Nursing Necklace Giveaway!!!

Want to WIN one of my nursing necklaces? Enter here

A look into my studio.....

I have finally organized everything with anticipation of an up & coming very large order of beads. I'm thrilled since I have been waiting years to have enough space to accommodate my addiction.
Thought I would share with you my new creation space. Well, it's not entirely new, just new to it's current home. I've had the two on the left for several years. I just recently added the two on the right & wish I could add 5 more :o)
This is my working stock of beads & all of the extra inventory is stored in a cabinet or in file boxes. (Sorry, I didn't have time to take more artistic pictures since my little one is sick today. )

This is my bead storage organization system:


I love how these great organizers keep the dust off of the beads yet, I can see everything I have. These organizers are for bead storage in your studio & would not be appropriate for travel. They do however come with little dividers for each drawer. You can also order more dividers, if you need them. I would recommend, that if you have Swarovski, precious, or other art beads, to line each drawer with felt.



Stay tuned as I plan to open another Etsy shop to sell beads. I'm excited to share great inventory with others. There are times that I have a hard time locating a particular type of bead. So once I find what I've been searching for, I tend to buy all that I can. This leads to an abundance of fabulous beads!

Happy Beading!

Do you need a unique gift for Mother's Day? Are you looking for a special Mother's Day gift for your grandmother? Have their old home movies transferred to DVD.
It's the perfect gift! Just gather anything from VHS to 8mm film.

Send it in or bring it into Video 7 Production company.

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Mother's Day Special

Mothers Day photo montage special for $99 + tax. Special includes up to 30 pictures prepared into a "Slide Show" with graphics, special effect transitions and set to music. We will provide royalty free music or you may provide us the digital copies (or CD) of the songs (up to two) of your choice. Please contact for details.

Video & Web Design Company 254-666-6100

Square Foot Garden April 2010

I'm uber happy that I was able to transfer our garden to our new home. It looks so much more inviting in it's new resting place. I'm pleased to also say that I was able to score some MAJOR deals on plants at our local Ace Hardware store. There's not a final count but I know that there are over 70 plants & I only spent $22.







A cool trick to remember; when you purchase plants, be sure to look at the base of the plant. See if you are actually getting just one plant or a cluster of plants. I have found that the more expensive pots at home depot & lowe's, generally only have one plant. However, the less expensive ones at plant sales, Ace, neighborhood farmer's markets, often contain more than one plant per pot. Sometimes you can score 5 plants per pot. (Now that's a bargain!!!)

So here is the beginning of what I hope will be a very productive year. I have so many plants that I am going to plant the extra directly into the ground & see how they will do in this soil. Fingers crossed, I'll be able to till in the next couple of days. We've had tons of rain over the weekend & will NOT be able to till this soggy soil.

Paint, Paint & more Paint

As most people, we wanted to save money when it came to painting the new house. We were thrilled since the house is so large, that we would get to paint many different, harmonious colors. We studied & planned our color pallet. We felt happy with our final, husband approved choices. So we ventured to our local Wal-mart & purchased the affordable Color Place paint.

The colors were perfect to the swatches. We dreamed of how it would make the rooms feel & how beautiful it would look on the walls. To our surprise, it was thin, runny & did not perform as we had hoped. We are left with thin paint on the walls, multiple layers that do not cover the previous color & paint that began to wipe off when we tried to clean it with water two weeks after painting. UGH! What would happen if one of the children colored with crayons on the wall?! We'd have to wash it off & actually RE-paint.......not good at all!!

So in our frustration, I called & spoke to the assistant manager of the Hewitt Wal-Mart. I asked her if we could return the used & unused paint, to exchange it for the Kilz brand. Kilz is suppose to have a one coat guarantee. She listened to me & nicely told us to bring it in with our receipts.
So we did.
We took our empty cans, along with the full & partial used cans back to the service desk. We then proceeded to the paint counter & had the paint remade in the Kilz brand. We purchased fewer cans since it is suppose to cover better & is almost twice the price.

My advice:
Purchase name brand paint from Home Depot or Lowe's when you want to paint your home. We purchased one can, that was an oops paint from Home Depot.
We paid $5 for a can that was usually $25 & it worked wonders. It was a beautiful color & covered with only minor touch ups.
Do NOT purchase Color Place paint from Wal-Mart!
Don't let price determine your paint selection. We now have to put in twice the work to have good paint. We wish we had started with the name brand from the beginning. We've wasted time & money. Hard lesson learned :)

Simply Superb Pecan Pie

My great grandmother's recipe, for what I think is the best pecan pie recipe. I like chopped nuts the best but my mother prefers halved pecans. In Texas, we LOVE our pecans!

Simply Superb Pecan Pie by Grandma Lansford

1 Cup Sugar
6 Tbls melted butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1 Heaping Tbls of Flour
1 Cup Pecans (halved or chopped)
1 9 inch deep dish pie crust

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Beat eggs with sugar, corn syrup & butter. Brush small amount of this mixture onto crust. Add flour & vanilla to mix. Add pecans.
Pour into pie crust. I like to cover the edges of my crust with foil, to reduce over-browning. Bake at pie on cookie sheet at 400 for 10 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 degrees & bake for another 30-45 min or until knife inserted comes out clean. Do not over bake. Pie will settle as it cools. Serve with vanilla ice cream for a real treat. Enjoy!