Sunday, October 23, 2011

Deb Goes to Brunch

A couple of my friends had birthdays so we took them to Sunday brunch at the Hyatt.  Looking at the following pics, and there are a lot, will cause you to be hungry.  You have been warned.

First there was the buffet.  Where you could get as much as you wanted of dessert and seafood and eggs and bacon and baked goods and salads and omg food!
Sushi

Artichoke Salad

Asparagus Salad

Caprisi Salad
Cheese
Fruit
Smoked Salmon
ZOMG OYSTERS!!!!
ZOMG OYSTERS!


More bacon and sausage than you could shake a stick at
ZOMG SHRIMPS!!!!
ZOMG SHRIMPS!

They had these little bottles of tabasco to go with the seafood.  Cute!

Tiny Tabasco

There was a lot of dessert at the buffet.

Moose of various sorts and little cakelet things
Chocolate cake

Close up of the little cakelet thingys
ZOMG CAKE AND PIE!!!!


Some sort of cake or pie


Strawberry cake, I believe


We tried to be good at the buffet

Being good at the buffet

Someone else trying to be good


Not all of us succeeded

Why are the shrimp and the oysters gone?
The shrimp and oysters are gone to make room for the main course, which was cooked to order.  Here we see excess personified with steak, eggs, and corned beef hash.  As if the steak wasn't enough by itself.

Steak, eggs and corned beef hash


Salmon steak.  Wait Rebecca! Stop eating so I can take a picture of your meal.  Yes I'm kind of dangerous with a camera.


Rebecca's salmon steak.  It looked really good.  She seemed to enjoy it.


I got the eggs benedict with crab meat.  It was teh yum.

Eggs benedict with crab meat

Did I mention there was all you can drink mimosas and champagne at this brunch?

Bottomless mimosas

Why is the mimosa gone?  Cuz you drank it fool!

Why is the mimosa gone?
Oh good.  A refill.

Yay mimosas!

The gang's almost all here.  One person was a bit late.  I'm not in the pic cuz I am taking the pic

My wonderful friends.  I love them so much

The gang is now all here.

Rebecca, Laura and Stacia
Stacia strikes a pose

Stacia
And the birthday cake.  Because there hadn't been enough food already.

Totally cool

Last but not least was Flor, our fantastic wait staff person who waited on us hand and food and catered to our every whim. Ok maybe not every but she was definitely cool.  They tacked on the 18% gratuity as is customary for large parties and we tipped her extra over that.  An awesome birthday brunch.

Flor the amazing waitress
The most amazing thing about this was that I didn't take pics of everything.  I tried... oh yes I really tried.  But there were salads and eggs and potatoes and the like at the buffet that did not get pics.  And I didn't get a pic of everyone's entre.  This is a fantastic Sunday brunch and I recommend it to everyone.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Sari Ribbon Blog Hop

I'm participating in a Sari Ribbon Party Blog Hop.  This blog post is about 6 hours too early and I apologize for that.  It is early because I have an offsite meeting for work tomorrow that I have to leave for at O-dark-thirty, I wanted to check all the links, and I won't have time tomorrow.  So given the choice between links possibly not working and not showing up in the preview and posting early -- well I hope my diligence that the links are all working will count towards forgiveness for being early.

So what is a blog hop, you might ask.  Well that's where a bunch of jewelry designers design something with the same theme and then put up pics of their designs and a list of links to everyone else who participates.  And what is Sari Ribbon, you might also ask.  Sari ribbon is left over silk ribbon from making saris. Fiber is the next best thing in jewelry making these days and its really neat the way you can incorporate the ribbon.

So, without further ado, here are the pics of my designs.  Ok a little more ado.  As is usual for me, there cannot be only one because indescision is my middle name!  So I have a few.  Enough with the ado already and on to the pics!

The front of the Sari Ribbon and Wood necklace

The back of the Sari Ribbon and Wood necklace

I saw a picture once of a necklace where the ribbon was knotted and used as part of the design and I have wanted to do something like that ever since.  What you see here is my attempt.  The beads are all wood and nuts because these were the only beads I could find with a large enough hole to fit two strands of sari ribbon through.  Then I wrapped the ends with copper wire and twisted the wire at the end to make a clasp.  I could have left the ribbon alone and just tied it to finish but I thought this way was a tad more polished.
  

