Cranberry Olive Oil Cake

I've been following the Mediterranean Diet which focuses on lots of colorful veggies, whole grains, fish high in Omega-3's, and healthy fats in the form of nuts and olive oil.  Meanwhile I  had some cranberries to use up in the freezer.  (Being a New Englander exiled to the South, I stock up on them when they show up in stores in the fall, and hoard them all year long in my freezer.)  So the question becomes, how do you use up cranberries in a baked good that tastes great, but also adheres to the whole grains and healthy fats Mediterranean Diet?  Make an olive oil cake!

Cranberry Olive Oil Cake 
Ingredients:
grated orange zest from 1-2 oranges
1 cup coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
2 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 ounce bag cranberries
3 eggs at room temperature
juice from 1-2 oranges, plus water to make 1 cup
1 cup olive oil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a bunt pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the eggs together with the sugar and orange zest.  Beat for a few minutes and then slowly pour in the apple sauce, orange juice and then the olive oil.

With the mixer on low, slowly add in the flour mixture, leaving out 1/4 cup of flour.  Mix until all the wet & dry ingredients have been incorporated.

Toss the cranberries with the remaining flour. 

Gently fold in the flour coated cranberries with a spatula.  Do not crush the berries. 

Pour in the batter into the bundt pan and bake on the center rack in your oven for 1 hour. 

Remove from oven and let cool almost completely before removing it from the bundt pan.

If desired you can top the finished (cooled) cake with a powdered sugar glaze, or a drizzle of honey and some chopped nuts, but I found it lovely just the way it was.

Purple Impression Jasper & Bronzite Necklace

I received these lovely purple stone beads in my welcome goody bag at last year's Adornments Retreat.  I believe they are dyed Impression Jasper & Bronzite.  I loved that the focal set was matched with a long strand of smaller beads to use with them.   

I paired them with some antiqued copper spacer beads, to highlight the shades of brown and copper that fairly glow in the stone.  Simple, but easy to wear with lots of things.  Also, a nice little stash-busting project.

Crystal Skull Earrings

These poor little earrings have been 'in process' for ages!  I bought the Swarovski crystal skulls when they first were released 2-3 years ago.  I knew I wanted to make earrings, but every time I tried, I had trouble getting any sort of design to work with them.  They are clearly an awesome little focal bead, but they needed to be shown off in just the right way.  So they have sat on my jewelry work surface in a little catch-all bowl for all that time.

I realized they needed little crowns about a year ago, and found some cool ones that fit just right in my stash.  I used flush cutters to remove the charm loop, and then some metal files to clean up the cut.  Since they are pewter, the metal was easy to file down.  I glued the crowns in place with E6000, and tried again to make some earrings out of them, but nothing seemed to *work* just right.  Eventually the poor little things got dumped back into that catch-all bowl.

Finally, as I was doing a big clean of my studio last week, I came across them again, along with two in process necklaces.  I cleaned up everything else, but pulled these out and placed them dead center in my empty work space, so I'd have to see them everyday until I did something with them.  I spent well over an hour futzing with them last night, and another 30 minutes this morning, until I finally came up with something I'm happy with.  I added tassels of gunmetal chain, along with a few AB2X crystal beads to match the skulls, and finished them with some tiny gunmetal bead caps.  And now I'm wearing them around the house feeling completely badass.   

Iridescent Crystal Shard Necklace w/Apatite Gemstone Beads

I picked up the strand of these iridescent crystal shard beads for some project on Craftster, back before it died.  They were neat looking and on clearance, so they came home with me.  Sadly they didn't end up getting used for any of those projects, and they've sat on my desk for a while since.  I just couldn't figure out exactly what color I wanted to use with them.  I knew I wanted to use one of the highlight colors from the iridescent finish, but nothing I had seemed just right.

Finally while digging through my stash for something else, I bumped into a strand of apatite beads I had purchased on a whim because the color was so beautiful.  They perfectly matched one of the highlight tones, and brightened up the overall tone better than something dark blue or purple would have.  Back in December I strung them onto beading wire, and the whole piece has sat there since, until yesterday when I decided it had to get off my table.  I ran some errands, and while I was out I picked up the wire guards I needed to finish it off, and 5 minutes later it was all done!  It's amazing how often a project languishes in want of 5 minutes of work. 

The necklace display often shows things in an unrealistic way, as its neck is much smaller than a human neck, so it appears to hang lower than it really does when place on the display. In the top picture I'm holding it pulled up on the form, which shows a more realistic view of how it hangs on the neck.  The lower pic shows it just resting on the form.

Gemstone Friendship Pendants

I've had a rough couple of months, and two dear friends have really been there for me throughout them.  I wanted to make them each a little something to thank them for all their love and kindness. 
The first is a pendant, made from a kit from Candie Cooper.  It includes a double point of quartz crystal, along with rose quartz, rose glass, and gold beads from TierraCast, on a base from Beadalon.  It's been wrapped in thin gold wire, and suspended from a burnt orange cord with sliding knots, so it can be worn as a long pendant, or a short choker.

I was drawn to the kit because the rose quartz is representative of caring, kindness, and friendship, while the quartz crystal is said to enhance the properties of the stones around it.  I also knew the recipient would like the deep orange color of the cord. 

The second pendant was for a friend who is trying to get pregnant.  So this is my little fertility 'good wish' for her & her partner.  It contains amethyst, rose quartz, aventurine, aquamarine, clear quartz, and two charms, a heart, and a little goddess figure.

The chain is sterling, and the findings are all either sterling, or sterling filled.  The charm of the goddess is from TierraCast.  The amethyst is for clarity, balance and protection; rose quartz is for unconditional love; aventurine for lighthearted sexuality and luck; aquamarine for calming, and clear quartz to enhance the properties of the stones around it. 

I hope it brings her some luck, and lets her know there's someone on her side, as she embarks on this journey. 

Crocheted Water Bottle Sleeve

My resolution (for lack of a better term), was to take care of myself a little better this year.  One of the ways I'm doing that is by eliminating plastics from my kitchen.  I wanted to replace my plastic water tumbler with a glass one.  I found a lovely glass bottle with a bamboo cap at Target.  I had been hoping to find one with a silicone sleeve to protect it from getting knocked around, but you can't say no to clearance prices, so I decided to make a sleeve myself.  I crocheted this from some Premier wool-free sock yarn in color Rainforest.  There was no pattern, I just started hooking.  I purposely made it a little smaller than the bottle, so that it would fit tightly around it, like a sock.  The bottom is single crochet, and the sides are ribbed, alternating 2 double crochet, with 2 front post double crochet.  I love how the self striping yarn worked up, and getting to bust some stash.