Summer Cleanout Part 2 + Giveaway!

Tuesday got away from me, so I'm a little delayed in posting part 2 of my jewelry clearance sale. I'm taking my Pink Maple jewelry line in a new direction so it must be out with the old and in with new! As I mentioned on Monday, rather than posting these earrings in my Etsy shop, I'm offering them on my blog first at a greater discount.

The details:
All earrings are made with solid sterling silver hooks and Swarovski crystal unless otherwise noted. All are $4 to $5 (originally $9 to $18), plus $2 shipping total (no matter how many pairs you buy). If you're interested in purchasing, just send me an email at pinkmapledesign@gmail.com and I'll forward you a Paypal invoice.

I'm not generally marking items as "sold" because I have more than one of most pieces. So items from Monday are also still available. Happy shopping :)

This style has always been one of my post popular. The light blue beads are glass and resemble milk glass. With light rose crystal - $5
1.5" including hook

Light green and Amethyst - $5
1.5" including hook

Blue glass beads with Olivine Crystal - $5
2.75" long including hook

Fuschia & Light Green with Glass Leaf - $5
2.75" including hook

Fuschia & Olivine - $5
1.75" including hook

Light Amethyst with Green Glass Beads - $5
just over 2.75" including hook

BONUS GIVEAWAY!
If you Tweet or Blog about the sale and leave a comment letting me know, I'll enter you in my giveaway for a key fob (your choice - dachsunds or blue leaves) and a surprise!

The ribbons I made the key fobs with are designed by one of my favorite crafty bloggers, Jessica Jones of How About Orange.

Pucker Up!

Recently, my mother and I were treated to an at-home Mary Kay color consultation. I had never tried Mary Kay products before - I have my favorite brands and I tend to stick to them. But I have to say I was very impressed with their color line and ended up getting a bunch of lip products. They had SO many colors of lip glosses and balms to choose from! Luckily, our host was very good about helping us pick which ones would look best on us.

Their liquid lip color is a pleasant cross between a lipstick and a lip gloss. It has the benefit of being rich and creamy like a gloss, but it lasts a long time like a lipstick. I also liked the tinted lip balm with SPF 15, an essential for the summer. Both were a good size to fit in your handbag or pocket. Some glosses come in huge containers that in my experience tend to leak all over the place and get all gross and sticky before you can finish them!

I also found a product that I know will be my saving grace once winter returns: Satin Lips Mask and Balm. The mask is a delicate lip scrub that you leave on for a minute or two to buff off that awful dry skin that tends to occur on lips in winter.

Blog Sale - Summer Cleanout!

I'm planning an overhaul of my jewelry line - focusing on a smaller number of big, statement pieces incorporating elements like ribbon and crochet - rather than the more classic, simple styles I've been making in the past. I want to try to better integrate my jewelry with my mother's crochet accessory side of Pink Maple Design. SO that means it's summer clearance time!

Rather than posting these earrings in my Etsy shop, I'm offering them on my blog first at a greater discount. All earrings are made with solid sterling silver hooks and Swarovski crystal unless otherwise noted. All are $4 to $5 (originally $9 to $18), plus $2 shipping. If you're interested in purchasing, just send me an email at pinkmapledesign@gmail.com and I'll forward you a Paypal invoice.

Top: Black, White, and Crystal - $4
Bottom: Black and Fuschia - $4
Both are 1.5" including hook

Top: Tanzanite & Black Diamond - $4, 1.25" including hook
Bottom: Dark Amethyst & Olivine - $5, 1.5" including hook

Amethyst & Olivine - $4
1.5" including hook

Pale Rose Glass Beads & Brown - $5
2" including hook

Shades of Fuschia & Amethyst - $5
2.5" including hook

Cloisonné Flowers with Light Amethyst - $5
1.75" including hook

Olivine & Brown - $5
1.875" including hook

I'll be posting more tomorrow!

Boats, Boats, Boats!

I just realized that I had completely forgotten about my intended second post about my trip to Baltimore a couple weekends ago! As I mentioned before, the letter of the weekend was "B" - I wore Bermuda shorts all weekend, watched baseball, and saw lots of BOATS! Baltimore's inner harbor area boasts 4 historic ships that you can tour. Above is a photo of the Lightship Chesapeake, completed in 1930 , and the USS Torsk, a WWII submarine. Below is the USS Constellation, built in 1797. The fourth ship is the Coast Guard Cutter Taney, known as the last surviving warship of Pearl Harbor. For some reason I didn't take any photos of the Taney, but it was one of the most interesting of the bunch because it was commissioned for so long-from 1936 to 1986. Imagine how different things would have been for the young men serving on it during Pearl Harbor as compared to those serving on it in the 1980's. It was interesting to see how the ship changed through time as things like tv's were added.

Inside the Constellation-the captain's dining room and his stateroom:

Me up on the deck:

The sub was really interesting, but totally claustrophobic! Here is one of the sleeping areas - this was not even the smallest area. There was another spot where people slept in what looked like a machine room, but the area was literally too small for me to get a wide enough angle to take a photo!

The tiny kitchen:

In addition to touring the historic ships, there are lots of opportunities to get out on the water yourself. These paddleboats were so cute. I did not try them though, as it was way too hot to do anything nearing exercise!

We also took scenic harbor taxi boats to Fort McHenry (where the Star Spangled Banner was written) and another neighborhood, Fell's Point. Along the way I saw even more boats: small sailboats, huge private yachts, giant tankers, a Red Cross hospital ship, and the Baltimore City Fire Department boats.


p.s. Monday I'll be posting a big clearance sale of my handmade jewelry. I'm taking the line in a new direction this fall so I need to clear things out!

Travel to the Riviera this Summer!

