New Wine Blooms

A new style of wine blooms have hit the shop- take a look: 

Festive Red Wine Bloom

Black and White Cheetah Wine Bloom

Holiday Swirls Wine Bloom

Insta-Friday: A Little of This and Some of That

Here's a little glimpse into my week via InstaGram.

I woke up to find Melo just snuggling up on the throw pillow on the floor.

 I have an addiction to glitter nail polish lately.

 Obviously everyone decided to park like a champion at work that day. 

 San Antonio is very confused what season we are in.

 Someone was busy while I was at work.

 A yummy Riesling.

I think it may be time for me to do some laundry.

Time Management

Thanks to Tervis for sponsoring my writing. Visit their website http://www.tervis.com to learn more about the world’s first smart cup.

Some of you may know but for those who don't I moved to San Antonio, Texas from Denver, Colorado after my third year of college. Transferring to a completely new area that I was unfamiliar with I quickly became quite scattered as far as my day to day schedule and overall long term and short term goals. 

Denver, Colorado

San Antonio, Texas

My life turned all online when I got to San Antonio. I was finishing my last year of college, starting this blog, opening up my Etsy shop, and searching for a job and this was all online. At first it was great and I loved being in charge of when I spent time on my education, job search and new hobby of blogging and Etsy. I then quickly realized how easy it was to be distracted online and how hard it was to accomplish what really needed to be done. 

At that point is when I realized I needed to get my lifestyle and time management in check. I had to block specific time dedicated to school, specific time dedicated to blogging, specific time dedicated to my Etsy shop and specific time searching for a job. I also had to dedicated some time just to get out and discover San Antonio. I  bought a calendar (the old fashion pen and paper kind) and got to work. I started mapping out my days and let me tell you when I first started I hated it. I hate being tied down to anything, I like flexible structure and if I wanted this time management plan to work I knew I had to keep myself dedicated to the schedule, so there was no room for flixiblity. I slowly (and I mean very slowly) got into the hang of this "schedule" thing and watched as more "things" started to get accomplished. I was spending more quality time with Brendan on Sunday nights rather than scrambling to complete assignments. I was blogging on a more regular pace. I was starting to lock down a direction and specific product line for my Etsy shop. 

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In order to establish a lifestyle in San Antonio and really get the hang of my new surroundings I needed to make time management a top priority. My personal advice to those looking for more time management in your life would be, stick to your plan. It is important to stay disciplined in order for time management to work. I now have a fun job at a golf course, still love blogging, still create for my shop, graduated school and all because I was (and still am) able to stick to a time management schedule. 

I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. To learn more about Tervis, visit their website http://www.tervis.com.

Color

I love color.

Asteroid by Laura Berman

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 U Are Funky

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Linking up all the color to Tickle Me Tuesdays. 

Raspberry Chocolate Molten Cakes

Nothing better than staying in on a Saturday night, watching movies and making homemade molten lava cakes. Brendan and I decided to kick it up a notch and add a hint of raspberry to our molten cakes and let me tell you it was delightful. 

Raspberry Infused Molten Lava Cakes:

-4 ounces of bittersweet Ghiradelli chocolate

-4 ounces of semisweet Ghiradelli chocolate 

-1 1/4 stick (10 ounces) butter 

-1/2 cup of flour

-1 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar 

-3 egg yolks

-3 eggs

-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

-2 tablespoons of raspberry liqueur

To start making the molten cakes pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees, gather your chocolate bars, break them up and try really hard not to take a bite (I had the chocolate police-Brendan to regulate and there was no tasting for me).

These are the two most important ingredients of the molten cakes (in my opinion of course)- raspberry infused whipped cream and raspberry liqueur. 

Place your chocolate bars and butter in a bowl and melt in the microwave. 

Add confectioners sugar and flour to the melted chocolate mixture. Place the eggs and yolks in the mixture. Add vanilla and raspberry liqueur to the mixture and allow all ingredients to fully mix to create a creamy batter.

 Place the batter into well greased custard bowls. Place in oven for 12-13 minutes. 

Pull out your molten cakes and run a knife around the edges.

Pop your molten cakes out on to a dessert plate. We dressed ours with some mini chocolate chips and raspberries stuffed with chocolate chips. 

Top with whipped cream or in our case the raspberry alcohol infused whipped cream.

Brendan and I paired our cakes with The Velvet Devil Merlot by Charles Smith. Charles Smith makes a few of my new favorite wines but the Velvet Devil was the perfect pairing with the raspberry chocolate molten cakes. Have a great rest of your weekend everyone! 

