Birthday - 2012

Happy Birthday To Me!

I'm so lucky, where I am celebrating my birthday all weekend long.  Let me go over what I've been doing so far. 

First, there was a Friday night Happy Hour at a marina bar called Rick's on the River in Tampa on the Hillsborough River.  We celebrated my friend Cathy's birthday which was last weekend and my birthday, which is Monday.  Unfortunately, I did not bring out my camera until after Cathy had gone home already.  Here are a few snapshots of some funny moments:

A few of the Ladies from the group

Hey, I'm supposed to be giving Vince a smooch!

Can't have a B-Day HH without doing a shot or two!

Even Elvis came to the HH!

Second, Vince took me out for dinner on Saturday night to Roy's Restaurant: Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine in Tampa.  He had made reservations and the menu had a nice birthday message in it.

A nice pic before we left

Birthday message with confetti

Ahi tuna for my app

Tiger shrimp with mixed veggie and rice

Another nice couple pic

Melting Hot Chocolate Souffle

The dinner was delicious.  Vince's appetizer was baked calamari and his entree was macadamia nut crusted mahi mahi.  Roy's has a gluten-free menu, which I had no problem choosing items from.  The dessert was so delicious, that between the two of us, it was gone faster than it took me to blow out my candle!

Tonight, Sunday, we are having Vince's family over for cornish game hens and gluten-free banana cupcakes.  Stay tuned for those yummy pictures.

Afternoon Tea

My birthday continues for one more weekend!  I'm so lucky!

Actually, during the week my bowling team, the Odd Balls,  threw me a mini party on our Wednesday bowling night.  They had a carrot cake, caramel hershey kisses, seven layer mexican dip, crackers and mini hot dog weiners.  It was great!  They got me a teacup planter with pink impatiens and a Fire King hobnail milkglass planter that the kisses were in.

Love it!!



Vintage glassware; I could do a whole post on Fire King! 


Then this weekend, there was High Tea served in my honor at the Royal Tea Room in Tampa.  Myself and seven of my girlfriends gathered and sipped tea served with scones, finger sandwiches, savory pastries, mini cupcakes and fruit-filled chocolate cups. 

Yummy in my tummy!

There is an order that you are supposed to eat this delicious food in and it is from the bottom up.  First the tea was poured, which the first type was an apricot tea and then we chose a strawberry-chocolate tea.  Normally they only serve one tea type a day, but we insisted on the strawberry-chocolate tea too.  We pushed politey. :-)

We first ate a blueberry scone with jam and clotted cream.  From the second tier we ate cucumber sandwiches and a black bean quesadilla pastry pocket.  Finally, the top and third tier, were vanilla cupcakes with frosting and chocolate cups filled with a bit of kiwi, strawberry, blueberry and raspberry, anchored in the cup with a bit of whipped cream.  It was delicious!

The Tea Tables

It was a lovely time and after all of that tea and scrumpets, my friend that set-up the tea party had a cake for me to blow out candles that were teacups and a teapot!

Finishing touch!

Yes, they even sang to me!  We were the loudest group in the tea room, as if we wouldn't be.  We acted like we were the only ones in that place.  Where were our manners?!


The look of just being sung to!

After tea we headed to this deli called Datz, that is also a restaurant/bar where they have 20 plus beers on tap and wine galore!  Instead of having a beer or wine after all of that caffeine, I chose to have gelato!

Strawberry Gelato!

I really did not need to eat this and this did put me over the edge, but it was soooo good.  We hung out just for a bit and then we all went our separate ways for the rest of the evening (by this time it was after 5pm).  But, we took one last pic before we left:

The Ladies of the Tea Party (at the bar) hehe

It did seem a bit incongruent to attend a tea party and then go and have a beer!  But, it was a great time; one that I would love to do again.

To end the evening festivities, one of gals and I went thrift store shopping.  Yes, even more incongruency going on, but I enjoy thrift store shopping for cool glassware and odds and ends.  My motto is you just never know what you are going to find!  That is what I enjoy the most, seeing something new each time I go.

