Quick Rundown

We have been absentee bloggers, yet people still continue to visit our blog!   We feel a little bad that we never have anything new on here.  Life happens.  Work Happens.  Family Happens.  Time slips away and before we know it we haven't blogged a word in like 8 months.  We rock.

Run Down: 

January-February 2013 constant sickness in homes

March 2013 Jacy {me} lost the battle with the table saw, aka cut off 3 finger tips.  Left me down for weeks and permanently  damaged :/

April 2013 Stacie and Chandra had to work like crazy thanks to March event

May 2013 A blog post was made, and then we fell off the face of the planet

June 2013 SUMMER, we all go on vacation and are rejuvenated 

July 2013 Jacy discovers she has to move to Massachusetts due to husbands job, and the other 2 ladies husbands jobs are all over the place too.  Crap!

August 2013 Jacy sells her house in 4 days.  Double Crap!

September 2013 Stacie decides Embellished Living isn't where her heart is anymore and she wants to put her focus on other areas of her life (fyi, EL takes up A LOT of our time, we totally understand and support her) 

October 2013 Jacy moves into a new house in TN, Chandra super stresses about craft shows she suddenly is on her own for, but is a rock star and knocks it out of the park {Jacy was never worried}

November 2013 Chandra and Jacy are reunited in TN for our biggest show of the year! Crazy, busy, super fun working weekend

December 2013 Due to being totally sleep deprived this month is a blur.  We are super thankful to our customers for all of the orders though :)

December 27th- January 4th Chandra and Jacy are reunited again in TN but this time for a non working hang out session.  It was the BEST way to start out the new year!

Now you are all caught up, just in case you were curious.  Lets just say after all that… we are extremely happy and have HOPE that 2014 will be a much better year than 2013.  Past is past and we are looking forward to a great year of home projects, new Embellished Living items, continued friendship and expanding our business in Massachusetts!   Happy New Year.  Yay for 2014!!

Cinco/Cinco/Cinco

We've been super busy this past week at Embellished Living!  This was just my portion of our week:

That's a lot of Monogram Wreaths!

I had another big thing on the horizon though.  My youngest son is turning the big eight point 0 tomorrow, Cinco de Mayo!  I just found the blog called Kitchen Fun with my 3 Sons, and it had the CUTEST idea for a Mexico inspired treat.

That's an edible maraca, people!

As soon as I saw it, I had to have it (follow the link in the photo caption above for the entire tutorial on SheKnows).

Here are the players

Cookies in the oven

Just after baking

Wells formed and some filled with mini M&Ms (he doesn't like Nerds)

 

See my Frankenmaraca?  There was a lot of extra white chocolate involved trying to save this one!

Delicious handles in place

Thank goodness I had a cooling rack that fit the cookies, otherwise I would have been sunk!

Final decor - he was SO excited that I let him have mini M&Ms AND sprinkles!

The inside!

 

The maraca in action!

They were a huge hit at home and in his classroom!  Did they take a long time to make?  Yes.  Was most of that time spent waiting for the cookies to bake/cool/chocolate to cool? Yes.  Would I make them again?  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!  I'm already thinking this would make an adorable rattle for a baby shower.  Any other ideas?  We'd love to hear from you!

Excuses, Excuses!

Boy have we got a ton of excuses for our blog slacker status!  From Stacie's family's bout with the flu and her stream of out of town guests, to Chandra's solid THREE months of battling all kinds of sickness bouncing between her family.  If those weren't enough I decided to make life even more challenging by cutting some wood for an Embellished Living order and removing 3 of my finger tips in the process.  Table saws are the devil.  I've used mine on many occasions, but all it takes is once.  I'm at week 6 into my healing process, my fingers won't come back, but I still have most of them so I was pretty lucky.  Don't get me wrong, it freaking sucks.  My doctor told me today that I have no more restrictions, so here I am ( though truthfully, I am pretty sure that blogging was never really considered a restriction ;) )

Let me catch you up on a few things in Embellished Living's world...  We are now offing our handmade wreaths at a fabulous local store here in Middle TN.  Polly at Blackberry House has people traveling from all over to get their hands on her gorgeous furniture.  We are thrilled to be a part of her shop.

