Crafty Creations - post your links!

Today is the big kick-off of my Crafty Creations Carnival! If you want to know how to be a part of this carnival, read this post.

The Crafty Creations that I'm sharing with y'all today are Mimi's headbands and hairclips. They are handmade and super cute! I can't believe she actually makes them herself. Take a look at some of my favorites:

Pink & lime green headband

Aquamarine & chocolate headband

Raspberry pink & pistachio green hairclips

Green flower hairclip

Blue & green headband

Aren't they adorable?

Now it's your turn! Leave me a link to a post of yours that talks about someone else's adorable creations!

Pictures - 3/04/2010

I just wanted to share some of my favorite pictures that I've taken.

Crafty Creations - The Carnival

I've decided to have a blog carnival! I will put up a Mr. Linky this Saturday (March 6th) and I'll leave it open to new links until Monday. I'm hoping to do this every Saturday, so don't forget to come back!

What you do is find a product that another blogger sells that you think is adorable/nifty/useful/etc. Write a post about that product, linking to the blogger who makes it, and then link your post up in my Mr. Linky!

Here are the rules:

• You can't link to one of your own products. This carnival is about sharing cute things that others make!
• Please don't enter your link in the same Mr. Linky more than once.
• You can link to more than one product in the same post if you want to.
• In your post, you must link to the blog/website of the person whose product you are talking about.
• Please copy and paste this HTML code in your post:

<a href="http://www.maddiesfavorites.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/Myfriendconnie/CraftCreationsbuttonresized.jpg" /></a>

It's the URL for my button, so that other people can click on over and join the fun!

Remember, it starts this Saturday, so everybody get typing!

World's Best Caramel Chocolate Cake

I just made the BEST caramel chocolate cake EVER! Here is the recipe:

1 box German chocolate cake mix
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter or margerine
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
2/3 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chocolate pieces

CAKE:

Prepare cake batter according to directions on box. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 cake pan and bake as directed. NOTE: You have to use a 9 x 13 sheet cake pan. This recipe will not work with a layer cake or bundt cake. When cake is done, remove from oven and use a fork to poke holes all over the top of the cake.

ICING:

Melt butter over medium heat. Whisk in brown sugar, milk, and vanilla in that order. Keep whisking until it boils. After it has boiled for a couple of minutes, add the chopped pecans. Stir well to combine and let cook for another couple of minutes. Add coconut, remove from heat, and let it sit during the next step.

THE NEXT STEP:

Put the chocolate chips in the blender and use the shred or ice crush setting until most of the chocolate is in little pieces about the size of the chopped pecans. There will be some pieces bigger than you want and some chocolate "dust", but that's OK. The "dust" will melt on the cake and make it extra good.

Pour the caramel mixture over the cake and carefully spread it out. If you aren't gentle enough, the pecans will tear the cake. Sprinkle chocolate bits and dust over cake. Wait a few minutes for the chocolate to melt and serve warm.

Some Tips on Internet Ettiquete/Grammar

Today, I thought I'd share some tips I have discovered that make it easier to get along with other people on the World Wide Web.

• When You Capitalize Every Word Like This, It Makes Your Message Harder To Read. See What I Mean?
• WHEN YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPS LIKE THIS, IT IS GENERALLY CONSIDERED YELLING.
• When you dont use any punctuation at all like this it makes it harder to read what you are saying and it also makes you look kind of dumb
• Plz don't use chat speak like this in forums bc most of the members don't like it when u do and some even have rules against it.
• if you want to look rlly stooped talk lik this dont use any capitil letterz or punkshwashin misspell half of th words use chat speek leeve letterz off of the endz of words and put a z instead of an s at th ends of words also dont proofread anything u type.
  
• If you don't wish to appear dumb, disregard the previous advice.
  
• Emotion is very hard to express through typing, so sometimes your message can come across the wrong way. Smileys can sometimes help get your message across the right way. Don't flood your message with smileys, though, because it gets very annoying.
• There are some words that are not interchangeable, such as "also" and "too"; "their", "there", and "they're"; "you're" and "your", etc.*
• If you join a new forum, make sure you read the rules before you post so you won't accidentally break any of them.

* "Also" and "too": These can sometimes mean the same thing (example: You could say, "I went to the store also," or "I went to the store too,"). However, also and too are not interchangeable all of the time! For example, you could say, "Also, we went to the park," but it would be weird to say "Too, we went to the park,".

"Their", "There", and "They're": "Their" is possessive, as in "Their dog ran away". "There" means a place, as in "Let's go over there". "They're" is a contraction that is short for "they are", as in "They're going to the zoo".

"Your" and "You're": "Your" is possessive, as in "Your dress is pretty". "You're" is a contraction that is short for "you are", as in "You're getting this blanket dirty!"

If you have any more good tips, please leave them in the comments!

Clay Animals

I'm making clay animals to sell to help the people in Haiti. Here are some examples:




Cow ($5)




Pig ($4)




Goat ($4)




Turtle ($3)

100% of profits will go to Haiti. I'll have a PayPal button up in a little while!

The iPod

Maybe you've seen the iPod story and the iPod follow-up story on my mom's blog, and you're wanting to know more about the iPod I got on eBay. No? You think that would be boring? Well, I don't really have anything else to post about, so here I go anyways.

The iPod I was originally going to get from the lady on Craig'slist was pink, and since she said she had just got it for her daughter for Christmas, I'm assuming that it was one of the most recent ones and looked something like the iPod in this stock photo:


The thing is, I don't really like pink, especially hot pink, but since I was going to be getting an iPod Nano for the price of an iPod Shuffle, it wasn't too big of a deal. But when the deal fell through, I started looking around on eBay to see if I could find an iPod Nano for around $50. I ended up getting one for just $56 including tax, with free shipping! WOOHOO! It is a 3rd generation and it's green. Here's a stock photo of what it looks like:



Green also happens to be my favorite color, so I'm happy that I got this one! It should get here between tomorrow and the 13th. I'm really excited about it!