Beads of Courage needs your help!

Many beadmakers donate beads to Beads of Courage. It's a program that provides children coping with life threatening conditions colorful beads which symbolize the many treatments and procedures they overcome. Their Beads of Courage collection serves as a tangible, visible symbol of their accomplishments during a challenging treatment journey.

The Beads of Courage program is entered in the Pepsi Refresh Project to win a $25,000 dollar grant. If they win they will have the money to provide the program to 10 additional hospitals and support 10,000 children coping with cancer and other life threatening illnesses.

If you can, please take a moment and click the link below to vote, you can vote once each day through July 31st. They are currently in 13th place and need to reach the top 10 to receive funding. Your vote is very much appreciated. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

For more information about Beads of Courage please visit their website http://www.beadsofcourage.org/ and to keep current with what they are up to please visit their blog http://beadsofcourage.org/blog/

Pepper Wants You...

Pepper Wants You..., originally uploaded by EmbellishYourself.

to have a Happy 4th of July!!! I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday!

Another Celebration! A Giveaway at Pigwidget Chronicles

Beka at Pigwidget Chronicles is celebrating her 100th blog post and 2nd blog'iversary. She is giving away a Blythe Pirate costume along with some other goodies. She's thought of everything, from the clever costume and props for your doll to a cute scrabble tile pendant with an X on the back, a treasure for you! I love all of the details, she hasn't left anything out. So head on over to her blog to see all the goodies and enter the giveaway ends on Sunday June 13th.

Congratulations Beka!

With all of these celebrations and milestones lately, it's got me thinking, I'm coming up on my 100th blog post as well (this is post #96). Shall I do a giveaway as well? What would you like win?

Let's Celebrate With Honeythorpe Studios

Purple roses, originally uploaded by honeythorpe.

My friend Melissa of Honeythorpe Studio is celebrating her 100th Etsy sale this week with a giveaway. Head on over to her blog to enter. She makes really cute, quality doll clothes for Blythe and tiny BJD's, you don't want to miss out!

Congratulations Melissa!!!

Woot!! Woot!! I am a lucky winner!!!

Look at what I won!!! Lori & Kim make such wonderful glass murrini for glass artists to use in their beads and other creations. They are celebrating their 1st anniversary with a huge give away. They are giving away a pack of their murrini every day this month to lucky artists who have purchased from them since January. It's not too late to enter either, for every order placed this month they will enter your name into the drawing and if you have purchased from them on Etsy or just want to play, you can email them and they will enter you. How awesome is that? So head over to their site and have a look, you won't be disappointed!

I ordered some murrini from them a few weeks back and to tell you the truth, I have been hoarding it. I love just looking at it but want to make sure I don't waste it. I have ideas brewing, I just need to execute them.  So stay tuned, I'll be sure to post what I make with them and it will be soon!

What are murrini? "Murrini cane is made by building a picture or pattern in glass and pulling it down into a much smaller picture or pattern, much like Christmas candy is made.  These canes are snipped into little pieces and can be used to melt onto a glass bead, fused onto a sheet of glass or even suspended in resin to create jewelry, decorative items and whatever else your imagination tells you to do with them.  If you've ever heard the term "millifiore" well, that's when a lot of these little pieces of glass are put into one design." From Lori & Kim's website.

The Sweet Stuff....or not...

The Sweet Stuff....or not..., originally uploaded by EmbellishYourself.

This is our entry for the Blythe Photo Challenge for May. The theme was "The Sweet Stuff". Pepper of course couldn't let it all be sugary goodness, she had to show her spicy side with the "bite me" lollipop. We had a lot of fun with this one!

This month I procrastinated again and came in a few hours after the deadline so we aren't in the running to win but for myself personally, I have a goal to participate every month. It's really fun to find out the theme and then try to come up with something fun. It gets me thinking creatively and helps me get motivated to take more pictures. After all that's most of the fun of having Blythe dolls for me. Let's hope I don't wait till the last minute again next month, I was really disappointed that I missed the deadline.

I did however donate a Blythe doll necklace as a prize for this month and sent that in weeks ago. I hope whoever wins enjoys it!

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone had a really great Mother's Day. I had a wonderful weekend celebrating. Saturday we took a drive to see my Mom and Dad. We had lunch, played family games and visited. It was a beautiful day with a lot of love and laughter. 

Today, I woke up to 3 wonderful handmade cards from my kids. My husband made breakfast and gave me some flowers to plant in the yard and a hammer! LOL! A hammer you say? Well just ask any tool junkie and they will agree, that tools are wonderful gifts! I have been struggling with getting good impressions when making my metal stamped necklaces and this is one hefty hammer! I should have no problems now. We finished up the day with dinner and more games with my Mom-in-law. It was great.

The picture above is me modeling the apron I made for my Mom-in-law for Mother's Day. It's the first major project I have made with my new sewing machine and it came out great. I got the kit on Etsy from Mary Kay of Geneva Designs. Let me tell you, she makes the cutest aprons and also sells kits to make your own. Everything is pre-cut so you can get right to the fun stuff. I really enjoyed making it and Mary Kay is wonderful to work with.

For my Mom's gift, I got her a book on the Alice in Wonderland movie. It's the visual companion on the making of the movie. She once mentioned that she hoped there would be a book that showed all the artwork from the movie. This book is really awesome, it shows all the characters, their costumes, the sets and more.  My mom makes pictures and caricatures with polymer clay and this book will definitely inspire her creativity. I'm excited to see what she makes!