O.M.G. Yum.

I was reading the awesome blog The Victory Garden yarn & curiousities when I saw her post about Tomato Pie.

WOW. It sounded delicious.

image courtesy of Victory Garden Yarn & Curiousities

It looked even better. So I followed her link to the recipe at Country Living.

And then I made it. Actually I made two of them.

With tomatoes and basil all fresh picked from my garden.

Tomatoe-y, cheesy, gooey goodness. I am in love.

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Custom sea glass ring a photo documentary of sorts

First, the client asks me to view sea glass pieces in certain colors. In this case, aqua, olive green and shades of amber

She selects her color and we discuss how it will show up against the silver backing- will it be too dark? I think it looks lovely. She agrees.

The basic setting is made. We discuss optional embellishment.

But ultimately decide against it. Sometimes it looks perfect. This chunky piece of glass stands up on its own with no need for further decoration.

The ring is completed and polished to a high shine.

But we're going for an oxidized finish, so after applying some Liver of Sulphur and buffing it back, the end result is a bold and earthy looking ring.

Gratuitous glamour shots- because I love this ring so much I'm going to use it for my custom ring listing on Etsy!

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Stand mixer plus hot day plus house full of kids equals cookies!

I don't know why, but it seems to be a recurring theme around here that when it gets too hot to go to the beach we stay inside with the AC and make cookies!

This year instead of making up our own, we decided to pull out my BHG cookbook (a gift from my mom at my bridal shower) for a tried and true recipe.

photo courtesy of bhg website

We chose Lime Zingers, which fortunately BHG has posted on their website, so if you want to try these yummy little bites for yourself, you can!

I was gifted this (new to me) Sunbeam stand mixer about 8 months ago from a friend who never used it- who got it from her mother-in-law who picked it up "somewhere along the way". So the thing sat looking worn, filthy and unloved in my basement for ages because I didn't have the motivation to clean it up and see if it even worked.

Finally my slacker behind wandered downstairs and lugged it up and into the kitchen. Well let me just say "WOW". Once I gave it a good scrubbing, it didn't have a mark on it. It looks like it was hardly ever used!

And oh! The joy of making dough without having to use my 12 year old (also a bridal shower gift) hand mixer! I showed the kids how to slowly add the flour so we didn't make a snow storm in the house, I had one bowl to use to mix the frosting and a seperate one for the dough. All the parts are dishwasher safe and the best part- it actually works really well!

I'm so excited I decided to try it out. Oh and the cookies weren't too bad either. ;)

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