Finally a GIVEAWAY just in time for Mother's Day

What your recipe for the perfect mom?
My Example:
1/3 cup of a great husband (Thank God for him)
1/3 cup of unconditional love (they really test this one when they get older)
1/3 cup of family fun (It is those times they will remember)

I will be giving away the winner's choice. The winner may choose from my new necklace, my favorite bangle, snake bracelet, or a set of charms. (The charms will be custom stamped and fit popular European style bracelets.) I am excited to see what my photographer friend Carrie from www.emaphotography.com decides to do on her blog. She has graciously agreed to do a giveaway on her website. You just have to give your recipe. We will randomly pick a winner on April 22nd. Just in time for the winner to receive a custom piece of jewelry for Mother's Day. I am off to list these goodies on my website.

Lindenboro BATC My Cheer Girls

We went to Virginia for the Battle at the Capital cheerleading competition on 3/20 & 3/21. We had a great time. It was a pain curling hair both nights, but that is the life of a cheer mom, right? The girls competed on Saturday and did a great job. I was so excited until I found out that was only a qualifying performance. So Sunday was the day that really counted. So you could do awesome on Saturday to just fall apart on Sunday. UGH! What a way to scare us for the next day. The pee wees looked so great and really had a chance to win. The Juniors looked great also, but boy they had a lot of competition. Wow! But all we could ask is that they do their best and I think they came pretty close to 2 perfect performances. Okay I copy these posted performance from youtube. I bought the cd but could not upload it.


Okay my youngest is the third one from the front middle to start. She does a back handspring, than she does another one up the right side, bases a stunt on the right, dances in the middle, back handspring, does the last tumbling pass and than front spots in the pyramid. I was so proud of all the girls. They are young and worked so hard to look so wonderful. YEAH LBC!



Okay it is harder to point out my oldest there are so many of them. In the beginning she is in the 4th row 2nd from left. She is an awesome back spotter 1st stunt second group from left. Did you see that pyramid she is in the left group. She gets the flyer up and down and twisted around and back up again. They came in 5th of out 11, and they did so awesome all of the girls. YEAH LBC!

Sharing an email from an Ebook customer

I thought I would share a question from a recent customer of my Stamping ebook. I hope anyone who has purchased my ebook on Hand Stamping or How to make glass art pendants knows I am always available to answer questions. I love when people ask me questions. I have been asked questions on starting their own business to where to buy a supply they may be looking for questions on how to do something they may have seen in my store. I am really going to try and finish my ebook this coming week on sawing and riveting silver. I have charts to help with sizing and I plan on doing using a few different skills to complete a project. I am excited for the ebook to be released. It will have a lot information to offer and plus I am available to answer any questions. Okay so the photo you see is a new marker that I am trying out.

QUESTION: I was wondering if you know some websites that sell design stamps. I need some a little bigger.
Also any advice on how to make the letters darker with the permanent marker? I have done a few pieces but they are not as dark as I like them to be.


ANSWER: You can try and contact infinitystamps.com they do custom work but custom design stamps will run about $120 and up. They are really good quality stamps and can set you apart from other sellers.
As far as darkening the letters. If you want something darker you can try liver of sulphur. It will darken your whole piece. I could give written directions but you can just read it here. Log in and find lots of neat information. http://www.artjewelrymag.com/art/default.aspx?c=a&id=906 I also just tried a different pen and I found it at the craft store around here and you can find it online at dickblick.com It seems to be darker and more resistant to water. I have not finished the trial on it to recommend them but so far much blacker and stays longer. Staedtler Lumocolor permanent black marker with .6mm point
Thanks, Tammy

Okay does anyone read my blog?

Anyone? I advertise it on my website and Etsy store. Sometimes if I receive an email from people they will comment on different posts, so I know sometimes it is being read. I hardly ever have people post comments here. I would do giveaways but I would be afraid that I would be the only one here to see what I was giving away. LOL! Well I am having free shipping until May 1st for orders on www.joyfullycrafted.com I do sell alot of ebooks, so I wonder if I should do more jewelry making posts. Like add on techniques to the stamping ebook. If you are out there let me know what you want to see. I would love to answer questions. Or hear design ideas that you would like to see in my stores. Trades or advertisement opportunities, or carrying my items in your store. Did I forget anything???

