Let them eat Cupcakes

Earlier this summer I made a lot of cupcakes. A lot. It was all done as a trial for what I did last week. Last week, with a lot of help, I made the cupcakes for C's wedding. (The cupcakes were for eating... the fake cake was for decoration.)

In the end we decided to go for Chocolate with Mocha Meringue Buttercream (topped with a chocolate covered coffee bean), Lemon with Lemon Cream Cheese icing, and Vanilla Buttercream cupcakes. Yum!

And they must have been a hit since they all got eaten! It was lots of fun to do actually. I had a ton of help! I even made a new baking friend (a friend of the bride's who came to help). We've since emailed recipes back and forth. She did a fabulous job decorating them!
Since they say that a picture is worth a million words, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is unfortunately where fondant flowers go to die. They were made early, but not many survived the trip.

And here's the final result:

While I was vacationing

Sometimes getting home from vacation is sad. But sometimes getting home from vacation is nice. You get to sleep in your own bed. You get to make your own food in your own kitchen. And getting home from vacation is even nicer if you have a package of amazing surprises waiting for you!

Like this one!

I took part in Special K's Share Yourself exchange. I sent my package off before leaving for Canada a week an a half ago, and my package was waiting for me when I got back yesterday. Look at what I got! I'm in shock by all of the amazing looking treats that Angharad from eating-for-England sent me! She even wrapped all of them in funky paper that I am totally saving and reusing! (I know. I'm a pack rat. Sue me.)

I'm totally looking forward to trying it all. And reading more of her blog! I love finding good new blogs.

But, back to the stuff.

I've been meaning to try Marmite forever! She said it, and I've heard it before that it's something you either love or hate. I'm wondering which it'll be for me. Hopefully love The other stuff is perfect for me too. Who doesn't love Nutella? Whenever I eat it, I remember the week I lived off of it while traveling in Ireland. Good times! & I love tea! I drink it every morning. I haven't tried this kind so that'll be fun. Any cookie (sorry - biscuit) that are "melt-in-your-mouth" good and that you are supposed to dunk in tea sound fabulous to me! I can't wait to try it all.

Thanks so much!!

A Cake made of Styrofoam

When is a cake, not a cake? When it's styrofoam.
Yup. So here's the first set of pictures in the way of recap from last week. It was a busy week!! Bridesmaid-ing is hard work let me tell you. But fun! So much fun!

The two layers above are just styrofoam. On top, I put fondant. Horrible, beautiful, fondant. Sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't.

This layer, the top layer, was a real cake. The idea was that no one was going to eat this cake, but the bride & groom wanted to be able to cut the cake. So I made a $1 box cake and then covered it in fondant to go on top. I put ribbon at the base of those layers, and then the rest of the decorating was done by other fabulous ladies.

Enter the other 3 bridesmaids, some fresh cut flowers, and a lot of discussion.

And in the end, the cake was beautiful. Although I can't take full responsibility for it, but I am pretty proud of it. I think it looks pretty freaking fabulous. And I'm guessing with the flowers, fondant, cake and Styrofoam... it probably cost about $75. Not too bad.

Trusting

Sometimes you just gotta trust people.

Today I am trusting that these bangs are going to look okay tomorrow too. Yes. Bangs. The hair dresser asked if she could cut my hair by 2+ inches. She didn't ask if she could cut me bangs.

They look okay right now... totally straightened. I'm just not sure they will look good tomorrow.
Needless to say I'm a little worried.

On Monday there will be pictures...

FYI

FYI - Today I learned two things.
1) I'm horrible at ironing. (I never iron my clothes... Sorry Mom.) Folding is MUCH easier!
2) Fondant? It really isn't as easy to work with as I was led to believe. I did a trial and everything! But today the fondant wasn't so friendly.

Oh well, such is life.
That's all I got time for. No rest for the wicked... Err... nor for the helpful.

Orchids

Have you ever met someone and thought to yourself: "This person is sooo cool! We have sooo much in common! I hope we become great friends!" ? Don't you just love it when that happens?

On the other hand, I bet there are people out there who you've met and thought: "There is absolutely no way in the world we have anything in common."
I'm sort of embarrassed to admit it, but when I first met C my thoughts were more along the lines of option 2 than option 1 of those two scenarios. When we met I was a lowly and very shy co-op and she was (it seemed to me) a loud and very confident full timer. Being so shy, I didn't talk to her much. We were employed in the same office, but didn't work together on any projects and thus our paths rarely crossed.
When I came back to work full time at my current job that changed.We didn't work on a project together, but we did start hanging out at lunch, having tea time at 10am, and just in general started talking. Much to my surprise and delight I found her to be friendly, thoughtful, funny, intelligent, kind, genuine, and generous.
Now, five years later (has it really be so long?!) she is one of my dearest friends. And although she lives ~4,300km away (~2,700 miles - thank you google maps!), I couldn't imagine us not being friends. Just goes to show you. You shouldn't judge.
So when C called with the exciting news that she was getting married, I gave a cry of delight and immediately started scheming about her wedding gift. To me weddings mean cross-stitch and like the ones in the past, I try to customize the gift to the recipient(s). I hope I've done an okay job.


This has been my big craft of the spring/summer. I started it in March, and finished mid-August. (It would have gone quicker... only I got side tracked with all my other knitting things you've seen around here.)

C&A have seen it now, which is why I'm posting this now.

I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out. I'm happier than I thought I'd be while I was doing it. I had doubts in the middle, but it's nice. I can't wait to see it framed.

I hope C&A like it.

And C - I hope we are friends for a very long, long time. You rock!

design fail - hat

It's been awhile. Sorry. I've been busy. And this craft is sort of lame, so sorry again. But stick around next week will be awesome. I will finally be able to unveil my big summer craft (that I love) and have a few other things to show off too (hopefully...)

Meanwhile, I can show you this hat.

I made this sometime in August. I wanted to make a hat for a friend's birthday and thought that maybe I should try my hand at designing a hat. How hard could it be, right? Foolish, foolish words!
I thought I'd put cables on it and to make it simple, I decided to divide the hat into quarters.
This hat was always meant to be a test. I did four different cable patterns, a different one on each side. I designed my own cables, which I think is the problem. For the real hat I was going to use the one I liked the best.
Unfortunately... I don't like any of them. (And yes. They are all different. The differences are subtle, but they are there.) Here is what I came up with.


Oh well. It was worth a try. (The hat size also came out really small, hence why you can see my ears in these photos. So failure all around.)
So, I guess I'll just have to use a tried and tested pattern for the birthday gift. Good thing I have until late October for this one.