I've been reading quite a few good books lately that would make great summer beach reads, so I thought it was high time to share some of my favorites!

One series that I'm in the middle of is the "Rather" series by CA Belmond. I've read the first book, A Rather Lovely Inheritance and the second book A Rather Curious Engagement - both of which I found in the Bargain section of Borders for under $5. These books are wonderful escapism. They remind me of a more elegant Romancing the Stone set in Europe. The title character, an American named Penny Nichols, follows mysteries and romance from London to the south of France and Monte Carlo to Italy.

What I liked the most about these books is that the author's descriptions of the gorgeous locales is very accurate. In the second book, Penny travels to Lake Como where she enjoys dinner on L'Isola Comacina. Belmond provides exquisite descriptions of the dinner, which after a bit of Googling, I discovered were 100% accurate right down to the style of china!

Although fair warning--after reading these books you will find yourself wishing to have a sudden inheritance from a distant relative drop in your lap!!

Happy Reading!

Happy Summer!

In honor of the summer solstice and first official day of summer, I decided a 4-day work week was in order this week and enjoyed a beach day today!
p.s. I love this Lilly print don't you?!

Surviving the Office Air-Conditioning!

After my very unseasonal post last Thursday on sweaters, I had some time to browse in J Crew in Boston while filling some time between the end of the workday and attending the Red Sox game. Appropriately, what did I end up finding? . . . a sweater!

I got this cashmere cardigan:

But in this color (bright plum):

I actually wore it yesterday with black cropped pants and a white button-down with the sleeves cuffed up. And for once I was not freezing in my office air conditioning!

Baseball!

Here are some pics of my weekend with Red Sox Nation in Baltimore! The number of Sox fans at the park and around Baltimore was simply amazing, you almost forget that you're not in Boston!

Camden Yards is a beautiful ballpark, I particularly liked the HUGE scoreboard. Our seats were on the club level, which is the lower of the two upper decks. A really nice feature of the club level is that the entire area behind the stands where the eating and bar areas are is air-conditioned. So anytime you need a break from the heat, you can pop out there and relax at a table and watch an inning in cool comfort!

We stayed at the same hotel as the team, so we had lots of fun throughout the weekend just sitting in the hotel lobby and catching the players and NESN tv announcers headed to or from the game. (No photos from the hotel though - they were prohibited for security reasons by the hotel management.)

My parents and I at the park entrance.
We traveled with a group of family and friends which was a lot of fun!

The giant scoreboard (really nice, but I still prefer the hand-operated Green Monster scoreboard at Fenway!):

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This summer I'm once again growing pots of parsley and basil . . . which leaves the question: what to do with all those fresh herbs?

Last summer I made a delicious artichoke and parmesan spread with fresh parsley for an outdoor dinner party that I hosted. But I never really used the basil, beyond giving my mom some to use in pasta dishes. (Now, part of the reason was because I grew the wrong type of basil last year . . . but that's another story.)

This peach-basil vinaigrette recipe from Southern Living sounds really simple, I will definitely be trying it as soon as this year's basil gets big enough. It seems like it would be a nice fruity alternative to the seemingly ubiquitous low-fat raspberry vinaigrette.

• 1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large peach, chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• --> Whisk together the first 5 ingredients until the sugar is dissolved. Then whisk in the chopped peach and the basil. Serve immediately. (Southern Living suggests it with a fresh tomato salad.)

(Image from Cookthink.com, which has a good article on storing fresh herbs.)

Sweaters?

Yes . . . sweaters. I know what you're thinking: Has this girl gone looney? It's June! Well, it may be June but my office is freezing and thus, sweaters are on my mind.

J Crew has some particularly cute ones in their sale section right now:

Lightweight Trifle Cardigan

Linen Cotton Shawl-Collar Cardigan

Torque Moto Cardigan

Ruffled Celosia Cardigan

The Torque sweater was in the front of the store when I was in last night to return a t-shirt. I was very tempted to get it, but I'm hoping it might go down again in price so instead I satisfied myself with two leather headbands at a mere $4.99 each!

The Letter of the Day is B

My weekend in Baltimore can be summed up with words that start with "B":

(1) I traveled from Boston to Baltimore to see the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles play baseball . . .

(2) I wore Bermuda shorts, both literally and figuratively . . .

J Crew Bermuda shorts

Essie nail polish in "Bermuda shorts"

(3) and I saw LOTS of boats.

Photos to come, I promise!

Red Sox Nation on the Road

I will be up tomorrow at the crack of dawn to catch a 7:15am flight to Baltimore for a long weekend to see two Red Sox - Orioles games and do some sightseeing. This will be my first time seeing a Sox game outside Fenway Park so I'm looking forward to a unique experience. (Although I am most certainly not looking forward to waking up before 5am, especially because I won't be able to resist staying up to watch the Real Housewives of NYC finale tonight--I must see the trainwreck that is Kelly to the end!)

I'll be tweeting throughout the weekend, catch me @pinkmaple!

A couple pics from my last game at Fenway:

Latest Music Downloads

I just realized that I had money left over on an iTunes giftcard from ages ago, so I decided to finish it up and buy a bunch of songs to update my iPod:

All the Right Moves, One Republic
Falling Slowly, Lee and Crystal from American Idol
Need You Now, Lady Antebellum (Yes, I know, totally overplayed - but I actually don't spend a whole lot of time in the car so I'm not quite sick of hearing it on the radio yet!)
This Afternoon, Nickelback
California Gurls, Katy Perry (I'm sure this one is destined to be this summer's #1 overplayed song!)
Stairway to Heaven, Led Zepplin (I've been meaning to add this classic to my collection for a while)

I also recently bought the latest Glee soundtrack for my mom, so I'm sure I'll be "borrowing" it to add to my iPod! What songs are you downloading this week?