Unique Handmade Pendants!

I have been a lover of all things handmade for many years. When I get the opportunity to meet a talented crafter or designer, I feel very blessed. I firmly believe in the "Buy Handmade" campaign because there are so many talented folks in this world who deserve to be successful!

I first met Janna, when I had my store here in town. She came in one Saturday and bought a few items. After a few minutes of chit-chat, we realized that we both love Primitives and the love of junking. We also shared a mutual friend who has a WONDERFUL prim store, Beth at Old Tyme Marketplace in Marshville, NC.
Janna had mentioned that she made jewelry. Now I am not what you call a jewelry buff - I usually only wear my wedding ring and my earrings so I didn't think too much about it. She actually was wearing one of her pendants and when she showed it to me, I fell in love with it! She uses old vintage buttons as the base for her pendants. This particular one had an old vintage key attached! I was hooked!

She has a booth at Curious Cat as well as one at the Waxhaw Antique Mart which is close by my house. I would stop in there often to see her newest designs. These pendants are gorgeous! They have a unique vintage look to them and I have not seen anything like them. On my last trip to Curious Cat, my daughter and I stopped by Janna's booth. Believe it or not, my daughter also fell in love with her pendants! Normally my daughter and I do not agree on jewelry so this was a first. It is very rare for the mother and teenager to agree on fashion. I couldn't believe it! She is now saving her money so she can buy more! She loves the fact that they are unique and they have been a hit at her school.

Janna's company, Artsy Fartsy, also accepts custom orders for her pendants.

Can you see the vintage keys on some of these pendants?

You can find her work by checking out her website, Artsy Fartsy Finds. She, also, has her items available at several retail locations throughout North Carolina. Be sure to check her out! I think I may get her to make something for my daughter's upcoming Sweet 16! When I get it, I will definitely post a pic and share it with all of you!

New Quilting Shop in town

A few months ago, a great new Quilting shop opened in downtown Waxhaw! I am so excited because it is a great place to pick up beautiful fabrics and kits! I have stopped in a few times and met the owners, Beth and Kim. These ladies are wonderful! The name of the shop is The Quilting Nook. They had a sign in the window for a few weeks before they actually opened and let me tell you, Waxhaw was buzzing about the new Quilt shop! No one could wait for it to open so we could get inside! The building was the Grocery store back in the early 1900's and these ladies put in a lot of time and effort to keeps its "old" look but updating things to bring it up to date!
They carry full lines of Robert Kaufmann, Hoffman, Moda, Clothworks, Timeless Treasures and Fabriquilt Fabrics. The walls are lined with many bolts of fabrics and there are lots of completed quilts hanging on the walls for inspiration.

They also offer classes from the inexperienced (like me) to the more advanced. They even offer classes like the Little Diva's class where our kids can jump on the quilting bandwagon.

Isn't this place amazing? I feel right at home everytime I walk in! I just thought I would share this little corner of my world with all of my blogging buddies! Too bad you all don't live a little closer!

Our Snowy Tuesday

The family and I sat around on Monday night patiently waiting for the snow to come. It was the biggest story on every local news channel - the Big Snow of 2009. The kids were of course looking forward to it so that school would be cancelled and so they could have a little snow fun! Bedtime came for the kids - still no sight of snow. I sent them on to bed and promised that if I saw any snow I would wake them up. Finally around 1 a.m. we started see a few flakes. I rushed off to the kids rooms to wake them up. By that time, my daughter didn't care what was falling from the sky but my son woke up and was so excited. Well, as excited as you could be to be just woke up!

We finally made it off to bed. The next morning, we looked out and this is what we saw . . .This was the view from our front porch. If course, school was cancelled and both my husband and I had the day off due to the weather. I know, a lot of you have much more than this and still go to work but here, everything shuts down with a little snow! My husband and kids took a trip into a local town to run a few errands. My daughter took a few more pictures with her new phone she received for Christmas.

Isn't it beautiful! It snowed on and off all morning on Tuesday but by the afternoon, it was all gone. By the evening it had started melting and there were only a few signs that we had snow at all! At least we had one day I guess!

The snow is on it's way . . .

Well according to the National Weather Service, the snow is finally headed to our part of NC! I have had fun looking at everyone's pictures of the snow in their neck of the woods but haven't had any to share myself. They say that it will start tonight around midnight (I will have to take their word for it, cuz I will not be up to see it!). We don't see much snow here so when they say we may see some snow, everyone around here goes CRAZY! They flood the grocery stores and stock up on the essentials, breads, milk, eggs, things like that. The problem is, we only have snow for a few hours, then it melts. We have never been snowed in or came anywhere close to what a lot of you have. I think if you guys came here and seen our little snow, you would laugh at the craziness! I went to pick up a dozen eggs, just because we wanted breakfast for dinner. This lady acted like I had taken her only child! She was so upset that there weren't more eggs. I thought we were going to get into an all out brawl over a dozen eggs! I try to be a nice person but I went home with my eggs. (Kind of mean of me not to offer them to her huh? Oh well!)

This weekend my daughter and I decided to spend the day together. It is strange but as she gets on up in teenage years, she WANTS to hang out with me more! My son had made plans for all day skating at a local indoor skatepark. It is a great place where kids can go skate with their skateboards without having to be out in this weather. We went from noon to 10 pm. My legs would have been jello by then but he's only 12 so it doesn't affect him yet. The hubby decided to go mud bogging. Yes, mud bogging. So my daughter and I spent practically the whole day by ourselves.

