Wishing You All A

Wishing you a day filled with doing what makes you happy with those who make you happiest! I'm sure we all feel this way, but I have to say I couldn't have gotten a better mom if I designed her myself! 

Happy Mom's Day Mumster! 

The "BFF" link party and giveaway is still going strong through tonight! 

Blog Feature Friday Link Party #1

I’m so excited! It's time to launch my WEEKLY link party combined with one of my favorite parts of blogging: Blog Feature Friday. If you’re a newer chocoholic here at TAIC, I’ve been doing a monthly Open House link party and a weekly series featuring a “BFF” …Blog Feature Friday. As I celebrated my one year anniversary of blogging, I decided to combine them.

First up, this week’s BFF: Amy from Ameroonie Designs.

In addition to being just a total sweetheart, Amy is a talented creator of so many things, not the least of which are her amazing bags and accessories…something yours truly was so lucky to recently win! YAY!

Channeling my inner 2 year old: MINE MINE MINE

Gorgeous! And she makes these! But that’s not all she makes. Too many treasures to feature but look at these adorable Teacher Appreciation gifts:

“Bloom Pencil Bouquets”.

Practical, thoughtful and pretty. My kind of project. But in addition to being a talented creator and a busy wife, and mom of four, she’s also an inspiring writer. She wrote a post on her recent “Creative Estates” experience that just resonated with me SO much  I had to include it as a feature. I would encourage you to read it:

Lessons I learned from Creative Estates

Definitely go visit Amy and show her some bloggy love! Now, on to the party details! Link up…everything! Provided you made it…no selling or Etsy shops please. Cards, Scrapbooking, Mixed Media…link it. DIY, Re-purposed, upcycled, thrifty score…link it. Jewelry, clothing, accessories…link it. Recipes, ESPECIALLY chocolate…link it! Please make sure you link to your specific post and not your main blog page.

Oh yeah…GIVEAWAY!!!! To celebrate my one year blogi-bloga-however you spell it versary….I’m giving away a few of my favorite things! Me and Oprah. No cars though. 

I’ve gotten lots of comments on altered candle projects I’ve done , so the winner will get:

Altered candle with Bronze key 

But I also wanted to share some of my fave fave things  I’ve used in other projects. In addition to the candle, the winner will get:

An assortment of some of the things I almost always incorporate into my projects! KandCo Paper, dimensional stickers, die cuts, self adhesive scrapbook borders. Assorted rub-ons, self adhesive pearls and rhinestones, typography packing tape and Mod Podge! A creative kit in a box!

To be eligible for the giveaway, you must leave a comment ( MANDATORY). Additional entries (leave a comment for each thing you do) for:

• Being / becoming a follower of The Answer Is Chocolate
• “Like” The Answer Is Chocolate on Facebook
• Link something up to the party
• Follow The Answer Is Chocolate on Twitter
• Spread the word about the BFF Link Party

That's 6 ways to win!

OK whew! Now…ready, set, LINK UP!!! Party will run through Sunday night midnight. The winner of the giveaway will be selected on Monday 5/9!

I Can’t Believe I’m A Year Old Today!

It seems at once that time has flown by, and like it was just yesterday that I put on my big girl panties and hit the publish button. I had lurked for months on different blogs, agonizing over starting my own. Who would be interested in my ramblings? Would anyone be interested in my ramblings? One year, 627 GFC followers, 304 posts, 72,781 pageviews, later... it seems the answer ( in addition to being chocolate) is yes! And for that I THANK YOU!!!

There was no special significance about May 4, 2010. I just decided to take the plunge that day. I remember my husband came home and I said: “Guess what I did today?” and his response of “What exactly does that mean” when I told him I’d started a blog. We're both still trying to figure that out.

Blogging has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. I’ve met so many amazing bloggers and made so many friends. I’ve never encountered one blogger who hasn’t been helpful if I’ve asked them a how to question and so many have freely given supportive advice. I read every comment left on my blog and try to respond to each and every one as well. If you’re a “No Reply Comment” blogger, I can’t encourage you enough to change that!

A year ago, I had no clue what a blog hop or link party was (or how to link to them) , how to create a button, and a long long long list of things. I had no idea what if any expectations  I should have about how fast or big my blog “should” grow. I learned this is unanswerable, at least for me. I’d never sent a tweet, stumbling was something that previously involved gravity and stairs, and pinning was a sewing term.

I learned that you should try a bunch of different things but there is no one right way to blog. It’s easy to see other blogs that start out around the same time as yours grow faster than yours , have more followers, pick up sponsors, do giveaways etc and it’s human nature to be a little competitive. Be honest! It is. And I admit to getting caught up in those feelings but realizing that ultimately, you should be yourself. Be authentic. I know I feel it when I’m not.

I started blogging because I’ve always loved creating, and the more I do, the more ideas I get and the more projects I see, the more I want to do! This is where the hubs gets scared. "What else is she going to get into?" I found a community of people who “get it”…the thrill of a new material, or technique, or lesson learned from a fail!

I had no idea what to expect from blogging, and now I can’t imagine what I’d do without it.
Thanks to everyone who’s made it through this post and who’s decided to be part of this chocolate fueled journey with me. You all are the best!

This coming Friday, I'll start my weekly link party and celebrate my blogiversary with a giveaway. I hope you'll come and link up and celebrate with me!

