Home-Made HEALTHY power bars, Cuff Earrings!

In attempt to eat healthier and also save money, I made my won power bars recipe.

I have an amazing friend who is a nutritionalist-- and she makes this amazing bread pudding dessert out of sprouted bread and delicious chocolates. I've been making a drier version of it, and slightly more toned down with less sugar and things like that so it can be consumed as a power bar.

I don't have an exact recipe for it, but here's the gift of the ingredients I used. It's pretty crucial you keep it whole grain only or else it defeats the purpose of it.

INGREDIENTS:
- 5 -6 slices of whole grain, organic sprouted bread (you can buy this at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, not  more expensive than regular bread)
- 3-5 Tablespoons Organic Blonder Coconut Palm brand sugar (low glycemic index)
- 2 TBS honey
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1.5 cups milk (I used low-fat)
- 3 eggs (only 2 pictured, helps hold the mixture together)
- nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit to taste and cocoa powder
OPTIONAL but recommended: additional flax seeds, amarynth flour, oatmeal





Cut bread into small cubes:


Combine ALL WET INGREDIENTS + sugar and honey/cocoa powder if you used any if you want chocolate flavor.

Put the cubed bread in there, LET THE BREAD SOAK UP the wet mixture.
It should be pretty slimy and gross looking, but I promise it'll be delicious.

Add in the dry ingredients, mix until combined:



Put into 9 X 13 pan:


Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. When a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, it's ready! Do note oven temperature vary from oven to oven!

Unfortunately, I did not remember to take a photo of it when it was done, oops! But it was delicious and co-workers loved it. Woot! I think I'll make more since it only lasted 2 days...

But things are only as healthy as your portions, so just because in inherently healthy doesn't means you can eat  half of it in one sitting. Though you'll want to.

In jewelry news, I've replenished the stock of cuffs :)
Made 3 new cuffs yesterday!








Also, if you are a reader and you'd like to score a FREE SAMPLE of my new Lip Balm (this is NOT released yet!), please send me an email here: heqicrystaldesigns@hotmail.com and name the message "lip balm sample". US Customers only please (sorry!!!) and don't forget to include your FULL NAME and SHIPPING ADDRESS.


Till next time,
Lisa
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Red Velvet Rum Cake, Bracelet, Earrings

Last year at the Lafayette Arts & Wine Festival, we had this delicious rum cake. The bf's brother brought it up a couple weeks ago and it's been on my mind since.

I bought red velvet cake mix originally intended for cake pops... but then Brian suggested: why not make red velvet rum cake?

... sooOoOOooOOOOO taking a jump in the dark. Realized that although not very popular, this wasn't an unheard of idea.

This is how I made mine...

Ingredients:
- 1 package
- 1 cup dark spiced rum (I used Captain Morgan or something like that)
- 1 3.5 oz package of vanilla instant pudding
- whatever amount of vege oil it says on cake package
- whatever number of eggs it says on cake package
- for the glaze: 1 cup super, 1/4 cup water
- optional: frosting + nuts
DO NOT use water in your cake mix!

Dump the cake mix, 1/2 cup of rum, eggs, veggie oil, and pudding in a mixer, blend till smooth. Scoop em into :
12 cupcake mold pan: bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, it's done when you poke a toothpick in and it comes out clean
OR
Whole bundt cake, it'll take at least 45 minutes.
Remember, oven temperatures may vary, so check your cake and revise cooking temp/time accordingly.

MEANWHILE, make a glaze by boiling the 1 cup of sugar with the 1/4 cup of water for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from head, stir in last 1/2 cup of rum.

Take your cake out of the oven-- brush the tops of the cakes with the glaze you've made, and then let it rest for 10 minutes or so until it absorbs. Repeat when the cake cools a bit, and glaze as many surfaces as you can-- since the glaze has a strong rum flavor, glaze to your liking :)

And tada--- I baked mine in mini bundt cake pans. I would want to use muffin pans w/liners next time for aesthetics..

... instant pudding is the secret to an extremely moist cake, methinks. It was only okay though, taste wise. Too  "chocolatey"-bitter. I want to try with yellow cake mix next time.

I also made a new bracelet, as well as cuff earrings!



Remember that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month! All proceeds of any PINK products on my website will be donated to charity. Check status of donation on the website :)

Lisa

heqicrystaldesigns@hotmail.com

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Vegas, New Jewelry :) Canadian Postal Strike

Hi all!
Some friends and I went to Vegas for 5 days-- a pretty long visit, and we were hoping to unwind, relax, and take it slow.. but it's Vegas, so that didn't happen, haha.

