Most Entertaining Games for Grown-ups

Do you play any board or card games? I and my husband enjoy playing games when we have guests over. I compiled my favorite board and card games for you today. Playing games are a really great way to entertain guests. I like these games specifically because they are not complex and can be played with 4 or more people. They are super duper fun!!!

Best Board Games: 1. Farkle, 2. SET, 3. Settlers of CATAN, 4. OKEY

Farkle is a very easy game that you can play while watching a movie; we do that quite often with my husband actually. SET can be a bit competitive and eye-tiring, but it is great fun! We recently bought the Settlers of CATAN for our house and I think it was a great purchase. This board game requires more strategy and of course, some luck :) And finally, OKEY is a game that I learned to play while I was very young. Turkish people love this game. The boards we own is a gift from a family friend in Turkey. It traveled with us on our last trip from Turkey this January. Okey is very easy-to-learn. It is a great choice if you have extra time to burn while it can take long time to finish it. One of the greatest things about this game is you can play in teams with two couples.

Do you have any favorite board/card games? I would love to check them out...

Go and wake up your luck.

St. Patrick's Day is approaching real fast... A great occasion to put some greens on whether you are Irish or not. Green is such a great color and there are so many natural gemstones in the shades of green. My favorites are turquoise and jade. Above are some of the green jewelry from my shop accented with silver. Four leaf clover pendants are definitely the symbol of this occasion that is meant to bring luck to those who wear them!

I hope you will enjoy my St. Patrick's Day collection and it will bring you luck!

Green St. Patrick's Day Jewelry

Do you have any plans for the St. Patrick's Day? I know that there is a big parade, an Irish festival and St. Patrick's Day Dash in Seattle on March 17th and March 18th. I am going to do the 4 miles run that day... I am still working on my outfit for the run. I will make sure to share if I end up making something special. Let me know, if you have any ideas...

Lots of love,

-Melike

Easter Chicks: Fun cooking activity for kids and adults

Easter Cooking

I have a fun cooking tutorial today for you in preparation for Easter, made of potatoes. Are you ready to make the cutest chicks you ever seen? I have to warn you beforehand though. You will have hard time eating them afterwards :)

Here is what you need: Potato, pepper, salt, carrot, butter, lettuce

Step 1: Boil and then, mash potatoes - I didn't use milk to make it easy to roll later.

Add desired amount of salt, ground pepper and butter while meshing the potatoes

Step 2: Roll two different sizes of balls from mashed potatoes: one for the body and one for the head of the chicks. 

Step 3: Put the head on the body and shape the chicks with your hand -- this is where creativity kicks in! Just have fun using your fingers...

Step 4: Cut the carrots to make the mouth of the chics. You can have the mouth open and closed. It is a bit simpler to make it closed. Tomatoes also work well instead of carrots.

Step 5: Use ungrounded pepper for eyes or small pieces of black olives

Step 6: Now, it is time to decorate your serving plate. You can cut lettuce, or use any other green vegetables you have to make it look like grass. Place your chicks on top of the greens...

WA-LA ...it is time to serve your meshed potatoes! It will make an awesome Easter dish that you can prepare with kids. It will also make a great appetizer for any lunch or dinner party.

Thanks for stopping by at the A Cup of Sparkle kitchen.. See you next time!

Holding a cup.

Cheers!

I came across with this illustration on Pinterest. It is kind of cool how much people can read about others from small actions like holding a cup... Not that I think there is really a proper way of holding a cup; drink is only there to enjoy it! Still, the Jedi one is hilarious :) What do you think?

Sparkle in Red this Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is just the perfect occasion to wear red; regardless of the fact that you have a lover or not. I wanted to make something sparkly this year to wear on my hair. I affixed a beaded heart on a hair clip. If you ever decide to make one of these hearts, you can also make this as an attachment to your clothing with a simple brooch pin sewed back of the heart or you can use it as a shoe clip.

Here are the simple instructions to make one of this sparkling hearts:

Materials: Felt fabric, beads, a piece of paper, a pen, thread, scissors, and needle

Step 1: Draw a heart of desired size on a piece of paper and cut out two hearts.

I drew the heart myself, but you can use templates from the web. There are tons of them online.

Step 2: Using your template, cut out two hearts from the red felt.

One of the heart shaped felt will be used to stitch the beads on and the second heart is to cover the stitching and also to make the heart a bit more sturdy.

Step 3: This step is the fun part!  Stitch each bead at a time to the felt piece you cut. Trace the heart piece while beading. I beaded in a very random order. 

The beads I used were hexagonal shaped so; it was easy to fill all the spaces. I can imagine that it might be a bit more challenging using circle shaped beads.

Step 4: Once all the area of the heart is covered with beads, stitch the second heart on the back of the the beaded heart.  This will hide all the knots and stitches behind.

Step 5: Sew the hair pin or a brooch pin behind.

Step 6: WO-LA... you are ready to shimmer all day long tomorrow!

... late notes and photos from my vacation

Happy late 2012 to my dear A Cup of Sparkle readers...

I owe an apology to all of you for not writing this year yet. Here is my first post of 2012 with some photos from my vacation to Europe: Italy, France and Turkey.  I had fabulous time and came back with great memories. I cannot wait to post more photos and stories here!

This is me shopping for some Murano beads in Venice:

Happy, Happy, Happy... most colorful beads ever!

It is so hard not to be inspired by all the things in Europe. Every shop, every street has something special to offer...One of my favorite places was of course Paris. This is a photo I took on Christmas day.

Spectacular Eiffel Tower

I promise to share more photos with you in my later posts as well as my new projects. I look forward to hearing from all of you, too. I hope new year is going well for you so far...

Thank you for coming back. Love,