Happy Halloween!

Halloween is here! I love all the cute costumes, decorations, and eating an excessive amount of candy. This time of year I will pretty much just eat candy till I end up with a throbbing headache or get sick to my stomach. No self control. I'm partial to Twix, Reece's Pieces, Starburst, and those caramel apple suckers when I can find 'em.

As kids, my little sister and I would pick out a costume from the store or our mom would make us something. I can remember my favorite costume as a kid was a homemade one of a crayon. I called my parents this week and they dug up a few pictures for me to share. My sis is dressed as Jem (did anyone else watch that cartoon?) and I'm sporting my awesome purple felt crayon costume. We are both carrying our Cabbage Patch Kids who are also dressed up- hers is a princess and mine is a Halloween clown. We loved our Cabbage patch Kids in a big way so mom sewed them special outfits! Welcome to 1987:

Trick or treat!

Halloween complete with spooky ghost in background!

Now, back to 2011. We are dressing up at work, so I decided to get crafty and make a costume. I found this costume idea over on Parenting.com. All it took was a bit of shopping, cutting, gluing, then running out of glue and using iron on tape. Of course I also made myself some orange and yellow bracelets and earrings. I can't go to the bead store with out matching accessories, can I?

Felt + glue + pipe cleaners = crafty goodness

I'm a happy Sunshine!



Hooray!



Finally, I leave you with a photo of Oscar's first Halloween. Puppy cuteness coming at you...
  

My heart is melting for this adorable fur ball!  

I would love to hear about your favorite costume blast from the past or what you did this year. For now, Happy Halloween!

Parrot Heads Invade Las Vegas

Fins up! I just had to write about our recent weekend getaway for a Jimmy Buffett concert. We love JB, and it was an easy decision to make the trip to Las Vegas for the last leg of his Welcome to Fin Land tour. It turned out that there were LOTS of other Jimmy related events happening in Vegas that weekend. The Margaritaville Casino had just opened inside the Flamingo, where they hosted a street party and broke the record for world's largest margarita. In addition to the street party and concert, we also went to the Las Vegas Parrot Head Club's annual Last Man Standing party. It happens every year to get geared up for the concert and raise money for charity. This year the club donated to Foster Kids of Southern Nevada and the Nellis kids of deployed military. We had a blast tossing a few back with the locals and listening to some great live bands. The icing on the cake- the weather was hot and sunny. I even got to lay out at the pool.  Paradise! 


Here are some photos from the weekend. In case you've never been to a JB concert, it's traditional to dress up in grass skirts, coconut bras, crazy theme hats, and what ever other crazy thing you can think of to celebrate. Of course we broke out the hula skirts, Hawaiian shirts, leis, and the inflatable parrot for this special occasion. 

The scene at the street party, Lucky Rita (world's largest margarita),
Amy with fellow Parrot Heads, stilt man making balloon hats.

At the LVPHC Last Man Standing Party.

Inside the Margaritaville Casino.

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers onstage.

Fins up! Parrot Heads are good at audience participation.

I started going to Jimmy's shows back in high school about 15 years ago. It's an experience like no other. Everyone there is your best friend, and you're all having the time of your life listening to a bunch of songs you know by heart. Jimmy's performance always makes my heart swell and gives me the feeling that all is right in the world. Hopefully we'll get to see him play for another 15 years. Thank you, Jimmy!

It's the Little Things

FAIL! I have failed at blogging for the past two weeks. Life got in the way. I actually had this one prepped for last Friday, but forgot to post it. Lame. I know. So, here is my 'little things' post intended for last Friday, a week late. I will be back soon with a concert story and some other exciting news! 


I'm back with another little things post! Sorry I missed last week, but it was Hubby's birthday weekend and I was mostly unplugged from the computer to spend time spoiling him. The best part of his birthday is yet to come! Later today we leave for a weekend in Las Vegas where we will see our favorite performer live in concert.

Fins up! I'm pretty sure this will be my 8th time to see Jimmy.

This past week I was able to capture a few little things and one bigger thing for this post. The bigger thing? I was asked to substitute teach a beading class at work! At first I said no, but a few minutes later realized what a dummy I would be to let fear stop me from doing something I wanted to do. I told my manager that I would teach class- the traditional technique of pearl knotting to 8 students. I'm so glad I did it. The class went really well, especially considering it was my first time teaching this technique and my first time to teach at the store. I felt really good. 

My name on the class room's dry erase board

As for the little things that I enjoyed this week...

A hot cup of tea in my favorite mug

Flowers from the farmers market

I'm off to pack my grass skirt and sunscreen, it's going to be hot and sunny in Vegas and we have some partying to do with our fellow Parrotheads! Be sure to take note of all the little things that happen in your day-to-day. It's important to be grateful for all our blessings, big and small. 

The Birthday Boy

How was everyone's weekend? Ours was extra awesome because yesterday was my husband's 33rd birthday. I tried my best to spoil him and make the day special- birthday cards from me and the dog (plus all the ones that came in the mail), cooking all his favorite foods, homemade from scratch birthday cake, and an evening out with good friends. We are also headed to Las Vegas next weekend for a Jimmy Buffett concert, woo hoo! 

Chad and his birthday cake ablaze with 33 candles!

Happy Birthday to my kind, smart, funny, and handsome husband! I hope he enjoyed having control of the TV all weekend because that ends tonight! I've taken all the football and baseball I can take. 

Fancy Smancy Navy Ball Jewelry

Hello sweet readers! 


I've been quite busy with special orders and thought this one would make a great post. My good friend and loyal customer, Sarah, asked me to make her jewelry for the Navy Ball. You know we Navy wives love our formal events, getting all dolled up and seeing our sailors in their very best dress uniform. It's fun, trust me. Anyway, Sarah and I know each other from being at NAS Sigonella, Sicily at the same time. We became great friends, bonding over the fact that we both love being crafty. A bonus to being friends with this girl, she can bake &  loves to share! 

Sarah & I at the Navy Ball in 2009

Sara needed some fancy smancy jewelry to go with a hot red dress she's wearing to the ball. Because she explicitly trusts my finely tuned artistic abilities (or at least that what I tell myself!), she sort of gave me free range to make what ever I wanted. Of course, this is my favorite kind of project.  After a few emails back and forth to toss some ideas around, I settled upon a plan for dramatic pair of earrings and matching bracelet. I finished the set this weekend.

There are a LOT of Swarovski Crystals and Swarovski Pearls here, folks. The bracelet consists of 5 sparkly strands and the earrings drip with 25 beads each. They turned out great, don't you think? I'm always happy to do custom work, it often pushes me to come up with a design I wouldn't have otherwise. 


As I mentioned earlier, Sarah is one crafty lady. She even has an Etsy shop where she sells crazy cute little crocheted dolls. Lastly, I couldn't write this post with out mentioning the fact that Sarah's eggo is preggo, so feel free to leave a comment congratulating her on the baby boy she's working on (and her fab new jewelry)!