Most inspiring drinky things

So, do you think the folks at the Jelly Shot Test Kitchen would mind if I turned everything they've ever photographed into a pair of earrings or a pendant?


Admire these fruity beauties!  The depth of field in this photo is just stunningly handled.  The gorgeously casual, utterly perfect tumbled look could probably be replicated with various sizes of Swarovski Cosmic Freeform Diamonds, dice beads and Simplicity cut beads:






The fruity shades and the very organic look of the skewers in these Watermelon Basil Martini Jelly Shots could be replicated with a stack of varying shapes of frosted resin and polymer clay, plus a messy, twisted spiral headpin in plastic-coated or nylon-coated wire.


These are their mimosa shots, glossy and tempting in this well-styled photo, and the minute I saw them, I thought that I could mimic that exactly with ball-end headpins worked into spirals (or, heck, just wire) supporting a stack of three lentil-shaped beads, maybe a lemon quartz or a nice glass, spaced with squares of thin yellow fabric.

Jewelry Sets and Busy-ness

I've become a lot bolder about listing coordinating items separately of late.  My bridal jewelry all links to the rest of the collection in the listing, since those are intended to be sort of infinitely mix-and-match.  Lately, I also listed this set:



Available here and here. Sold!

That ... is a weird piece.  I have to say it.  It's really odd.  Even more disparate materials than I usually combine, which, with me, is saying something.  It would be awesome to layer with a longer piece, though, a pendant on a very long cord maybe?  I haven't done a lot of A.) chokers or B.) multistrand before, though I've done a good few of the latter lately.

And I'm fond of the earring photo; I think I managed the depth of field and dimensionality, what with turning the pot that the earrings hang in toward the light and away from the camera, which makes them a little more interesting.  Not sure it's visible at the teaser size, though.  Hmm.

Also, since I originally wrote this post, the set has sold.  Obviously I'm not the only one who likes it!

I always consider jewelry sets to be an excellent gift -- coordinating necklace-earrings, bracelet-pendant, pendant-earrings-bracelet or what-have-you vastly increases the perceived value.  However, I'm getting more confident about breaking up jewelry sets listing-wise because I often sell them that way in person, with someone wanting just the necklace but not having pierced ears, preferring studs, or not caring for the pendant but liking the color combination and so purchasing the matching bracelet alone.  Things like that.  It's only twenty cents more for me, and it takes my customers to the Priority-shipping upgrade faster, so I think this is actually better.  Thoughts from the reader pool?

On another note, we've just finished out the semester at the tech college, and in the sudden glut of free time and M-is-home time I've had a couple of stupidly productive days.  We're still decorating the house, the garden flourishes, and I made hamburgers with homegrown spinach on them last night.  The Japanese maple looks like the Japanese maple.  The English primrose and daisies are not terribly happy, which is not unexpected, but my Oscar milkweed, liatris, and (shockingly) trout lilies are all remarkably happy.  The Jack-in-the-pulpit died but it's been the only thing to croak out of season so far.  More topically, I've made approximately a thousand charm bracelets, two with bits of miniature tea set and three with buttons, including my weird but somehow trademark combination of plastic buttons with pearls. We're discussing having all our work friends over for traditional British tea and jewelry-showing sometime next month. 

For those interested, I'm selling off much of my collection of vintage hematite in the Ballet Llama storefront.  There are also some nice hard-to-find charms there.  Get 'em while the getting's good!

It's hot, but life is nice right now.

A more ephemeral creation

Inspired by the menus of the Steampunk Cookery blog, for St. Patrick's day yesterday I decided to do a steampunk-style holiday meal: a made-from-scratch meal incorporating a number of different cultural culinary traditions into a Victorian-style course plan.

St. Patrick's Day is very much an immigrant holiday. Though celebrated in Ireland, there it's a literal holy day. In the U.S., it marks an entire day celebrating an immigrant culture that was once rejected. It celebrates through the unthinking use of really terrible stereotypes, mind you, and consequently bothers me, but I honor the spirit of it, at least.

M loves corned beef (which is multicultural in itself; it's a traditionally Jewish dish adopted as a bacon replacement), but we're waiting for it to go on sale as we do with most holiday foods, so I prepared the following:

I quartered, boiled and mashed with butter five pounds of small russet potatoes. Mashed potatoes are remarkably easy if you don't mind the skin; actually (cocktail party fact), a diet of milk and potatoes with the skin on provides all the nutrients necessary for human subsistence, the same as a diet of rice and beans.

Then, I made Swedish-style baked cardamom meatballs with a couple of Italian-style additions: torn fresh basil and extra garlic. These bake for thirty minutes, then are covered in sauce and baked for twenty more; I replaced the traditional sweet-savory brown gravy with a sauce inspired by the traditional Middle Eastern garlic-yogurt dressing for dishes like Turkish cacik. My version used thinned sour cream, garlic, paprika and some red pepper flakes.

I served the baked sauce and meatballs with sliced onions over a bed of the mashed potatoes. This was accented by a spinach, romaine and homegrown kale salad tossed in honey mustard dressing, plus my homemade wheat bread with butter (about which more next week). We replaced the traditional beer-or-whiskey with a pear cider.

The meal was a huge success, the five pounds (99 cents) of russet potatoes and one pound ($1.96) of ground beef yielded easily enough for four to six (we love our leftovers!), and I spent an hour concocting the recipes from five different online sources. They are now taking a proud place in my recipe box -- another old tradition that I am wholeheartedly adopting as my own.