Friday Favorites: Danielle Bradbery and Other Happiness

It's Friday! And time for just a few of my very favorite things right now:

1) When Danielle Bradbery was on The Voice last year, it was pretty clear to me, and evidently a bunch of other people, that she would get pretty far in the competition. So when she won, I was quite thrilled for her. Then her album finally came out, and when I previewed it on iTunes, I just had to buy it.

It's a really great album, but one song in particular is just amazing. And even though the album came out nearly two months ago, this song is still repeat worthy. I'm not sure if it's possible to get sick of it ... but we'll find out.

I knew right away that whoever wrote this song (come to find out, Katrina Elam, Josh Kear, and Chris Tompkins, according to trusty Wikipedia ;) was definitely not messin’ around—this is perfection, complete with an unpredictable hook and two key changes (my personal favorite songwriting “trick”). And it's no wonder this one has an extra something to it, because that's the only song on the album by those three writers. Home. Run.

2) In case you haven't gathered by the fact that I make and sell jewelry, I am definitely pro-handmade. At least half the gifts I gave for Christmas were handmade, whether by me or others, and I'm to the point I feel kinda bad buying things at, say, Walmart that I know I could find on Etsy, made by someone like me who could use the money a whole lot more than some retail chain.

So when I was set up at an Arts and Crafts fair in my area a couple months ago, and the nicest lady ever was set up next to me with all of these cute handmade purses and photo cards and coasters and more, I went to town. My grandmother, cousin, and niece-in-laws all got purses for Christmas ... and I got two. ;)

I decided to use this one first, and I love it.

If you look closely at the top of it, you can see the striped lining--it's reversible!

I've always loved this design, which I'm sure you've seen before, whether on a vintage bedspread or modern lampshades.

A close-up for ya

And even though gray/black aren't my usual colors, I just couldn't pass it up. The beige makes it passable. ;) The wonderful lady's name is Martha Davis, and she doesn't currently have an Etsy shop or else I would totally link it here. But if you'd like to get in touch with her, just comment or email me and I can get her email address to you. :)

3) And in case you missed it, this stuff is awesome:

If only I'd found it years ago. Now my nails can actually last more than a day, and that, my friend, makes me very happy. :)

So go paint your nails with this stuff, and then while they dry, do some good old USA Etsy shopping and listen to some Danielle. It'll make you happy...! ;)

Essie and Sally are Best Friends

So maybe it's because I've been using super cheap nail polish, though gorgeous. Or maybe it's because I wasn't letting my nails dry long enough between coats. It's hard to tell...

But all I know is I've finally found a way for nail polish to both look amazing and last more than 12 hours! :P

I had been doing one coat of clear nail polish, two coats of whatever color I was using (with very little time between) and then another coat of clear. And I'd get up the next day and it would chip--bad. What in the world??

Now, you can't really blame me--I knew next to nothing about nails and just did whatever I had gathered from Pinterest. Well.

However, Pinterest had also gotten Essie into my head. So I found these two bottles on clearance at T.J. Maxx: "Orange, It's Obvious" and "Fear or Desire."

The awesome nail polish

The secret weapon

I skipped the first coat of clear (which I probably could have done) and just did two coats of the colors, using the lighter orange on my ring finger. And I just waited a couple of minutes between each. Then I let them dry for a good 45 minutes to an hour. Then I did a layer of Sally's awesome No Chip Top Coat and generously let it dry as long as I could. (What do people do while they take two hours on their nails?? I watched TV and then got brave and got on my computer. Anyway...)

And they lasted a good 4 days. And when they did finally start chipping, it wasn't hideous gashes out of them but little ones on the ends.

So maybe if I'd waited longer between coats of color it would have lasted even longer. But regardless, I am pretty thrilled!