Charm and ribbon bracelet

My second project is a charm bracelet.  Once upon a time when you ordered from B'Sue Boutiques, if you ordered enough, you would get a goodie bag with goodies in it.  This was back in the halcyon days before she offered free shipping.  The free shipping is awesome -- don't get me wrong.  But I loved the goodie bags.  I always got a pretty decent sized bag of stuff that I hadn't ordered or even thought of ordering.  One of the things I always got in the goodie bags were a charm or two.  I never really knew what to do with the charms though and so I threw them into an empty tub of Earth Balance spread and forgot about them.

Now I have ordered a lot of stuff from B'Sue's shop (which I adore more than I can express adequately). So the tub got full.  One day I said to myself, "Self, if life gives you charms you should make charm bracelets."  So I did.  And then I made charm necklaces and earrings too but that is really the subject for another post. 

Anyway when you bead a lot, like I do, you tend to end up with a lot of left over onsies and twosies beads.  I throw them in a different tub.  So I wrapped some links onto the empty beads and used those and the charms to create this bracelet.  Then the Sari Ribbon Blog Hop came around and I said to myself "Self, why not throw some ribbon on that bracelet as a charm?"  So I did.  And here is the end result.

The charm and ribbon bracelet larger

So there you have my offerings for the Sari Ribbon Blog Hop.  I hope you enjoyed this and my ramblings.  Below is the list of other jewelry designers that are participating.  Enjoy the show!

Vickie Wills
http://www.jewelrybyvee.blogspot.com/

Susan Kennedy
http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com

Michelle Mach
http://www.michellemach.com/blog/

Michelle Lee Hardy
http://fireflyvisions.blogspot.com/

Ruth Crawford
http://www.home-with-ruth.blogspot.com/

Hilary Frye, FryeStyle
http://fryestyle.blogspot.com/

Diana P.
http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Brenda Sue Lansdowne, B'sue Boutiques
http://www.bsueboutiques.typepad.com/

Elizabeth Owens-Dwy
http://www.clarityofpurplesage.blogspot.com

Connie Rios-Relyea
http://www.JewelsDesignsCreativeCorner.wordpress.com/

Jennifer Justman
http://soulsfiredesigns.blogspot.com/  

Deb Davis
http://naturaltreasuresbydeb.blogspot.com/

Beanzie
http://www.thevintageheartcharmbracelets.com/the-vintage-heart-charm-b/

Cathie Carroll
http://www.cathiecarroll.com/

Rosemary Cowit
http://www.gemrosedesigns.blogspot.com/

Georgene Lockwood
http://sylvanavintagedesigns.wordpress.com/

Cathy Buckley
http://cathybuckleycatsmeow.blogspot.com/

Harry Wood
http://www.oscarcrow.blogspot.com

Sonya Stille
http://dreaminofbeads.blogspot.com

Mary Deis
http://mdeis.blogspot.com/

Heather Goldsmith
http://asibeadit.blogspot.com/

Susan Rouleau
http://mountainshadowstudio.blogspot.com/

Terry Matusyk
http://pinkchapeau.wordpress.com

Pam Chesbro
http://afortunatesoul.blogspot.com/

Mary Shannon Hicks
http://uptwnsh-fallingintothesky.blogspot.com/

Janice Everett
http://jlynnjewels.blogspot.com/

Davinia
http://www.daviniadesign.com/

Kristina Johansson, Maneki
http://wildrosesandblackberries.blogspot.com

Kris Binsfeld
http://www.cherishdesigns.wordpress.com/

Alice Craddick
http://alicesbeadsandbaubles.blogspot.com/

Mandy
http://www.beadsforbrains.blogspot.com

Charlene
http://thebeaddreamer.com/blog/

Catherine Jeltes
http://www.galleryzooart.com/

Jackie
http://kydojewellery.blogspot.com/

Sharon Palac
http://www.sharonsjewelrygarden.blogspot.com

Deb Beechy
http://beetique56.blogspot.com/

Jean Yates
http://prettykittydogmoonjewelry.blogspot.com/

Patrice Pfeiffer
http://treeseatreasures.blogspot.com/

Dorcas Midkiff
http://wondrousstrangedesigns.blogspot.com/

Lynn Perry Bennett
http://designsbylynnea.blogspot.com

Linzi Alford
http://www.magpieintheskyspoilheaptales.blogspot.com

Deb
http://greenshoot.blogspot.com/

Cynthia Wainscott
http://www.exoticperujewelry.blogspot.com

Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp
http://skyejewels.blogspot.com/

B'sue Boutiques Creative Group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/bsueboutiques/