Outdoors

This past weekend was spent catching up on some much needed quality time outdoors. It was nice to put everything aside for 4 days to enjoy life away from my laptop.

Aimlessly walking around

View from the hill

I can’t believe it’s the first of December and still perfect cardigan weather!

Happy US Thanksgiving!

I realize that it’s only Wednesday and I’m a day early with my Thanksgiving wishes, but I am starting my long weekend a day early.

I just wanted to give you all a heads up that I will be out of town and will have very limited access to my email while away. All orders will be shipped on Tuesday, Dec 1 when I return.

Before I leave, I wanted to share some silly photos I took last week. I purchased a cute wristlet from madebyhank on Etsy, and Katie included this awesome dinosaur figurine along with my package. I couldn’t help but hold a little photoshoot with this guy. He looked incredible against with the lush colors of the wristlet.

Mr.Dinosaur Man inspecting the package

Dancing in the lush green field

Wait a second... that's not a field! They're ruffles on a wristlet!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! Eat lots of turkey and stuffing for me.

Holiday Shipping Schedule

The holiday mail rush always makes me paranoid for one reason: What happens if the package doesn’t make it under the tree in time?

To ensure that your package arrives before Dec 25, the following dates for purchases are being suggested as a guideline:

• For domestic orders (within the US):  Dec 13
• For Canadian destinations: Dec 10
• For all other international destinations: Dec 7

Since we’re on the topic of presents, I figured I would share this amazing Etsy find with you:

Present Dress by imyourpresent

I’ve been a huge fan of Kelly’s work since I first discovered her shop in 2006. She always manages to make the cutest holiday appropriate attire! This “Present Dress” is no exception– I am in looooove!!

Support handmade this holiday season

Since 2005, I have been trying to DIY at least 25% of my Christmas gifts. Not only has this been a wallet friendly alternative to buying from the mall, but it also gives that extra touch of personalization to the gift.

SUPER-SIZED Love Letter Necklace

 

 

This year, I’m aiming to support handmade for 100% of my gifts. I’ve been flipping through Etsy listings and adding a handful of items to my Favorites which will be purchased in the near future for gifting. I will still make a couple of the gifts myself, but there are just some items that are too cute to pass up on (i.e: Amigurumi dolls) that I do not currently possess the skills to make myself.

Belle of the Ball Earrings

With that said, I’m slowly in the works of adding all the holiday jewelry to my Etsy.  You can expect to see lots of sparkly, girly, dainty pieces. Just the perfect amount of understated  luxury  for your holiday accessorizing!

Still a kid at heart

This past weekend has been filled with a lot of catching up on sleep and baking! Since moving to California, I haven’t had a lot of time (or motivation) to bake. This is partially due to the fact that I have an ill equipped kitchen.

To put things into perspective, I don’t even have a measuring cups! Yes, the most essential instrument for recipe following is absent in my kitchen. Did I mention that I am also lacking a mixing bowl?

It was an adventure and a half for me to bake cookies this weekend. I ended up using the biggest pot in the kitchen as a substitute for a mixing bowl. Since I purchased pre-packaged cookie mix, lacking measuring cups wasn’t a big deal.

pigs & birds

The only reason I felt like baking was because of these cute cookie cutters that I bought from Daiso a couple weeks ago. If you are anything like me and feel the need to fill your kicthen cabinets with animal-themed mugs, plates and utensils, you can count on Daiso to carry it! I bought 2 sets of cookie cutters: one with a bird and bunny, and another with a pig, dog and squirrel. The dog and squirrel cookie cutters looked a bit too intricate for my explosive chocolate chip cookies, so I passed on those shapes.

bunnies & smiles

Can you blame me for wanting to use the cookie cutters? I felt like a 5 year old all over again! Towards the end of the batch of 3 dozen cookies, I got lazy and stopped using the cutters and just made regular-shaped cookies. After realizing how cute the iced animal cookies turned out, I had to think of something clever to ice the regular-shaped cookies with. A smiley face seemed easy enough!

cookie overload!

