Wow...

I just got my first look at the profile feature that Diana from painted Lady fingers wrote about me in her blog. For those of you who didn't get here from there, here's a link! I think I'm blushing....

As always, comments are welcomed and will ALL be answered!

My, how we are growing!

Over 100 of you along for the ride now...gee!!! I feel a sudden onslaught of performance anxiety! I always do better under pressure though, so I'm sure I will be fine! Well now that we are ALMOST to the halfway point of 2010, I took on a task today that I have been putting off forever!

"Put thine own house in order", right? I needed to get my office/jewellery studio in order so I knew what was what and what was where and what I needed and what I wanted to use. So, after I twisted my SUPER organized Mom's arm until she found a day to come over to help, it finally got done.

I freely admit that I am my father's daughter in most things. I adore my mom, but we are nothing alike in our thinking. She is concrete linear/ I am random abstract (we are both creative though...) So I told her what we needed to do and then she decided how to do it and broke it down into small chunks for me, and we got it done! It's not that I am a slob: I have a learning disability that makes my organization skills in general those of a hyperactive toddler on RedBull...if you give me a huge job to do without any ideas of how to break it down, I will either become completely overwhelmed or I will do it the least efficient way possible and may be distracted thirteen times before I ...oh look! A shiny thing!

So...this was the result. A wonderfully organized workspace!

There are two side by side racks here: the left one is for paperwork, packaging materials etc. The right hand one is jewellery supplies, tools, wire, etc.

A closer look at the jewellery rack shows the Swarovski rack, pearl rack, gemstone rack, some still to be bagged and sorted stones, Scrabble tiles for pendants, many MANY pairs of pliers and cutters, the world's largest collection of steel wool, hundreds of dollars worth of sterling silver wire, and a train case FULL of unset stones for ring making!

Here's a closer look at the plastic case at the top right...It is full of sterling silver clasps, toggles, findings and charms!

 Wow! There was a work table under there...who would have guessed?? You can see my magnifier there to the left, some stuff to be sorted, some silver jumprings, and...a table!

This is where the magic happens, kiddies: that's my desk top, and my desktop, complete with pen and paper journal, blogger dashboard, and about 150 pens.

And finally, here's the payoff...my sweet new (used) iPod touch! I've been wanting one forever, I found this one lightly used, and I grabbed it. And I may never take it off again...












 Sweet dreams all!

As always, I welcome and respond to any and all comments!

Giveaway Time!

I appear to have the plague, so no new creations right now, since I find typing an exhausting endeavour right now. But for those of you who don't already follow paintedLadyfingers' blog, here's a link to her amazing spring beauty giveaway! You should all check it out, and enter as many ways as you legitimately can!  Good luck, lovelies!

Giveaways Galore!

I love being given the chance to win something by blogging about something I already enjoy! It helps spread love about Etsy shops that I love, for one thing, and for another...well,  who doesn't like a chance to win free stuff?

The current blog offering the giveaway is called Life's Recipe and her current giveaway features soy wax melting tarts from the fabulous Auntie Di! It's Auntie Di who gave away a pair of my earrings last week in her blog, so I'm helping out by cross-promoting the tart give away you can find right here!

Good luck everyone!

What's for Dinner, Wild?

Tonight I bring you: Homemade (nearly) from Scratch Chicken and Biscuits!

In my defense, I have, in the distant past, made this dish entirely from scratch: cooked the chicken breast, chopped the veggies, made the white sauce flavoured with bouillon, made the baking powder biscuits....but in all honesty, I really prefer this version. It takes far less time, tastes better, and is probably in the long run FAR more economical!

Here's what you do:

 Purchase one (or better yet, two!) rotisserie chickens from your favourite place to buy them. I get mine at Costco: the chickens are bigger, cheaper and better tasting than those at either of the two big grocery stores around here. What you see in the picture above is the skin and scraps I save for my dogs, 2 breasts saved for sammiches, and about 4 cups of torn up mixed white and dark chicken meat. I tear it by hand, because I think you lose less of the juices that way.  Set the meat aside, preheat the oven to 375 and start the sauce.

This is what it looks like: the drippings from the bottom of the package the chicken came in, and a small piece of cchicken fat. Whether it's chicken, turkey, beef or pork, you can't make proper gravy without fat! Heat this until it's almost all liquified. If you want, substitute butter or margarine for the chicken fat. In a real pinch you can even use vegetable shortening or oil, but the taste won't be the same!

