CSN Giveaway Winner

Thank you to everyone who linked up or left comments at my Holiday Open House! There were some great ideas and delicious recipes so if you missed it, you can still check those out.  Per the rules, you needed to leave a comment to be eligible for the giveaway so I have used random.org to pick the winner from the comments. And the winner of the $50 CSN gift certificate is....


Terrell from :

Congrats Terrell!!! I have given CSN your contact info.

Holiday Open House #2

Welcome one and all to the second ever link party at The Answer Is Chocolate! So glad you could come.  Grab a cup of your favorite holiday drink and let's see what great holiday ideas everyone's got!

I'm thrilled that CSN Stores has enabled me to be a good hostess and offer one lucky party guest a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to one of their stores!!! In your trips around blog land no doubt you've seen  that they offer everything from dining room sets to housewares, bedding, shoes, handbags, you name it, they sell it. To be eligible  (US and Canada only) you must be a follower of The Answer Is Chocolate and leave a comment on this post. Even if you link up something, PLEASE leave a comment so I can use random.org to fairly select a winner. That's it!

Reminder...Linky Party Friday!!! Now With Giveaway

Come one, come all!

Link up anything that's related to holidays from Halloween to New Year's...could be decor, cards, decorations, ornaments, wall art etc.!

Could be inspiration and ideas of things to make and/or give as gifts! Jewelry projects, re-fashioned fashion,headbands,etc.
 
Could be party ideas for these occasions!

Could be recipes that would be great for holidays!  Especially Chocolate...I have a reputation!


And I'm really excited ( really really really excited) to announce my first ever sponsored giveaway! CSN Stores is giving me the chance to offer a $50 gift certificate to one of their over 200 stores where you can get everything from dining sets to home decor, housewares, things for your home office, handbags, shoes! Is there anything you can't get from them?

Come by on Friday to find out how you can win this awesome giveaway! See you then.

I Bling Therefore I Am

I've mentioned before that I love jewelry...big, chunky, funky jewelry. I love my "good" pieces but I also love playing with other stuff. I've also mentioned that I can't have my ears pierced ( physically can't...no other reason...just doesn't work) so it's a challenge to find clips I like because someone decided clips are dainty. So what's a girl to do? Why reinvent something of course!

While on vacation, I found the COOLEST store that I did not need to go into but you know I did. It's an accessory store that is all organized by color and they have got pretty much every color and every accessory you can imagine. It's called "Charming Charlie" . If you have access to one, LUCKEEEE! If you don't, well misery loves company so come sit by me.

They had some clips but I'm one of those "I want what I want" kinda people so I bought a pair of pierced earrings that gave me a vision. No, I had not been drinking. They were perfect becase the Mumster had given me a bunch o earrings that she inherited from her dear sweet cousin who passed away earlier this year. Mom's not blingy like me but our cousin was! Still, they weren't totally my style so like any mad crafter, I combined them! Wanna see?

Left: Charming Charlie....Right Cousin's Earrings

I took everything apart:

Dis-assembled, and the big ones flipped upside down

Clip Earring Backs To The Rescue! Glued on w/ Beadalon's Bead Fix

And then put them back together (with blingy parts leftover for future use yeah! )

I love that these earrings will always hold both the memory of a visit with my Mom, and a keepsake from one of our most entertaining cousins.

Linking up at:

  
 

Feeling Wreathy

I felt like I lost my creative mojo this week ( I think it's withdrawal from Yogurtland...a place we went regularly while on vacation and which we don't have here..oh Chocolate Coconut Truffle, how I miss you, but I digress). While visiting the Mumster ( aka my cute little Mommy) I made the mistake of remarking that she had two wreaths that had seen better days and little miss feisty said " Well what are you going to do about it since you said you were going to make me new ones..ahem ahem".  Note to self: KEEP QUIET!

And yes, Mom reads my blog so someone's going to ask me "Why are you putting these on here if she hasn't received them yet" which is a fair point, but if I'd had time to make them while we were still there, then she would have seen them as they were being made so....

I started with these from $1 Tree:

Plus burgundy ribbon, one silk flower bush , and three silk focal stems from Michaels. Silk flowers have to at least look natural to me and I thought these colors would work well for my Mom's house.  For the green styro wreath, I wrapped it with the ribbon and then beheaded the flowers and stripped off the leaves ( it didn't hurt...I promise...OK except where my wire cutters pinched me!) and then just hot glued stuff on in a way that I liked. Same principle for the vine wreath except I didn't wrap it in ribbon first. A while ago I bought a roll of some kind of bark covered wire which I cut lengths of, wrapped around a pen and made curly viney thingies that I stuck in at random.

Vy-ola:

I love this brown hydrangea:

I used to feel like you had to cover the whole wreath with stuff, but lately I'm more inclined to do just part. So Mom, I hope you like! Now I just have to figure out how the heck they're getting mailed to you :)

Linking up at:
 

Ssshhhh....It's Not Chocolate!

I can usually forego dessert if it's not chocolate. But, nature has provided us with a bountiful supply of blackberries. Despite Mr. Chocolate's persistent cutting back of these ( much to my chagrin), each year we end up with "a bunch o berries". They don't ripen until later in the summer here so I was excited last night when I was able to pick these:

About 5 cups. Not enough to make any jam but certainly enough for a homemade cobbler! Actually I only used 3 cups for the cobbler and the rest are in the freezer, added to some from last year and awaiting future pickings from this year.


Super easy recipe:
Heat Oven to 350
Melt 1 stick butter ( yes, 1 stick....and I say Paula Deen's trying to kill me with butter) and pour on the bottom of a 12x12 pan ( or whatever you have that's close)
Mix:
1C Flour
1C Sugar
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
2/3 C Milk

Pour on top of melted butter. Top w/ 3 C blackberries. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake 40-45 min until brown.

We had ours warm with Vanilla bean ice cream. Mmmmmm....Summer!

Welcome to those stopping in from:

Christmas Is Coming...Again...Holiday Open House Reminder

Please join me for my second ever link party next Friday August 20th!!! While it started out as a Christmas open house, it's really open to any holiday between Halloween and New Year's so please come and link up anything from decor, decorations, cards, jewelry, recipes etc. I know many of  us are already busy at work on gifts and decor items and the rest of us always love to get some new inspiration!!