Beads!

Having ordered what I felt was an almost obscene amount of beads, charms and findings from various stores on Amazon a couple of days ago, I was pretty happy to have the mailman knock on my door this afternoon.  I was greeted with "you've been spending money again, haven't you missy?!" which made me laugh as I tried to protest my innocence and blaming the cat.
Needless to say, he didn't believe me.  At all.
I had barely closed the door before tearing into the packages that he was delivering, like a child given free reign over their stack of Christmas presents.
Before long my coffee table was covered in beautiful beads and I was having to have strong words with the cat who naturally thought that all of the pretty shiny things belonged to her.

Note to self: curious cats are not conducive to jewellery making! 

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of my favorite things that arrived today - some gorgeous cameos that I'm looking forward to finding some lovely backs for before turning them into pendants and Evil Eye beads that I cannot wait to create bracelets with!

Aren't they lovely?
I think this weekend will be dedicated to jewellery making.  Oh - and baking some white chocolate and red berry blondies, of course!

Vesta xox
 

Recipe: Chocolate Brownies

The weather is (finally) getting a little colder and of course that means that I can get into the kitchen and bake things without wanting to pass out from heat exhaustion.
Now I haven’t made brownies since I was a child – before the whole scare about eating raw eggs happened I would sneak tastes from the wooden spoon or dip my finger into the mixing bowl and smile happily at the delicious mixture.
Ah, memories.
But I digress, which is something I do a lot so bear with me.
Unless you count packet mixes, which after this recipe I know I certainly won’t; then brownies were a distant memory that brought me back to weekends spent in the warmth of the family kitchen eagerly waiting for whatever goodies were in the oven to come out to a squeak of glee that the recipe had worked.
These brownies evoked much the same reaction when I made them yesterday. The recipe is not at all the way I remembered making these deliciously squishy squares of chocolaty goodness and there was a point where I wondered if it would turn out at all like a brownie but I persevered and I am very glad I did as this was the result:


It took me all of my willpower to not eat these babies right out of the oven. Yum.