham quesidillas

Dinners: 

Grilled shrimp w/green beans & crispy smashed potatoes

Spicy garlic lime chicken w/broccoli & cracker barrel hashbrown casserole

Beef with snow peas w/jasmine rice

Ham steaks w/mac-n-cheese & peas

There's more Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie. Today she's asked for tips that people have to help them ensure their meal planning success each week. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the answers in the comments. I know many of you have asked about my meal planning habits so that discussion may be helpful for you too!

Even in my funk, I did list a new pretty bracelet in the shop. It features some of my Shabby Beads.

Lost Treasures Bracelet

What do you do when you're in a funk like this? Do you trudge on through your day or do you have some awesome way to de-funkify? I'd love to know!

BTW: Shabby Beads

It's that time again, Bead Table Wednesday!

I guess technically, it's that DAY again. . .but whatever.

Since I probably bored y'all to tears yesterday with all my bullet points, I'll try to keep today's post short and sweet.

The big question is "What's on your bead table today?"

Mine looks like this.

Oh the mess!

Because I've been making these

Shabby Beads

Head on over to the Bead Table Wednesday Flickr Group

Bead Table Wednesday

and show off "What's on YOUR bead table today!"

Beady Bullet Points

I'm just popping in to make a few announcements and share a few things, so I'll try to do it in bullets.

•  I got a bunch of happy mail yesterday (see above)!!
• For one, Mellisa at Chinook Jewelry picked me to be on her Chinook Blog Partner Design Team this month. Here's what I found in the mail from her. The reveal will Feb. 27th. I'm so excited to have been chosen for this and even more excited to be designing around a BLUE BUTTON!!
• Also in the mail was this awesome Rainbow Heart from Tree Wings Studio. 
• Lastly, I ordered a grab bag of Pottery Pendants and Beads from Captured Moments and was pleasantly surprised to find it bursting at the seams! 
• I'll be sending out some mail soon too as I signed up for the 7000 Bracelets of Hope Blog Hop.   It's being hosted by Erin of Elysian Studios and Christine of One Kiss Creations. You can sign up to participate in this wonderful cause on either of their blogs. The Hop will be on Feb 25th.
• I'm still steadily trying to get pictures edited of new jewelry so that I can write descriptions and get some new jewelry int he shop. Until then, I've placed quite a few items on sale from 10-30% OFF! One of the sale items is this necklace which has proven to be quite popular (going by the number of people who have favorited it!)

  

  Like the Wind Necklace

• Even though I've been working on pictures and descriptions, I'm also trying to be creatively productive. I've been focused on making some Shabby Beads to include in the shop. Here's a peek.
• GIVEAWAY ALERT!!  Lastly, I happened to notice that over at Copper Diem, there's THREE POUNDS OF BEADS being given away. Head on over there to find out more!

So that's it for now. I tried to be concise and to the point with all this info. Did I forget anything?