I think everyone is on facebook. I know so may people who are on that website and can't get away. I have not ventured over there yet. I did not like myspace but I hear it is better.

My new favorite bracelet.

Okay I am not a big jewelry wearing person. I know sounds weird from someone who makes it. LOL! Anyway I like things simple. I wear simple earring hoops, a simple light necklace, and usually one bracelet. Anyway I had this idea of this bangle with a slider charm and I remember when I first finished it I thought I really like the look of this, but I would hate wearing it. I showed it to my sister and we agreed cute look and someone else would love it with the sliding charm, but not us. We thought too much clanking for us simple girls. Well, I made it as an example for a custom piece. It such a different piece of personalized jewelry. I like to wear a piece if it is really different just to make sure there are no design flaws. My husband and I went out to dinner with his high school friend and his lovely wife. We all went to Scaturro's Restaurant and we loved it. We found out my husband's high school classmate is the owner. Anyway I decided to wear my sample. I wore it the next day, another day, and today. Well it is official I love it. It wears so nicely not noisy or bothersome. I actually enjoy playing with it sometimes, but I can totally forget it is on too! I am planning on making a version of the charm to go on those snake chain bracelets. It would be great I thought to buy a personalized charm with your kid's name or anniversary date to fit on the pandora, chamilia, biagi, or troll style bracelet. My friend has one and I am going to make her a charm for her new baby.

Sharing our birthdays

Rachel and I just turned another year older. We have the same birthday on February 14th. For a long time it has really been just her birthday, but I have so much fun celebrating it with her. So this is what we did. The day before her birthday she had off from school. So I took her and her friend to Sweet and Sassy. It is a local place here in Cherry Hill, although they have them around so check out their website. Well they offer party packages but most start at $350 and are for 8 girls. I just did not want to spend that kind of money right now with trying to move. Plus with 8 girls it is too much planning and worrying about them that I did not want all the stress. They had a party going on when we were there and it is was okay. They do have the girls sing, dance, and do a small hair updo and makeup. I really like the details of each service with the personal princess for a day package they offer.
So anyway we got there and the girls got their robes on and stepped into a whirl pool for a feet soaking.



They got a full pedicure with sparkly cream, toe ring, and a funky zebra decoration on their toe. They loved it.


Next was a manicure, with ring, and nail art.


Than a full style choice updo with a make up application. Rachel enjoyed her birthday celebration and we added a haircut.



We than headed next store to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. It was me, both my daughters, her friend, and her friend's mom. We had a great time and yummy cheesecake.


So if you have a couple of girls that would love a full star treatment than they would love it.

The next day my family came over for our signature dinner of oil and garlic spaghetti with breaded chicken. And no birthday celebration is complete without Sweet Eats cakes. So delicious. Rachel got cookie dough cake and I got chocolate peanut butter silk.
OKAY the craziest part of the whole birthday was my mom's present. I got nice gifts thank you everyone. Gift cards and the week before my sister bought me an outfit because she knew that I did not have anything to wear to a wedding. OH MY GOODNESS. I forgot we got Elton John and Billy Joel concert tickets for me and Chris and my mom and Ray for July 3oth. It was a birthday present from my husband. I am typing as random as my thoughts. LOL! ANYWAY my CRAZY mother bought me a Coach big pocketbook and WALLET. I can not believe she did that. I will have to take a photo of it. It is so nice black and grey with silver hardware. She really over did it. But Thank You, MOM!

It has been so long...

Gosh, where does the time go? I do have some excuses. I just put my house for sale. So that was alot of work. My husband had alot molding to put up. We never did get around to doing that for ourselves, but now it is up and freshly painted. We have done alot of painting, cleaning, and throwing away alot of stuff. I was thinking we should have done of these quick freshening jobs before, but we do have two kids and you know how your schedule fills up. (especially when it comes to the choice of painting) I do not think I like painting very much. I love my house and my street, but I think we need one more room to use for my workshop. And of course another bath and garage would be wonderful. Although as we look around in our buying price range we like our current house even more. So we will see what happens. It might not be the best time to sell a house, but good a time to buy one. If it is meant to be than it will all work out. In the meantime life feels a little crazier than normal. Looking for houses and being prepared for showings of my house. I will keep you posted. Here is picture of my freshly painted family room. Don't look at that silly window treatment, because I was asked by my realtor to put something up there so it would not look so plain.