~ New Rare Colors for Swarovski Crystal Stars ~

 I posted about new colors for my favorite Swarovski crystal star beads before.  But, I found more!  Supposedly, there's fuchsia and olivine!!!  I am so super excited because they make great earrings!

I just finished listing these earrings because I am too excited about them to not list them.  I am really liking the dark brown background in the pictures too.  It's warmer than gray and more unique.

I am going to share these beads with all you fellow beaders too!  These are now listed in my supplies shop.  You won't find these anywhere else right now.  Not at Artbeads, Fusionbeads, Fire Mountain Gems, Brightlingsbeads and Beadinpath.

I just love this bright pink color!  What else should I make with these??  I am already thinking about charm bracelets!

And yes, I did buy the factory pack.  Does it make business sense?  Not really, but I really, really wanted them and I can only get them in factory packs.  I hope someone else loves them too!  I am not crazy right?

~ Handmade Jewelry Inspired by the Falling Leaves ~

After the wonderful picnic and being close to all that nature, I was inspired to make some Autumn pieces. I love the warm earth tones and cute pine cones and pine nuts.  Add some mums and rich purple flowers and you get a rich fall palette like this bracelet.

The yellow and orange flower crystals are rare vintage Swarovski daisy crystals.  Don't they look cute with the pine nut and pine cone? 

I also made a necklace with a bigger pine cone and an oak leave.  I have this huge oak tree in front of my house and these leaves are going to cover my lawn in a month or so!

I also put together these super sparkly earrings.  I love the helix beads and they sparkle even more in golden shadow and crystal copper.

These babies also have helix crystals in purple velvet.  It's hard to photograph these crystals.  The color is not as blue as the pictures. 

Finally, a simple warm necklace made from 14mm sparkly rondelle crystals in Crystal Red Magma.  Super warm and super sparkly!

I couldn't help myself and I used these awesome earwires with bails from my supplies shop.  These are not sterling silver, but I love them too much not to use them.  Aren't these earrings so pretty?

These will be listed in my jewelry shop soon!! I had so much fun making jewelry this weekend :)  Feeling so inspired lately!

~ Momo and Chloe at Black Hills ~

Chloe was staying with me over the weekend and we all went to Black Hills Regional Park for a little picnic. Surprisingly, Chloe didn't really run around like Momo. I think she had fun though because she was getting lots of attention from my friends.  Momo had a lot of fun running around too.  They were both so dirty that it took forever to bathe them!

We also met up with a bigger friend Mac the Shiba Inu.

I took this opportunity to take some pictures.  Trees and leaves have such interesting texture but I just love the colors of flowers more.

I found mushrooms!!  These are totally cute!  And very yummy looking!

Black Hills is pretty nice!  We were afraid there would be no shelters left for us to have the picnic but there are a lot of picnic tables and grills at parking lot 3, right across the road from visitor center.  There were a lot of people by the afternoon though.  Glad we were outside on this beautiful fall day!

Where Will Ren's Ramen Go?

I love ramen! NYC has Ippudo. DC has Ren's Ramen. I went there a couple weeks ago, right before they moved.  We had dumplings and, of course, ramen.  The dumplings were yummy!

I love this!  Corn is always so good!  I think the noodles are shipped here from Japan or something.  The texture is wonderful!

The eggs are awesome too!  The yolk is cooked just right and so soft and gooey!

I am glad they are moving though.  The place was so dingy and small!  It was like a campus hole in the wall restaurant.  I hope they move to a nicer place but keep the prices the same.  It does seem a lil crazy to pay $10 for a bowl of noodles.  I can just make instant ramen at home with fried eggs, sausage and veggies for much less :)

~ Momo and Caterpillar ~

It was a pretty sunny day!  Momo had a lot of fun just playing on the deck.  So, I grabbed my Pentax and shot a few pictures. This is his summer look!  I trimmed a lot of hair from his face.

While I was admiring the flowers, I found a huge caterpillar!  So that's what's been eating my flowers!  It blends in so much with the leaves that at first I thought it was a leaf!  Ewwwww......

 

  

Isn't it a little late for caterpillars?   By the time this one becomes a butterfly it'll be cold!  Poor thing!  Hope you are having a great weekend! :)

~ Best Brownies in Chicago from Sarah's Pastries ~

Sooooo gooooooooooooooooooood. This gooey goodness is baked by Sarah from Sarah's Pastries.

It's a little store close to the lake in downtown Chicago.  It has outdoor seating so it's perfect to meet up for a little date.

This place is owned by Sarah.  Supposedly even Martha Steward loves this store!!!

I love brownies and Sarah's brownies are awesome!!!!  The inside is so gooey and the outside is perfectly crunchy.  It's not too sweet and just makes me want to eat more and more and more!

They have a different special flavor of cupcakes every month.  For August, it was strawberry.  It is one of the best cupcakes I have ever had!  Look at all those fresh strawberries on top of the cupcakes!!  The frosting was so fluffy and light and the cupcake was super moist.  Again not too sweet and just so refreshing!

I had so much fun at this little shop!  There's a wide variety of treats like macaroons, chocolates, truffles and even chcolate covered orange peels!

And even dog treats!  I wanted to get one for Momo, but that's $1.5 down the drain.  He would've swallowed this in 2 secs.

Another surprise?  The best lemonade I have ever had.  I actually dislike lemonade most of the time, but this was so good!  I think it has some orange juice in it.  Tasted strangely like mango juice for some reason.  Yum!

Next time I go back to Chicago, I definitely need to go get some brownies!! If you are shopping on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, you definitely have to take a little detour to this place!