Ribbon and Pearls

I have seen a few SUPER cute necklaces lately that incorporate grograin ribbon and pearls. I really liked the look of them, but just couldn't let myself spend $20 or more for a necklace that I knew I could make for a lot less money. So that is exactly what I did:)
I purchased jewlery cording, a string of {faux} pearls, and some grograin ribbon at Hobby Lobby. I spent a total of $5 on all three items that I used in this project:)
I started out by cutting a generous length of ribbon and then attaching a starter pearl to the ribbon with a needle and the jewelery cording. Make sure to leave a pretty good length of extra ribbon on the end to use as the tie.
Then I alternated adding a pearl....
and making a loop of ribbon.
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There are a lot of different ways to do the ribbon, you can do a small loop, wrap the ribbon around a pearl, or even do two pearls in a row and then wrap the ribbon around both of them. It was basically trial and error to see what would work and what looked the best.
I kept alternating pearls and ribbon until the necklace was the lenght I wanted, then I tied off the last pearl and made sure it was attached securely {I had to sneak in a little hot glue to make sure that the cording didn't slip and let the two end pearls fall off}.
Then I made a matching bracelet using the leftover ribbon and pearls!
They are not perfect by any means, but I think they both turned out really cute and I got a necklace and bracelet set for only $5!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
******************************** This has NOT been a tought week for Eli. He has NOT been {almost} hurt more than a few times this week. More than one of those times was NOT my fault! I did NOT almost knock him unconscious with the refrigerator door! It did NOT go a little like this:

Me: "Eli, let's get your juice cup."

Eli: "Jooo"

THUMP

I did NOT have an almost half hour battle with Henry over 7 butter beans! He did NOT refuse to eat them, and I did NOT refuse to let him get up from the table without at least trying to eat them. My children are always compliant and never refuse to eat yummy and healthy vegetables!

I did NOT decided to buy some cute Easter candy to try and fill my cookie jar up. I did NOT buy two bags of M&M's thinking that should be plenty for decorations and to snack on too. I did NOT realize that it is going to take way more than two bags to fill up my {apparently much larger than I thought it was} cookie jar!

I did NOT get a new lens for my camera this week! I am NOT SUPER excited about it, but that does NOT mean that I need a new camera bag to hold all my stuff! I have NOT found two bags HERE and HERE that I really like. Now I DON'T just have to talk myself into picking just one and buying it!

Never an Empty Cookie Jar

Every time I walk by and see my cookie jar looking like this: I feel a little sad for it!

Shouldn't a cookie jar always have cookies in it! I mean, that is it's job:)

So whenever my cookie jar is empty, I just have to make something to fill it up with! This time I tried my hand at an old favorite that my mom used to make.

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup milk
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups quick cooking oats

Mix the sugar, cocoa, milk, margarine, and salt together in a pot. Bring it to a rolling boil and let it boil for about 2 minutes {some recipes say 1 minute, but wait until the end of the post to see why I say 2 instead}.

Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla until mixed well. Then mix in the oats.

Drop the mixture by heaping tablespoons onto wax paper or aluminum foil.
Make sure to scrape the pot clean, because you don't want to waste any of this yumminess!
After the cookies have cooled and set, you are ready to fill up that empty cookie jar.
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Unfortunately, my cookie jar still looks like this:
In my impatience, I only boiled the sugar/cocoa mixture for a little over a minute. So instead of beautiful No Bake cookies, I still have an empty cookie jar...and a big pile of choco-goo {that tasted great anyway}!

I will be trying this recipe again soon, so my poor cookie jar won't be empty for long:)