<a href="http://answerischocolate.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff511/AnswerIsChoco/TAICOpenHouseButton.jpg" /></a>

And one year later, still can't get that darned button centered!

Mother’s Day Printable

Being in and out the past couple of weeks, I am more than way behind for Mother’s Day. Usually I make cards for all my mom girlfriends but not sure that’s gonna happen this year. I did make a printable which those  friends might just get as an email attachment! I found a frame in a cupboard that I didn’t even bother to re-paint. Just layered and hot glued some paper and silk flowers to brighten it up a bit.

This just sums up Motherhood and life for me !

Four colors for you to choose from. Click on a color to bring to full res, right click to Save As. If you use, would love to see what you do w/ it!

Linking Up At: 

 

Travel Finds! LA Fashion District

I’ve been in and out the last couple of weeks as we’ve been finalizing college plans for our son. Last minute visits and decisions. But I managed to squeeze in some creative fun too! One trip was to Southern California and I was determined to get to the LA Fashion district after reading Jamielyn from I Heart Naptime w/ Chocolate Sundae’s post about her trip not long ago. Her trip sounded like so much fun and let me tell you it was A-MAZE-ING! I put that MAZE pun in there because this place is WILD and it is a maze. Multiple blocks of store after store after store filled with anything and everything you could ever need or imagine. Fabric, crafting items, notions, buttons, ribbons, beads. They have a whole website just for the fashion district: http://www.fashiondistrict.org/

I also used that word because if you watch the TV show “The Amazing Race” ( which we love) it was like our own version. We were dropped into this wild place without a clue box  and away we went.

I had to be good because 1.) we flew, and I was NOT about to hear about it if my suitcase was overweight and 2.) this was not exactly Mr. Chocolate’s cup of cocoa and he was a major trooper getting us there through some crazy traffic. But he knew  how badly I wanted to visit so thank you again sweetie! I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t take too many pics while we were there . Two places I LOVED were Michael Levine with two locations one opposite the other on the same street…one has general craft items ( TONS) and the other has fabrics and notions ( TONS).

There were so many fabric and notion stores it was overwhelming. There were also a bunch of bead / jewelry stores but I wandered into one called Beadshines that you might say I took a shine to. Here’s some of the yummy goodness that made its way into the suitcase:

Chocolatey rosette ribbon from Michael Levine. No clue what I’m going to do with it yet but couldn’t resist it.

Also got these neutral velvet ribbons…I am planning on making bookmarks with beaded ends from these. Also from ML.

I bought several yards of these different colored velvet ribbons at another store for $.50 a yard! At this great store called Maple Craft, I found these gorgeous paper flowers:

There are hundreds in each and they were $3, $4 a package. I also found this beautiful metallic tulle for $1 a roll:

At Beadshines, I had to restrain myself because I have a bit of a stash problem as it is but I couldn’t resist these:

Strands of metallic crystals and faux pearls and these fun inexpensive packages:

of goodies that will be fun to incorporate into jewelry or mixed media projects. Restraint was HARD! I could have spent a lot more time and money there so it was probably good that Mr. Chocolate and his brother were with me because had I gone by myself, I’d probably still be there!

If you ever get the chance to make a visit here, do it! Be prepared to be overwhelmed!

Mounds Brownie Cupcakes Inspired by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen

 I saw the most amazing sounding recipe recently on the blog Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. If you haven’t visited her, GO but don’t do it on an empty stomach or a full bladder! She’ll have some tantalizing recipes and she’s funny as heck.

The recipe was for Almond Joy Brownie Bites. For me the only thing better than chocolate, or chocolate and peanut butter, is chocolate with coconut! So these went immediately onto my Recipes To Try board on Pinterest.  If you haven’t used Pinterest  you should. That’s a whole ‘nother post.

I ended up modifying the original recipe because *gasp* , I didn’t have any melting chocolate. No chocolate chips. Nada. How that happened I don’t know but I think it has something to do with peanut butter cups.

Improvisation time. Started out with a box of brownie mix which I made according to directions and spooned into a muffin tin lined with cupcake liners.

I mixed 1 can of sweetened condensed milk and enough flaked coconut together to be able to form truffle sized balls. I put one of each of those in each cupcake

and then covered with the remaining batter

Baked @ 350 for 27 minutes ( because that’s what I usually bake regular brownies at when I use a mix) and let cool. Normally I would have made a ganache topping but didn’t have any cream and did I mention I was out of chocolate chips because of peanut butter cups? That’s what the emergency can of frosting in the pantry is for. I melted about 1/2 can of frosting in the microwave and then spooned over each cupcake

And here’s the ooey gooey inside:

And as soon as I re-stock my chocolate chips, I’ll try the original recipe!

Royal Wedding Printable

Are you planning on watching the Royal Wedding ? We're going to DVR it because it's on in the wee hours and while we're not obsessed with royalty, we like this couple and wish them all the best and like one of my BFFs teases me "it's yet another reason to have cake".

So for kicks and giggles, I made a variation of the "Keep Calm" sign.  It seemed fitting since the Keep Calm phenom is British in origin. I made two versions; one with the couple's initials and one without. I used "C" vs "K" since the bride's formal name is Catherine. Sized to 8x10. Click on image to bring to full size. Right click to "Save As".

Here are some other fun and free Royal Wedding printables from Design Editor