We will soon have our items in another local shop too!  The grand opening is the second weekend in May.  If you are local, make sure to stop by A Jones of all Trades!

These cuties made their debut at Blackberry House and will soon be making their way to Etsy!  Aren't they cute?!?  Love it with my mantle decor!  My favorite is the 3 but I am a house of 4 so.... No 3 for me!  While you are looking my mantle, give me your thoughts on my broken/handless clock (got a great deal on it, btw).  I stupid love it, my husband just thinks it is stupid.  What do you think?

Much Love!  

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, we created a fun Etsy treasury.  Dirt soap is my favorite item.  :)  Check it out!

What are you doing anything for Earth Day?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I always make my great grandmother's Irish Soda Bread on this day.  My great grandmother lived with my mom's family when my mom was a girl, and my mom fondly recalls time in the kitchen learning how to make this bread.  I have the same fond memories with my mom and think of her and my grandmother's kitchen when I make it.  In honor of the day, I thought I'd share my great grandmother's recipe.  My uncle researched some family history, and I believe he determined she was from County Sligo.

Breakfast!

Irish Soda Bread

4 cups sifted flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 3/4-2 cups buttermilk

2 tablespoons oil

1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Sift together all the dry ingredients.  Mix together the wet ingredients, using 1 3/4 cup of buttermilk.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix.   If the dough is too dry, add buttermilk until the dough is "rubbery".  (I don't really know what that means, I just know you don't want the dough to be too sticky.)  Add raisins and stir them into the dough.  Bake for 45-60 minutes in a greased pan.

I use a 9" round cake pan and it takes the full 60 minutes in my oven.  Don't use a smaller pan, it will take forever for the center to bake through.

I can't have a St. Patrick's Day post without an Irish Blessing, so I'll leave you with this:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Weekend Adventure

Chandra and I went on a little girls trip to Louisville, KY this past weekend.  What a fun town!  I had no idea what to expect, I was just excited and happy to go along for the ride.  We ended up finding our way to an area called The Highlands.  First thing on our agenda was FOOD!  **Side bar: Am I the only one that seems to plan my vacations around eating out at new fab restaurants?**  We found ourself smack in the middle of Irish Pub Alley.  I kid you not, from where we stood on the street we could see at least 6 Pubs.  Now this is totally fine by me, I love fish and chips, add some malt vinegar and yummy!  As we were walking to our pub of choice,  we happen to look up and see this in the middle of Irish Pub row.  What?!?

Oh yeah!  Gourmet Grilled Cheese!  In our small town that is just not something you see everyday.  Lil Cheezers won by a landslide.  My Caprese sandwich was super yum. Chandra ate the Fancy Pants and enjoyed the combo of Brie, granny smith apples and walnuts.   I wish I could go back and try another from the menu, but alas,  I will just have to make do with my Big Kid Grilled Cheese from Panera instead.  BTW, if you haven't had Panera's big kid grilled cheese and tomato soup you really should!

After having full bellies we walked Baxter and Bardstown streets and explored all the cool local shops. Some of our favorites were thirteen thirteen, Attic Treasures, Inc, and Discoveries.  We had a fun afternoon of walking through town and found some big pieces that may have come home with us if we wouldn't have taken a cab there ;)

We ended our evening with a yummy dinner at Gordon Biersch Brewery and entertainment on Fourth Street Live at Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano place, which are always a ton of fun.  We had a great trip and would recommend that you guys pop into Louisville for a visit too.  Those of you in the area, what did we miss out on that we should make to see next time?  

Our trip has inspired us to curate an Etsy treasury, make sure to take a look at all of the cool Louisville inspired Etsy items we found.  They will get you in the Louisville state of mind

Happy Birthday!!!

Today we are celebrating our 2nd Birthday!  So much has happened the past two years for our little company and we are thrilled (and still in a bit of shock) with how far we have come. We have loved every minute of our Embellished Living adventure and can't wait to see where this next year take us!  To celebrate this exciting day we are offering all of our readers a 20% discount on any purchase on our Etsy shop! We don't offer this large of a discount often so make sure you take advantage if you have been eyeing something ;)  Just type in coupon code 2YEAR20 at checkout
A huge THANK YOU to all of you for your continued support through the years, words cannot express how grateful we are to all of you!