When it's all liquified, shake some flour over it. There are places where you can buy special flour shakers and they tell you this will stop lumps, but I just dip a clean hand into the bag of flour usually, pinch up a small amount and sprinkle it fairly evenly across the surface of the heated fat, like so:

Now I use my nonstick whisk to whisk this into a paste. This is a roux, and it's essential to good gravy or white sauce. It looks kind of unappetizing even when it's done right, so let's skip to the next step: add your liquid. In this case, we're using milk.Whisk until all the large lumps are gone and it's got a nice smooth consistency. Don't worry if you have a few small lumps left at this point: they will likely cook down in the next steps.

What we have now, if we want to get fancy about it, is a chicken sauce veloutine.  Let it cook until it's slightly thickened, then add in my secret ingredient, the Better than Bouillon paste in chicken flavour.

I really like this product for a few reasons: no MSG, no artificial colouring or flavours, and much lower in Sodium than powdered or cubed bouillon products. Whisk that in. Now comes the time for your first major cheat:

I use about half a container. Mixing this with the homemade base makes for a better tasting sauce than either tastes on its own. Whisk until thoroughly combined and bring to a bubble, but not a full boil. Add frozen veggies to your taste. I used about 1.5 cups EACH of Peaches & Cream corn and Peas & Carrots mix. Add liberal amounts of fresh cracked black pepper. Use about as much as you think you need, then turn the crank on that sucker a few more times. I really prefer fresh cracked pepper, as I think it tastes spicier!

Let that bubble merrily away over medium heat for a bit. Take your chicken meat and place it in the bottom of your baking dish. Usually, I use a Pyrex dish but every once in a while, after Hubbs has busted his hump cleaning the entire kitchen, I will buy a disposable foil baking dish. That way, there is a lot less mess for me to neglect to clean up right away!  I used about 2 cups of my cooked chicken, and poured the sauce/veggie mix on...If needed, to distribute chicken and vegetables proportionally throughout the dish, stir with a wooden spoon. Then, set the mixture aside to mellow while you get the biscuits/dumplings ready.

 Yummy, huh?

In tonight's version I used prepared biscuit mix. Sometimes I use the buttermilk fridge biscuits, but I use the store brand, not the laughing little fat guy in the baker's hat brand, and I didn't want to go to THAT particular grocery store, so I went with the baking powder version.

I like to tinker with the flavour, so I added black pepper, grated parmesan, and mozza cheddar mix to the basic recipe on the box for drop biscuits. I confess...I don't like my dumplings all doughy on the bottom, so I always pop them on a baking pan and into the oven for 5-7 minutes just until the bottoms set. Then I pull 'em out and set them on the chicken mixture. Sprinkle some paprika on top to make it look pretty! (I really don't think it affects the taste much, but it does look nice!) Bake at 375 until the biscuits are browned and ready!
Dish up and enjoy!

WOW!

I feel like the most popular kid at school...I guess people really love that hot pink Chalcedony in Auntie Di's giveaway featured here! It's been two days and already she has over 111 (love that number!) entries! I'll let you blog followers in on a secret: if you make a qualifying purchase (over $20)  from my shop, WildHeather Handcrafted, while this giveaway is on, I will GIVE you a pair of these babies!!! The only catch is you must tell me in Notes to Seller that you are following "My Jewellery Box".

Wheeee!!!!

April Already...

Where does the time go?

 I have been lazy lately. Well no, not really, it's just that my life outside the jewellery sphere has been so hectic and surreal lately that I haven't had time to sit in my jewellery room and let ideas percolate. I've also been out of some fairly integral materials for quite a while, which makes it challenging. However, I thought that I should probably blog SOMETHING today for all the new folks (waves at new folks!) so that they get the idea that there is still someone home here, and something going on here, so I thought I'd post some oldies but goodies and invite some discussion. Everyone have their caffeinated beverage of choice in hand??

This is one of the first designs that I ever offered for sale. They were available only to my coworkers at first, because I knew not of Etsy. At this point, everything I used was store-bought: headpins, earwires and of course Swarovski crystals and the pink ribbon beads.

These pearls were so unique; this bracelet didn't last long in my shop! I was happy that it went to a very local buyer who it looks like it was made for with her auburn hair and Celtic complexion! I still have some of these pearls among my stash...might be making something new with them soon!

Beautiful bracelet, custom ordered for a beautiful bride.This was fun to do, and the bride was local. She came with me to select the pearls and everything! SO much fun.

So what's next? Stay tuned!