I wanted to share a couple of photos with you :)

We were able to score a killer deal at the MGM Grand Signature Suites
(we were in the uppermost penthouse suite, 38th floor! crazy. It was cheaper to stay here for 4 nights than it was to stay at Circus Circus for 2 ... and those 2 nights sucked and the room was awful)


Oh, here's a creepy photo I caught of our friend Keith on the plane:


Our suite was beautiful. It had everything.... even the kitchen sink :P






The view:


Too high, lol


To our particular group of people, FOOD was the most important attraction of Vegas. That means buffets!

Some Aria food porn:








We hit up this great sushi joint called GOYEMON sushi (YELP IT!! It was awesome reviews, and I can see why). It's a sushi buffet off the strip, about $30 (same price as any buffet at a better hotel on the Strip, like MGM/Bellagio for dinner) AND SO WORTH IT. You can order HALF rolls instead of whole, so you can try SO MANY different things on their menu. Simply put: I would go back to Vegas, and go to this again without a second thought. This place was DEFINITELY the highlight of the food portion of the trip.









BTW, they had TORO. It was amazing.







And the deserts were AWESOME. Tofu chceesecake, fried ice cream, maccha creme brulee, maccha cake:



Simply delicious.

Check out the cute cup they served gelato in at the Wynn!


And candied apples are and AMAZING idea, too bad it was too difficult to really eat:






A random shot of Brian & I at some Irish pub between Luxor and some other resort.


And while we were on vacation, my parents were kind enough to take care of the kittens-- which are HUGE now, haha. Almost the size of a chicken:

(yah, that's my parents' chicken in the backyard, the kittens like to watch her from behind the glass door)

I also went back to Davis to day get some order finished (thank you all for your patience while I was gone!) and realized that... if you're from CANADA:
Due to the Canadian postal service strike, shipments to Canada are delayed indefinitely till the strike is over (which I have no idea when). If you'd like to upgrade to EXPRESS, it'll be $38 USD extra (sorry, I don't make the rules :(... This is very unfortunate, but we'll just have to work around it.

New goodies are in order :)

MOP cat earrings, woohoo! I spent about $100 a few weeks ago for more MOP beads, and they're here! YAY


Kawaii lollis back in stock:


Some cool classy gold filigree dangles:


And a cuff set:


Finally, some crown earrings:

^ the only pair I had sold, but if I get a lot of requests, I may restock.

Enjoy your weekend!
I'll talk to you all soon :)
Things are FINALLY settling down around here, and I'll be starting my first job on the 5th, I'm so excited.

love,
Lisa
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In response to popular demand... :)

... I spent the last couple of days making ONE OF A KIND cuffs. A lot of you gals like how that I offer designs which are NEVER duplicated, so here are 3 cuff sets which will NEVER be duplicated in the same way for ANYONE. Generally for sets like these, I make them with materials I don't get in often :) Enjoy!

Please note, making these cuffs is extremely hard on my the joints in my hand-- so I think I may need to take a small break after this batch :X


^ This set is especially special to me. If you've been following a while, I think you'll agree that something like this just completely expresses my style, colorful, very spring-inspired.... as is the following set:



I originally designed this for a customer, but I mis-interpreted her desires, so I'll be redesigning her set anew. I thought I'd put it on sale here instead of taking it apart:



These go FAST, so please act quickly if something catches your eye :)

And for those wondering how I personally wear my cuff sets, I find that this position is the most secure for me.

However, since everyone's ear size and shape is different, you might need to pink/enlarge your cuff to make it fit your ear better.

Also, winner of EYE CREAM is petitechouxx
Please email me your full name/shipping address, and I'll get you your eye cream to you ASAP!

love,
Lisa
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Quick Update: Cuffs!

Thank you for answering my previous question regarding packaging!

Just a general note: I do offer separate boxes upon YOUR request. It says on the website there's an extra charge, but generally, if it's not over like.... 5 boxes, I won't charge =)

Also, Pauline: I have a tiny wrist, maybe 6 inches around? The pixie cuff still fits me because I can bend the wire to make it fit =)

For those of you who haven't seen yet, I've restocked some feather masquerade earrings, as well as the popular crowns/pearls & plumeria keepsake. See them HERE. Very limited amount of all earrings, so get em while you can.

Also made some CUFF earrings, as per your request.
ALL of the cuffs are HANDMADE-- using sterling silver wire, which is why they are a little pricier than other solid cuffs you may have seen around. All the components (stud, chains, etc) are also sterling silver-- so everything is high quality.

They're adjustable-- but please be gentle. Sterling silver is not the hardest wire. This makes them bendable and hold their shape relatively well, but they may not withstand things such as being stepped on, etc.

Please keep in mind that because every single cuff is hand made, they may not be the same size-- I try to make these as uniform as possible, but there CAN be very, VERY slight inconsistencies, should NOT be an issue.

So here they are!
They're quite simple for now. I've been really busy these last few days preparing for move in/ move out -- leases here end August 31, so it's quite chaotic. I plan to make very elaborate ones later ;)





See them HERE.

Enjoy!
- Lisa
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