Budget DIY Jewelry Organizer

In case you haven’t already guessed, I am a jewelry freak. And since I just discovered making jewelry a couple of years ago (you can shop my jewelry here), that leaves a whole lotta years of amassing jewelry. (You know, since now I usually can’t bring myself to buy jewelry unless it’s handmade, preferably by me. ;)

So for a long time, my collection lived in bead boxes and such, but it would always end up all tangled together. And that’s just not very helpful when you’re already running late and have to wear jewelry…

So of course Pinterest had its suggestions on how to organize your jewelry on towel rods with shower hooks, and you mount it in your huge closet, etc. Well, I don’t have a huge closet or the money to buy and mount such awesome hardware. So, I came up with my awesome budget version. :)

Behold, $20 fantabulousness: my necklaces, bracelets, and rings … and some headbands … and belts (I don’t wear earrings) in one place!

For the necklaces and belts:

 Majorly cheap curtain rod (under $5—pretty much the cheapest they had)

C-hooks for a shower curtain (again, these cost about $1 for a dozen)

           

For the bracelets/rings/headbands:

Tie/belt organizer (probably in the vicinity of $12)

           

The rod and the tie organizer are then mounted with 

command poster strips (all from Walmart).

And that’s it! All my jewelry is finally organized clearly and conveniently and can be put on a wall on the back of a door (where I had it where we used to live), or on the wall behind a bedroom door (where I have it where we live now), or wherever you prefer!

The tie organizer was a bit of a splurge that I didn't have to do—you certainly could use a curtain rod in place of it, which would cost even less, or if you don’t have gobs of jewelry like I do, just one curtain rod might be plenty!

Just be creative, and see what you can come up with!

2014: The Year of Radiant Orchid

Another new year means a new Color of the Year announcement from Pantone! And that also means a collection of all the options to be found at Katya Valera so you can wear it all year. :)

Last year's Emerald has been succeeded by Radiant Orchid!

And along with the Color of the Year announcement comes Pantone’s Color Report for Spring 2014. 

Here’s Katya Valera’s versions of the 10 chosen colors: Placid Blue, Violet Tulip, Hemlock, Paloma, Sand, Freesia, Cayenne, Celosia Orange, Dazzling Blue, and of course Radiant Orchid.

Whichever colors strike your fancy, you can find them at Katya Valera! 

You can get more info on each piece in my Etsy shop. And if there's a piece pictured above that you can't find in my shop, that's because it's on Clearance! All my Clearance items are in their own album on my Facebook page. If you're interested in any of those, feel free to comment or message me there, and I'll gladly make you a listing on Etsy. 

Flourless Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

It's a new year, with new features! Welcome, and enjoy the ride!

These cookies are as easy as they are insanely delicious. I actually found the recipe for the main cookie part on Delilah’s Facebook page a long time ago. Then I discovered the idea of putting Reese cups in them here, as opposed to Hershey’s kisses. And a gluten-free classic was born!

Flourless Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar, plus extra for coating

1 egg

1 cup peanut butter

24 unwrapped mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Step 1) Preheat the oven to 350.

Step 2) Mix the cup of sugar, egg, and peanut butter together well.

Step 3) Roll the dough into about 1” balls, roll each in the extra sugar, and place into a mini muffin tin. Press a Reese cup into each dough ball.

Step 4) Bake on 350 for 16 minutes, by which point the dough should be golden brown. Once you remove them from the oven, let them sit in the pan for about 10 minutes so they can harden a bit (no flour means tendency to crumble), and then remove each cookie from the pan by inserting a knife against the edge of the cookie then under it to lift it out (with both hands--again, crumble tendencies). This makes 24 cookies.

Evidence of crumbling tendencies, above right ;)

 

Variations:

~ Use Hershey’s kisses instead of Reese cups.

~ Mix chocolate chips into the batter for chocolate chip cookie cups and omit the Reese cups.

~ Use a regular cookie sheet, mix dough and roll in sugar as above, then press each ball with a fork for the classic peanut butter cookie look, omitting the Reese cups.

When they're not warm anymore (if they last that long...), I definitely recommend microwaving them. :) 

And enjoy! No flour, gluten-free perfection!