Semi-Wordless Wednesday

This is my first Wordless Wednesday post, and not entirely wordless (that may be impossible for me)


I took a bunch of pictures at my mother's house on Mother's day. This one is probably one of my favorites, it's my little sister being chased by one of the dogs. Good Times.. good times... I love my little brat!

Keep your eyes peeled for my first Person of Interest feature, will be posted soon!!

And the winner is....

First off I want to say WOWZERS!!! 57 entries! Thank you all for following/tweeting etc. about this giveaway. It definitely will not be the last.
And the winner this time is......


Insanity Kim!!!!

I'm very excited to say that I have received many responses to my call for "person's of interest" to feature here. I have already gotten the ball rolling on the first interview, that will be posted soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Hope you all had a great long weekend (for those of us lucky to have one). Ours was not too shabby, well, aside from the agony of trying to quit smoking, that's been pretty hard on me. (80+ hours smoke free..) I managed to keep myself pretty distracted. We went for a drive to High Point, the highest point in NJ, and I was surprised to find out they charge you to enter the park now-a-days. I don't remember ever paying when I was growing up, but it may just be that I don't remember.
We went for a walk and I got some pretty nice pictures..

ahhh... so pretty, looking at the photo I can almost feel the cool breeze again, it was really nice. I will not however, be going back to have a lil walk all that often. I'm used to my state parks/hiking trails to be no charge to enter. I'll be checking out Sparta Mountain this afternoon I think.

A feature and a giveaway!

Well well well, it seems I've gone from blogging on Thursdays to blogging on Tuesdays. How about we try for more than one post a week? It's a good idea, one I'll try to stick with, but I feel if I don't have anything good to post about I shouldn't post. Although sometimes I must admit my posts are more ramble than substance, but that's just the kinda gal I am!
Ok let us get down to the business at hand, I've been kicking a few things around about the blog recently, one is it could probably use a face lift, but I just don't have the patience to fiddle with html anymore, so unless someone wants to trade me a blog makeover for well, anything I could make for them, than this is what you get for now (sorry folks).

Next, I'd like to start doing a feature & interview at least once a week. This will give me something fun to do as well as get you guys some substantial posts of a mostly non-rambling nature! What am I going to feature? Well I hope to try something new, a lot of the blogs I follow who do features only feature etsy artists, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all, I love it; but I'd like to not have such a narrow parameter. Narrow Parameters?!?! are you cracked? some of you may be thinking. And that's a good question, well,yes I'm cracked, and I do realize the Vast vast vast amount of talent to be found on etsy, from around the globe and with many different styles and mediums. But my interests lie beyond just art, photography and crafting and that's evident in my blog. I'd like to keep the trend going.

Consider this the first call for interview subjects: Do you have a shop on etsy/artfire/1000 markets or where ever? Or maybe you write an interesting blog? Do you draw a print/webcomic? Write gadget or game reviews, short stories? Are you a photographer/artist/crafter who doesn't sell in the aforementioned markets? Are you an independent movie maker? Have I failed to mention something that you do that's pretty darn cool and you'd like to be featured? Shoot an email to majikalfae (at) yahoo.com tell me what you do, why you should be featured, include a few links so I can see how awesome you are. I'm the type of gal who'd love to feature everyone who inquires but I know that may not be realistic. But I will get back to anyone who is interested, don't worry I won't leave you hanging!

Speaking of features, I'm being featured on a blog right now! Debbie over at Polymer Clay Ponderings (I've mentioned her before) sent an interview that I took way too long to respond to, I sent it back yesterday and Wham! There it is today. Please go check it out, and the rest of Debbie's site(s). She's a pretty awesome lady, follow her blog, make her day!

Alrighty, the feature talk is all out of the way didn't I say something about a give away? I totally did! What am I giving away and how can you enter? Well I asked the Twitterverse to peruse my shop for suggestions on what to offer as the prize and votive holders won by a landslide!