I do believe that that was my last birthday party of the year.  I do still have lots more Cheesecake Factory carrotcake cheesecake in the freezer, so I can still celebrate anytime!  Thank you to everyone who helped me ring in my 35th year!  Let's do it again next April!

Glitter Candle

Alright everyone, let me introduce you to my first guest blogger, Crystal.  She is from Rhode Island and is one of my very good friends.  We met through my first "real job" in Boston, MA.  When we first met, we chatted and found out that we were in the same Organic Chemistry class in college, but we barely remember each other.  Strange how paths can cross multiple times and then one day it clicks.  Anyway, I am very excited to host today's guest blog post.  Here it is:

So, it's Thanksgiving Eve, and I realize I need a hostess gift.  Being a Scrooge I didn’t want to spend too much and I thought about Nancy’s sentiment of giving hand-made gifts.  Now people usually “Oooo” and ”Ahhh” over various things I make.  While I acknowledge that I have some degree of skill I never feel totally justified receiving their praise.  Why?  Because I steal ideas from the internet or just follow a pattern.  The “art” isn’t really my own creation.  This time was different, I came up with my own craft and felt that it was worthy of a guest blog.

At first I got a really cheap ($1) candle.  It was gold and really pretty.  But when I took the wrapper off most of the gold came off with it.  They went back to the store.  Next I got a red/maroon candle from Target for about $2.



Plain 'ole candle



The next thing I did was to print a “D” for my hostess last name. I used Edwardian Script in Word with a font size of 150 bolded. I then taped it to the candle.

A "D" for Delicious (actually the Hostess' last initial) 



The next step was to use a utility knife to cut out the letter.  I would have used an Exacto knife but for some reason mine hides from me whenever I go to use it.  I didn’t gouge too deep, just enough to outline the letter.  I peeled away the black just so you can see but it really isn’t necessary.



Exacto, where are you when I need you?

At this point I was at a loss as for how to make a nice groove to hold my glue.  I wanted to create a kind of well so that the glue would just sort of flow into it.  I ended up using just a regular old pen.  Note that this chosen pen will get so waxed up it will never write again.  Hey, maybe that makes this a “green” project since you can repurpose a pen that just won’t write.  You know you have them in that junk drawer!  Anyway, I just get “writing” with the pen and digging out my groove.  It made a terrible mess which required me skitteling over to the trash to brush myself off.  Finally I went outside and shook like a wet dog; that worked.

The next pic is a little dark but I wanted to show how the etching looked.  Let’s pause here to say I am not a photographer.  I can’t take a decent picture to save my soul.



Etched out area



I then took some plain Elmer’s glue and very carefully filled in the little canals I had created.  I went through all the trouble of making these canals because I was afraid if I just wrote in glue that it would just fall off because of the waxy slipperyness of a candle.  I also didn’t think I could get the fancy contours of the line for the letter without some guidance.  It worked out pretty well.



Carefully fill in letter



I took some silver glitter and sprinkled it over the glue.  I was very generous but being Scroogey as I did it over a newspaper so that I could recover any un-stuck glitter. 



Crafting's not cheap, so save that excess glitter, ladies!


Here you can see how it looks after just shaking off the excess glitter.


Almost there!



Now you have to let it dry for a good while.  Then take a stiff, thin brush like this one...

Brush to brush 

...and gently brush away the random, spare glitter.  Now you have your finished product.  I think it is beautiful if I do say so myself.  I will feel great giving this gift and comfortable for once taking the praise I hope it will receive.



Beautiful, personalized gift!



Lastly, I want to say how much extra time it took to turn this project into a blog.  I am very grateful for Nancy’s hard work each week.  I had no idea how much it took to document a simple process.  Thanks for the blog and thanks for letting me guest!

Well, that was a great project, Crystal!  Thank you and you're welcome for being my guest blogger!  I love how the last pic has one glitter piece that is giving the little "bling" wink to everyone.  Let me know how everyone makes out with this clever project.

Anyone is welcome to guest blog, just email me and I can tell you what I need from you.  :-)