We started the day by grabbing some lunch. We rarely ever go eat without the guys joining us! It was a great time to gossip and chat. We then went to Curious Cat which is where I have a booth. Let me just say that I love this place! There are so many great vendors and everyone has their own niche. The gals are always so nice and helpful too! I recently had some things to sell so I needed to update the booth a little and bring in some of my latest goodies. My daughter, Miranda was such a big help. We worked on the booth for a few hours until time to head to the movies. We decided we wanted to go see "Bride Wars". What a great time! There were a lot of her friends there (it seems like she knows everybody) and she didn't seem to be embarressed by hanging out with me! How great was that!

Since it has been so cold, I started working on a few Valentines items for my booth. I made these cute hearts out of red ticking. It seems weird to be working on Valentines and Spring items with the temperatures around 15 degrees! I hope to start on a stitching or two this week also.
I also finished up a new batch of primitive sachets. These have great scents and look so prim!

Well, I am going to go cozy up with a blanket and thumb through some stitchery patterns. I hope you have a great day!

Lookie what I got!

What a cold week it has been here! I woke up this morning to temperatures around 15 degrees! I am not a fan of the cold weather AT ALL! It seems like I can't get warm enough to be comfortable! We still haven't seen any snow - unlike a lot of my blogger buddies out there! Over on Farmchick's blog, she has posted some great pictures of the kids sledding in her snowy fields! It looks like a lot of fun, but we don't anything like that here.

Anyways, enough complaining! I came out of the house on Saturday morning, went to get in my car and found these great old planters sitting next to my porch! My dear father in law had stopped by and brought these 4 old mule drawn planters!

He had come across these somewhere and knew we would love them. I couldn't believe it! I had always wanted one of these in my yard, among flowers in the garden, ya know . . . can't you picture it? Now I have 4! The handles are worn from years of use - so many memories with these! I have a fairly small yard so I am not going to have room for 4 so I will have to figure something out for a few of them. They may have to find new homes since I can't keep all of them. Sad I know but we already have an old set of wagon weels and an old red wagon so believe me when I tell you, there is no room for all of these!

Have a great week!

What a wonderful day spent with my daughter!

Finally, I am back to blogland! Since the kids have been out of school they have stayed on the computer non stop between the two of them! I haven't had a chance to peek in! They went back to school on Monday so life is getting almost back to normal (depending on who you ask!)
My daughter had a project assigned at school that she had been working on for weeks. Each student was given a Country that they had to research and do a report on. Included with the report, they had to prepare some sort of food from that Country that could be fed to the whole class. She was lucky enough to get France. I say lucky because some kids got Egypt and they prepared some drink with seaweed. I would not have had a clue about that one!
It came down to the night before her report was do so I made a quick dinner and she and I started on our French dessert! Just for the record, I am not a baker. I will craft for hours but I hate to cook!
We found a recipe for Tarte de Pommes a la Normande - which is actually an Apple Tart.
It was actually pretty simple to make and tasted AMAZING!
She and I set out peeling apples. LOTS of apples. She has a class of 30 so I knew we were going to need 2 tarts. Since I am not a baker, I do not have those wonderful apple peelers or apple corers that make this type of job a little easier. She and I worked together like a great mother and daughter team! We laughed, made a mess, talked about our days, and had a great time! It was so nice just to have some time to talk and laugh.
I cheated and used 2 frozed pie crusts. I wasn't even going to attempt to make those!
The following is the recipe:

Ingredients
Crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons sour cream
Filling:
About 6 medium apples, peeled, pitted, and sliced
3 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Glaze:
1/2 cup apricot preserves or jelly
1 tablespoon frozen orange juice concentrate
Mint, for garnish
Whipped topping, for garnish
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
To make the crust:
Place the flour, butter, and sour cream in a food processor and pulse to combine. When the dough has formed a ball, pat with lightly floured hands into the bottom and sides of an ungreased 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom and 1/2-inch sides, or a round au gratin dish. Bake for about 18 minutes, until the crust is set but not browned. Let cool while preparing the filling.
Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F.
To make the filling:
Peel and thickly slice the apples. Arrange the apple slices in overlapping circles on top of the crust, until it's completely covered. Overfill the crust, as apples will shrink during cooking.
Combine the egg yolks, sour cream, sugar, and flour and beat until smooth. Pour the mixture over the apples. Place the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour, until the custard sets and is pale golden in color. Cover with an aluminum foil tent if the crust gets too dark. Transfer the tart pan to a wire rack to cool. When cool, remove the side wall of the pan.
To make the glaze:
Combine the preserves or jelly and orange juice. Spread with a pastry brush over the top of the warm tart. Serve the tart warm, at room temperature or chilled. Garnish with fresh mint.

She took these to school with a tub of vanilla ice cream and they were a hit! She said the kids kept coming back for seconds! She made an A on her report so I guess all was okay. (Nobody was sick the next day, so I am okay!)

I kept trying to post the pictures of the finished tarts but Blogger kept giving me an error! Oh well, I will try to post those pics later!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season!