An hour and a half later, I had close to three dozen kid-friendly-looking cookies!

After being on a baking hiatus for over 2 months, it definitely felt good to break out the oven mitts and icing tubes again.

Bunnies are a girl’s best friend

I don’t know about all the other bunny owners out there, but my little sidekick is my best friend! She is quite the character and has the funniest personality for a bunny.

Not only is she absolutely adorable (who can say no to such a cute face?), but she also has a habit of cuddling whenever we watch television together.  : ) I can’t say enough how much I love this little girl and how she continues to inspire me.

With that said, I doubt it’s a surprise for you to hear why I love these Lone Hopper and Bunny Rabbit necklaces so much. A few people have been asking me where I found such cute bunny charms, and the truth is, I’ve had them for a while. I originally bought a bunch of vintage raw brass bunnies to make the Hippity Hop Bunny Necklaces but ended up with a handful of unusable charms that had scratches and aging spots all over them. I  took all my extra charms to be plated in silver and pale gold finishes for the revamped line of bunny necklaces.

bunny necklaces

Adopt one, or three, today!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Run until you roll your ankle

I realize that it’s already Thursday and I am still experiencing a “case of the Mondays”.

This past weekend was filled with way too much running. I’m definitely not cut out for sprinting, especially in fats that provide zero arch support for my feet. Long story short, I tripped (thanks to my clumsy nature) and rolled my ankle. I’ve been having a hard time walking and being on my feet for longer than 30 minutes at a time and I’m just hoping that my ankle decides to get better sooner than later.

tired feet

Above are the shoes that caused all this nonsense. Lesson learned! Don’t run unless you’re wearing sneakers.

Friday already?!

Holy wow, I did not realize how quickly this week has flown by. I have been desperately trying to photograph new jewelry for the holidays, but thanks to the Daylight Savings time change, I keep missing the afternoon sun. By the time I’m settled in to start shooting the pieces, there’s not enough natural lighting and I end up pushing the listing of items by a full day. This has been the case for the past 3 days, so the new items that were supposed to go up before the weekend are going to have to wait until next week. It makes me sad because I was really hoping to have the new pieces out by tonight, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that this weekend is filled with lots of Californian sunshine so I can get to work on posting the holiday stuff.

Happy Monday! It’s November!!

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had an enjoyable Halloween weekend! My weekend included eating lots of chocolate and exploring San Fancisco while dressed up as a zombie-sailor. : ) Sounds like a typical weekend in California for me, minus dressing up!

To kick off the month of November, I am sponsoring another giveaway!! This time, Christina over at Down and Out Chic has graciously offered to host this giveaway for a Fallen Leaves Lariat and a special, one-of-a-kind pair of matching asymmetric earrings! Head over to D&OC to enter today. Contest closes on Nov 3.

I hope you guys are enjoying all these giveaways! I have a couple of other surprises up my sleeves before the end of 2009.  Stay tuned!

Fallen Leaves Lariat

October Giveaway!

Wow, sorry for the week-long dry spell of posts! I’ve been super busy with some visitors in the west coast and haven’t had time to sit down and write a proper entry. This post should make up for it!

I recently had a bunch of my bunny pendants sent out to be plated, as I had too many raw brass bunnies with small scratches or aging that couldn’t be made into necklaces unless they were somehow refinished. This was a great opportunity for me to go ahead and have a couple of bunnies plated in silver, as a lot of people have been messaging me and asking if a silver version of the Lone Hopper necklaces would ever be released.

The Baby Lone Hopper in Silver

If you’re interested in getting your hands on one of these cute bunnies, they are available in the shop.  If you’re also interested in trying your luck,  The Clothes Horse is currently hosting a second anirtak jewelry giveaway, where one lucky winner will get to take a silver baby Lone Hopper necklace on all their adventures!

Happy Monday everyone!