Now since every one's home decor is different I'm not going to just choose a set (That's right I said a set of two candle holders) to send out. I'm going to let the winner choose the colors, and if those colors don't happen to be in stock, I will make them specially for you!
How do you enter to win? Well I had an idea for a contest but since this is my first give away I'll save the idea for next time and do a "traditional" give away first. So here's what you do, go to my shop and look around, come back here and post a comment with a link to your favorite item (no link no entry sorry) and that's it! Make sure you leave me a way to contact you should you win, your blog, email, etsy shop whatever. But that's not all! Want more entries, well you got 'em, 1 extra entry for each of the following:
1)follow my blog (already do, just let me know)
2)blog about my give away (please leave a link here after you post)
3)follow me on Twitter @claymuse (already do, just let me know)
4)Tweet about my give away (make sure to mention @claymuse so I'm sure to see!)
Make sure you mention in the comments any of the above so I don't miss your extra entries!
You have from now until next week Tuesday May 26th 2009 at 9am EST to enter. This is when I will enter every one's entries into a spread sheet and use a random number generator (Random.org) to choose a winner. I will mention the winner here on my blog as well as contact you directly for your shipping info (which will ONLY be used for shipping your prize)

Whew that was a long post wasn't it! and you only got product photos! how about a pretty picture of the tree in our front yard in full bloom just as the sun started to set?

Sickness came for a visit last week and wouldn't go home!

Those of you who are still stopping by to read my blather, thank you! And I can't believe you stick with me through my very sporadic once a week updates, thank you x3! As soon as I resolved myself to be a more constant blogger sickness descended on my house.
The man woke up the Sunday before last sick as a dog and spent all week miserable, in and out of work and going to the doctor twice. By the time Thursday (and the GWAR concert woot woot) rolled around I thought I had made it safely through his illness without catching it myself. Nope! Sniffles and a scratchy throat. I'm still stuffy but I didn't get it nearly as badly as the poor guy did so I'm really not complaining.

Since I haven't been around much I thought I'd post two recipes I copied from my Grams this weekend.
5 star Vodka Sauce
(for about 8-12 oz of pasta)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup onion finely chopped
1 garlic clove finely chopped
a 28oz can plum tomatoes with liquid
1/2 cup Vodka
a generous pinch of crushed red pepper (the recipe states 1/2 tablespoon, that is so very spicy, way way way too spicey, trust me!)
1/2 heavy cream
salt to taste

In skillet heat oil over medium heat, add onion and saute until tender, about 5 mins, stir in garlic and saute one minute. Add tomatoes and liquid, vodka and pepper. Simmer, stirring to break up tomatoes, until sauce is reduced and thickens, about 15 mins. Stir in cream and simmer until sauce thickens, about five minutes. Season with salt to taste.

Easy and oh so very yummy, it's even marked with VERY GOOD in her cookbook!

Second recipe, Greek Pizza
1 pound turkey, cut into thin strips or ground (we use ground)
2 cups thinly sliced onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon each lemon pepper, minced garlic, oregano
1 thin crust pizza shell (Boboli)
1 cup chopped tomatoes
12 kalamata olives pitted and slivered
1 package (6oz) crumbled feta

Combine turkey, onion, parsley, lemon pepper, garlic, oregano in a large bowl and toss. In a large skillet over med/high heat saute the turkey mixture in oil about 5-7 minutes or until turkey is no longer pink in center. Place pizza shell on baking sheet top with turkey mixture, tomatoes, olives and cheese. Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes.
**when using fresh tomatoes add at end as recipe states, if using a can of diced tomatoes toss them in at the beginning and saute them with the turkey mixture**

I have a package of spinach in the freezer dying to be used. I may just sub in spinach for parsley and nix the olives (i love em, the man, not so much)

Gosh, it's been so freakin long since Kim gave me this award, I don't think I'll be doing the whole pass along dealy right this very moment. But I have to post it here now and say a huge thank you to Kim!

This is to be given to the bloggers whom you visit everyday or every post, and who leave evidence that they visit you often as well. As Kim mentions this can be kinda hard to measure as people are sometimes shy to comment. (I read almost every blog I follow almost every post, but mostly feel like I don't have anything useful to say and don't comment, so I'm a big culprit here.)
Do me and yourself a favor and stop on over Kim's blog beacuse she's awesome, and funny, and well worth the read! Thanks again Kim, and know that even if I'm not piping up everyday, I'm so there laughing with you!