Where ya been? Whatcha been doin?

I'll probably never be one of those highly successful bloggers with thousands of followers. I should have known when I started this blog back in the beginning of this year that I would have a hard time sustaining a steady blogging or crafting schedule. I don't know how you people do it--posting every day, or even every other day, or even once or twice a week, which now seems completely daunting to me!

Much like my pool playing, I'm not always a consistent crafter. I tend to craft in spurts. I'll get a jag to do some sewing and then spend a few weeks sewing all kinds of crafty goodness.

Or I'll get a full head 'o steam about paint projects and start to paint anything that's not tied down.

Then, I'll suddenly drop painting and start decoupaging and then everybody gets decoupaged presents for Christmas that year.

But then, just as easily, I'll spend weeks not doing anything the least bit crafty or DIY in nature.

That's just how I roll.

And so it goes with the blog too. I've been as consistent with blogging as I have been with my pool playing. Maybe I'm not the compulsive type.

That being said, although I haven't been blogging a whole lot, I have been busy making jewelry in preparation for three craft shows the next three Saturdays. I'm hoping that you, my trusty followers, will appreciate that sometimes, rather than constantly writing about what we're doing, we have to spend time actually just doing so that we'll have something to write about later.

So I've been working up new jewelry designs using vintage buttons, shell buttons, vintage brooches and other pieces of old costume jewelry. I've also been using various wire-wrapping techniques.

I'm having so much fun with the button jewelry pieces particularly. They have that vintage shabby chic somethin-somethin' goin on, dontcha think?

Vintage mother-of-pearl buttons wired together with glass crystal-studded wires and strung on black silk.

Vintage mother-of-pearl buttons combined with vintage crystals and strung on organza ribbon.

Green glass teardrops wrapped in gold-tone copper wire

I call this "crystal chaos" -- little tiny crystals amidst a chaos of wire and a champagne glass pearl

A vintage costume brooch is the focal point of an asymmetrical necklace with smokey grey glass pearls and crackle ceramic beads.

Vintage chandelier crystal dangles from multi-colored glass pearls strung on organza ribbon

My love of the spiral design continues with these simple wire earrings.

More wire wrapped around Czech glass crystals

Pink-coated copper wire wrapped around rose quarts stones.

Thanks for taking a look.

If you LIKE Crazy Thrifty Crafts on Facebook, then you can keep up to date on my Craft Fair schedule, in case you desperately need to purchase some of my  jewelry.

Thanks!

I'm trick-or-treating at the following houses:

Savvy Southern Style Wow Us Wednesday
Shabby Creek Cottage Transformation Thursday
PRIMP Primp Your Stuff Wednesday
Made In a Day Made You Look Linky
Full Circle Creations All Star Block Party
The Shabby Nest Frugal Friday
My Repurposed Life Catch As Catch Can
504 Main Tickled Pink
Kammy's Korner Trash 2 Treasure Tuesday

Shut the front door!

It's suddenly kinda cold around here.

So I figured I'd boil up some sugar and dunk some fresh Ohio apples in it.

Oh yeah, I'm talkin' about boilin' down that sugar til it's golden, stirring for what seems like hours, watchin' the red line in the candy thermometer slowly crawl up to the magic number.

HOMEMADE CARAMEL APPLES, BABY!

This isn't my recipe.  It comes from Cooking Light Magazine. I'm a big fan of Cooking Light. I particularly like to buy the books they publish at the end of the year with the whole year's worth of recipes and NO ADS. Each one has an index so you can search by type of food or ingredient.

A link to the recipe is here.

Here's what you need to know about this recipe that is not mentioned in the instructions.

Use a good heavy-bottom or anodized aluminum pan, something that conducts heat well and evenly. Sugar and cream can burn or over flow easily. The heavy pan will help you manage the process. But importantly, DON'T WALK AWAY FROM THIS while it's boiling.

If you are not an experienced candy-maker--and I am not--you'll need every ounce of patience you can muster. Once the sugar and cream mixture gets to a certain temperature, the rise in temperature slows down considerably. What the recipe says takes about 45 minutes actually took more than an hour. And at some point you might be saying to yourself, "For cryin' out loud this is never going to get to 235 degrees!"

But it will, it will. You just have to be patient. Don't turn up the heat to try to speed up the process. My electric burner was only on "3" at the end boiling stage, maintaining a good rolling boil, requiring moderate stirring, not boiling over, but eventually reaching that thick consistency we all know an love.

Then as soon as it reached 235 degrees Fahrenheit, I transferred it to my old aluminum double boiler because it's narrow and deep and it worked great for dipping the apples.

The recipe said it would do 16 small apples. It did 10 medium size apples.

I chopped up peanuts, chocolate chips and butterscotch chips to dip them in. I dipped some in one topping, and I dipped a few in all three toppings. Of course the fatty toppings make up for the fact that it's a low fat Cooking Light recipe. As I think I've mentioned, I live to eat!

I'm falling down drunk at the following parties:

Debbiedoo's Newbie Party
Ironstone Nest Transformation Tuesday
Our Delightful Home Show Me What You Got
Skip to My Lou Made by You Monday
The Dedicated House Make it Pretty Monday

Success at the Rural Society Antique Show

Now what will this crazy thrifty crafter do with this banged-up setee?
I'm thinking RED.
Any thoughts?
Stay tuned.