Jules Jewelry!

Jules, creator of Jules Jewelry, Whimsey Kisses, and Little Girls’ Pearls,  is a beautiful mother of two and stay at home Mom with a wonderful talent in handcrafted jewelry.  Dainty and personalized jewelry is her specialty!  Not only that, she is such a sweetheart!  She creates each meaningful piece as a means of showing her care for her customers.

Here is some of her eye-catching work!

Closure:

How cute is that clasp?  It’s all about the little details, folks!

You can choose whatever stones you’d like to hang from the heart shaped wire!  As a fan of craft fairs and arts fests, I am a super supportive of handcrafted jewelry and LOVE Jules designs! 

I chose the Itty Bitty Footprint Charm Necklace as a gift for my best friend, who I’ve mentioned before just had her first born 3 months premature, Baby Bowman.  It’s got his birthstone, a peridot charm!

Along with my favorite detail, the wire heart as the clasp-fabulous accent!

The last time I visited with Bran, I got to give her this necklace.  She absolutely LOVED IT.  These personalized gifts are perfect for sentimental memories that you want to cherish!

It came all tied up in a sweet little, opaque draw string bag.  Who doesn’t love tiny little baby feet?!

The fun doesn’t stop here!  Jules, in all of her creative wonder, puts together charms, name bracelets, baby jewelry, and has two other sister sites to Jules Jewelry that sell some pretty cute stuff too!  You’ve GOT to check them out.  Not to mention, free 1st class shipping with an order of $30 or more!

Jules has generously offered for ONE LUCKY Freckled Foodie reader to win one of her gorgeous Sweet Pearl Bracelets! 

To enter the contest you can enter any of these ways:

1. Check out and browse her site, leaving me a comment telling me which of her masterpieces you wish you could add to your jewelry box
2. Follow Jules on Twitter! –> http://twitter.com/julesjewelry
3. Link back on your blog about this contest or if you don’t have a blog, email me and explain why you’d love to win!

Contest ends September 27, 2010!

Thank you so much to Jules for being such an amazing designer and friend

Hail Merry Grawnola & Macaroons!

 

 

Created by a wonderful raw food chef in Dallas, Texas, Susan O’Brien, these delicious, Hail Merry products boast fabulous organic, raw ingredients containing essential oils and living enzymes, which are dehydrated at very low temperatures in order to protect their health benefits. 

Susan’s philosophy is to bring light to the importance and benefits of healthy oils, which we must obtain from our diets. These plant based fats like Omega-3 & Oleic Acid can actually improve our cholesterol profile, reduce inflammation, and make our hair & skin more radiant.

Who would’ve thought that something so wonderful for our bodies could be so indulgent tasting? When reviewing the “About” section of the company online, I came to find that there is a REASON for everything found in the products.  I LOVE that they take such good care of what goes into their treats!  They’ve even got logic behind which sweetening agent they used in their goodies!

“We prefer maple syrup for its exceptional flavor profile. It also contains more vitamins and minerals than any other sugar source available: including magnesium, zinc, and potassium. We know it’s not raw. Maple syrup may lack some living enzymes but we feel the flavor and vitamin/mineral pay-load is a great trade off. ”

 

Hail Merry has created two flavors of raw macaroons which are insanely addicting.  They’re so rich and decadent!  They come in Chocolate and Blonde versions.  Needless to say, I couldn’t choose a favorite between the two.  Being that they have a coconut based ingredients list,  I knew they were going to be pleasing to the palate. 

 

It’s pretty much a no brainer that these babies are becoming available in MYSHOP.   I would live off of these if I could.  They’re luxurious and moist, handmade with made with organic expeller pressed coconut oil, which contains lauric acid, known to promote a healthy immune system! 

How can you go wrong with an ingredients list like this?

Ingredients: Hand made with organic shredded coconut, dark cocoa, organic expeller pressed coconut oil, pure maple syrup, organic Mexican vanilla and sea salt.

The stats are great, too!  Healthy fats, fiber, protein, and iron!

