New Items at Venenzia!

Enamel and rhinestone necklace

Large antiqued brass focal pendant

Rhinestone leaf and barrel necklace

Rhinestone and pearl hoop earrings

Caged cut crystal earrings

Button Hearts

Just throwing some ideas around the other day and came up with these. They'll be up in the shop soon!

Fridge Flair Magnets Tutorial: Step One - Gather Your Goods

It's tutorial time! Part One anyways.

Gather your goods.

The following is a list of things you will need to make bottle cap magnets like you see above.

Bottle caps. Duh. I get mine from local restaurants. Just go up to the bar and ask for a bag. Most places will gladly hand them over as they just throw them out anyways.

Oh yeah, make sure you wash and dry them when you get them home.

Unless you're going for the whole beer scented magnet thing.

I use Easy Cast for my resin. By all means, if you find one you like better please use that. I find the Easy Cast is well, easy to use. Just pour equal amounts of both the primer and hardener, mix and let set.

Love this stuff! Super strong. Kinda smelly. Amazing hold.

Initially I started off using the rolls of magnet tape and found out they don't hold very well. I switched over to the small round magnets and won't be going back anytime soon.

1" craft punch. I use this to punch out digital tiles and cardstock.

A mug. An old one preferably. I use this to mix my resin in.

Glitter glue. Comes in almost every color you can imagine. I use mine to line the inside rim of the bottle cap.

Wooden craft sticks. Great for mixing resin.

I hang on to my old medicine measuring caps to help measure out equal amounts of primer and resin. And getting the right amount is key to having your resin set correctly.

Digital tiles. Go for the 1" ones. You can find all kinds on Etsy. Just do a search for them.

Stickers. Any and all kinds. Just remember that the inside area of the bottle cap is 1" so you'll probably want to stay on the small size.

Most of the supplies I purchase at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. You can really find them just about anywhere. Also, you don't have to use exactly what I'm using. It's just a suggestion. :)

Stay tuned in this weekend and I'll be posting part two of the tutorial, Putting It All Together.

(All images via Google images.)

One Fish Two Fish

Mom and I have been playing around with the idea of driving down to Atlanta for a weekend and going to the Georgia Aquarium. I love love love aquariums. (This coming from the girl who can do the New England Aquarium in 29 minutes flat. I've been many many times.) I caught a glimpse of it on an episode of the Little Couple on TLC and immediately Googled it. The Ocean Voyager exhibit has over 6.3 million gallons of water and also boasts the largest viewing window in North America. I have to go. Have to.

You can check out their website here.

You can also check out all the awesome items you see above here.

Get Fit - Week One - The Measurements

Ok, first things first. Click on the photo above and read the entry.

Did you read it? Good.

Now, with that being said, I'll tell you what started this. I've been following the blog of Ali Edwards for quite some time. She has a frequent guest blogger named Cathy Zielske and I've started following her blog as well. Cathy has been working her butt off (literally) the past six months and has documented her journey. She is actually the one who designed the template you see above. If you want to follow along in your own quest to lose weight, get in shape and feel better about yourself, hop on board. You can find the template here.

Click here to see all of my Get Fit posts.

p.s. I'll be taking a full photo when I get home in the morning.

Va Va Voom

Va Va Voom!

Click on the link to check out these fabulous Etsy artists.

Blog Dare - Flowers

On Kaelah's Friday Favorites this week she posted her favorite flower, peonies. I also love (LOVE!) peonies but there's one flower that I like even more. Hydrangeas. I think they remind me of home. Pretty much every cottage on Cape Cod has beautiful Hydrangea bushes. And now, on to the show.

What's your favorite flower?

One More Class Completed!

I weekend left to go. Well, until I transfer back home anyways. I still have to finish my Connective Tissue class this weekend and then I'm done for a few months. I finished my Kinesiology class tonight with a final grade of 102.5%. And in the famous words of Brad Holland, "You got pushed down a lot on the playground, didn't you?" Such a jokester.

Many Stars Teasury

Olivebelle was kind enough to feature my Starberry tarts in this wonderful treasury on Etsy. Thanks Olivebelle!

Click on the link to view all of the other great handmade creations by other fabulous and talented artists.

Stay Tuned!

I've had quite a few questions about how I make my Fridge Flair magnets so I've decided to make a step by step tutorial that will be featured some time next week!

I know a lot of crafters would scoff and say, "I'm not giving away my crafting secrets!" but I'm all for it. After all, how are you going to learn if no one is willing to teach you?

I'll be doing 2 different types (cardstock with stickers and photo tiles with glitter)

They're super easy to make and also very low in cost. I think the most expensive thing would be the magnets. Trust me, you want to invest in some good ones. But more on that later :)

So if you'd like to follow along, stay tuned!

Link List!

Random links I found this week:

Get dressed. Take photos. Upload. Awesomeness.

Ok, so it's not like I didn't know about Dean & DeLuca. I just happened to spend about an hour browsing their site while I was at work last night. *drool*

THE place for all things font. Plus, they have a whole Egyptian/Arabic section!!!

There's Etsy, Artfire, Dawanda and now Cosa Verde. They plant 10 trees for every new store. So if that's not a reason to join, I don't know what it.

Enjoy, my lovelies!

ATC Craziness

I cranked these puppies out the other day and decided that I like them so much, I'm gonna keep the top 4 to myself. Well, for now anyways :)

Swaptree

Woo swaptree! Seriously LOVE this site. If you've been following my blog for awhile you will know that I'm an avid reader. Ok, maybe that's an understatement. Anywho, I had a bunch of books sitting around that I didn't really plan on reading again so I decided to find a site to swap them on. Introducing, swaptree. And it's not just books. You can swap for movies, music and video games as well. Here's how it works:

You list the books, CDs, DVDs, and video games that you want to trade and the books, CDs, DVDs, and video games that you want to receive and swaptree does the rest.

Swaptree will show you all of the items that you can receive for your items. Clicking on a "Get Now" link next to an item will show more information about both the item and the trader you will be receiving from.

Once the other traders accept, the trade is complete and you will then be provided the shipping addresses where you need to ship your item.

And yes, I totally stole that from their website. So far I've traded some books and a few old DVDs. What did I get in return you ask?

DVDs

The Ghost & The Darkness (I don't know why I like this movie so much. I guess I like saying Tsavo - where the movie takes place - or maybe it's the lions. Oh my!)

Little Fish - Can't wait to watch this. It's got Cate Blanchett in it so it's bound to be good.

Signs - I'm collecting all of M. Night Shyamalan's movies. Too bad Mel has gotten all crazy.

Notes on a Scandal - My all time favorite movie. And the one I have is scratched. Boo.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Somehow I never purchased the first two movies and it's been ages since I've seen them. Can't wait for this to show up in my mailbox!

Books

Marked by P C Cast & Kristen Cast - Guess who is starting the House of Night series?

Quidditch Through the Ages - Stocking up on all things HP

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - See above

Wow this has been pretty long winded. My point, is you've got books/movies/music/video games to swap, head over to swaptree!

Starfish Treasury

AngelasAlchemy was kinda enough to include my Life's a Beach fridge flair trio in her Starfish treasury on Etsy. Thanks a bunch Angela! I love all of the colors. Reminds me of summer :)

Be sure to swing by and check out all of the other great featured artists!

Coming Soon!

Something pretty big and awesome is coming this way soon. I don't want to give away too many details, but it involves these:

... these...

... and some of these.

Stay tuned!