Insta-Friday

It has been a little while since I've done an Insta-Friday but here are a few pictures for you...

Some sketching I'm doing for my Creative Courage course.

Just painting away. 

There is nothing more this dog loves than sticking his head out the window.

A perfect Sunday night- wine and Dexter.

He pulled his toy box out to the middle of the living room, pulled out some toys and passed out.

I tried crackling for the first time on my nails and I'm not sure how I feel about it, maybe I chose the wrong colors.

This my friends is the top bun, hot bun, marshmallow, 5 minute hair do, or whatever you want to call it.

This is a piece I made for Brendan and below you can see where we hung it.

Gallery wall in our master bedroom.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a fantastic weekend.

Cowgirl Handmade Bazaar- San Antonio

Introducing the Cowgirl Handmade Bazaar! On November 19th in San Antonio, Texas Lauren Brown of Kittens and Gumdrops and myself will be hosting the first Cowgirl Bazaar and we would love to have you stop by if you are in the area. We still have a couple of spots available for vendors (including a couple spots for non-handmade vendors and food/beverage vendors) so if you might be interested please e-mail us at cowgirlbazaar@gmail.com. Make sure you "like" us on Facebook to stay in touch with all the happenings of the Cowgirl Handmade Bazaar and we hope to see you there!

Flip Flop Moscato and Raspberry Chocolate Chip Fro-Yo

For those who aren't aware, I'm a bit of a wine-o. I adore wine and I love nothing more than trying out a new wine, taking a sip and falling in love. I was lucky enough to have this experience when I tasted FlipFlop Wines' Moscato. Two of my favorite things are wine and dessert and Moscato wines happens to combine those two beautifully. There are some Moscato wines that are far too sweet but FlipFlop manages to blend the sweetness without taking it over the top. The FlipFlop Moscato was as if it was possible to take a sip of a perfectly moist bunt cake. The crisp and refreshing flavors of this Moscato left my pallet extremely tickled and begging for more. In order to pair the delicious flavors of this Moscato with a cold and satisfying treat I made raspberry chocolate chip frozen yogurt.

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Frozen Yogurt:

-2/3 cups of non-fat Greek yogurt

-1 cup of non-fat plain yogurt

-1/3 cup of sugar

-1/3 cup of Splenda

-1 tablespoon of honey

-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

-1 teaspoon of lemon juice

-12 ounces of raspberries 

-1 cup of chocolate chips

Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth. Pour mixture into a bowl and place in the fridge for a couple hours. After the mixture has had a good amount of time to chill in the fridge remove, place in an ice cream machine until mixture thickens to desired thick texture, add chocolate chips and run for 2 more minutes. Remove from the ice cream maker, serve and enjoy (I topped mine with a few chocolate sprinkles and a hearty helping of whipped cream). The next time you're looking for something deliciously sweet wine-wise reach for a bottle of FlipFlop Moscato and pour yourself a glass. Pair your Moscato with a delicious dessert of some raspberry chocolate chip frozen yogurt.

I Heart Art

"Under the Sea" by Jessica Swift

"Look The Sky is Full of Love" by: Shelley Kommers

"Venice" By: Marisa Sequin

"Soulfooting" By: Pixie Campbell



Linking up to Tickle Me Tuesdays

Creative Courage

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I've always had a problem with self-confidence, I've never had enough of it when it's matter. If you don't believe in yourself who will? If I had a penny for every time I've had someone tell me that I'd probably have a dollar by now. I once had a soccer coach tell me that he had never seen someone beat themselves up so much... until he met me. It's no part of me I treasure, let me tell you.

 I've always loved to create and be creative so that's why I started this blog and eventually made myself start my shop- to put myself out there. This hasn't been easy for me. Every time I put a new piece (an open blog post or a new shop item) out there I compare, beat myself up, and think of how I could have done it better. That's why when Lindsay from Paint Me a Picture mentioned Stephanie Levy's Creative Courage e-course I knew it was a course I could greatly benefit from. I just finished my second week of this course and I'm already feeling a lot better about myself. This course is such a great experience for myself and I'm meeting so many talented artists from around the world. 

I'm attempting to let myself go when I create, forget about what others are doing, forget about what is popular, forgive myself if I mess up, and just let go all together. Creating must come from the heart and it must be something that you love to do and that is what the Creative Courage course has taught me thus far. I still have a long way to go but I am so excited to see what the future holds.

New Paintings

I've been working on some new paintings lately and these are the first of the new paintings since I've "re-vamped" the shop. Take a look and I'd love to hear what you think.

Je T'aime

Lime Yellow and Navy Flower

Hello