Next up, we’ve got the 3-6-9 Orange Cranberry Grawnola and the Lemon Blue Agave Granola.

Being that I’m not a huge fan of lemon, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one much.   Turns out, I am a fan of lemon, but only if it comes in the form of this grawnola   I think the addition of the crunchy sunflower seeds, organic blueberries (helloooo antioxidants!), almonds, and buckwheat groats were enough to win over the tastebuds in themselves.  The lemon was hardly detectable and really complimented the other flavors.

As for the 3-6-9 Orange Cranberry Grawnola, I knew I’d be a fan as soon as I saw the ingredients list, mainly due to the fact that I adorreee cinnamon…in copious amounts, of course.

Ingredients: Hand made with almonds, pure maple syrup, organic buckwheat groats, fresh squeezed orange juice, organic apples, pecans, organic cranberries, sunflower seeds, walnuts, organic Mexican vanilla, organic flax seeds, cinnamon, organic rice bran solubles and sea salt.

BAM.  This was spot on in the flavor department.  It reminded me of a cranberry orange muffin that you would find ontop of the Starbucks counter, yet it is gluten-free and suitable for diabetics (totally low in sugar!).

Again, super stats.

 

SERIOUSLY.  Buy these now.  You will not regret it.  I’m in love.

 Thank you so much to the company for sending these to review!  They are FANFREAKINGTASTIC. <3

Striving For More Than A Cure

As many of you know, my best friend and cousin is going through a tough time right now with pre-mature baby Bowman.  This is not the first trial she’s ever gone through, and let me just say she is a FIGHTER.   Through lots of prayers from friends and family, she had been diagnosed with adrenal cancer a few years ago and is now in remission.  My friend, Jake contacted me about this initiative called “Feeding The Heart“ in honor of September being National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.  I’m thankful he did because now I can share it with all of you!  Since I can personally relate to the trials and tribulations associated with cancer in young peoples’ lives, I really wanted to be part of this movement. 

 

Here’s how it works:  Striving For More, realizes that:

 Through this charity, you can help provide a number of helpful tools for children who are suffering and trying to find some sort of stability and healing through their cancer journeys.

Your donation goes toward a number of healing and therapeutic things for the patients such as:

•  Beads of Courage

“Beads of Courage are designed to let children with cancer commemorate their personal cancer journey. Every time a child has a procedure—whether a chemotherapy infusion, radiation therapy, bone marrow aspirate, blood transfusion or other procedures—they receive a special bead from a member of the medical team to add to their “courage bead necklace.” Each bead represents a specific treatment:  a red heart bead for a blood transfusion, for example.

Beads of Courage demonstrate a child’s strengths and accomplishments. Each child’s unique necklace can help friends, schoolmates and extended family members better understand what he or she has gone through. Parents may also want to wear the beads to work as a way of sharing their child’s cancer journey with colleagues.”

• Art/Music Therapy
• Pastoral Care
• Pediatric Oncology Social Workers
• Medical Play Dolls

“The process of personalizing a blank, stuffed, body-shaped doll can provide children with a pleasurable and expressive activity which can be used by the child life team in many ways. Children decorate the dolls with non-toxic permanent markers. The dolls become a part of the treatment process and children take them home with them when they are discharged.

Child life specialists use the dolls to:

• Help develop rapport with children and help them relax in a hospital environment
• Help assess the child’s perception and feelings about healthcare experiences – talking about the doll is a non-threatening way to explore the child’s own concerns
• Help children prepare for and cope with their treatment process – the doll can be used to show such things as where an injection will be given or what posture/body position is desired “

The cool thing is, you can give a micro donation of 99¢ through downloading the Tap-N-Give app on your iphone!  With your donation, you’ll get to choose a cute charity wallpaper for your phone! 

Making a difference can be as easy as the tap of your iphone screen… And seriously, who can’t afford to give just 99¢ ?

If you don’t have an iphone, you could also donate on the Striving For More website here ! 

XOXO.