Obsessed

I am the worst blogger ever, please excuse my lack of posts this week. I have been locked in the house (and running to and from Michael's and target) preparing for this shower! I know its early but my mom is hosting it at her house and I am planning on bringing everything there tomorrow (if it doesn't snow!) because Hubs came in yesterday and told me it looks like Victoria's Secret threw-up in our living room (which I was infuriated about, but the colors are the same). I promise to post pictures soon of everything (I am really excited about how everything is coming together). But I will leave you with the most amazing discovery I made this week...

Glue Dots

I am sure I am way late to this party (as usual) but these things have almost completely eliminated my need to whip out the hot glue gun every thirty minutes! My mod podge usage has slowed as well(truly amazing)! These are not the removable kind (I know they make some) but they have proved incredibly useful on crafting projects and just for use around the house! I plan on always having them on hand!

I know I have been all over the place about shower favors (I get a little too into it-I know), from the macaroons, to soaps and back again! But leave it to my mother to come up with the perfect favor!

La Vie French Bon Bons! So delicate, with pretty parchment paper wrapped around the bon bons when you open them, the tins are amazing! My mother always had one of these in her purse, we used to get them for her at Crabtree and Evelyn.They come in lots of flavors, and I am planning on tying a baby pink satin ribbon around the "belly band" of the tin and adding a tag with "thank you " or something like that. So Excited!

Hope everyone has an amazing Friday!!

Ooh La la!!

Thanks to my incredible mother who finally decided on the "Parisian" shower theme for the party we are throwing next month. I am not kidding when I tell you that I have multiple folders with inspiration for various themed parties, which I add to daily. My Bestie threw my shower last year and made a million of these "Martha-esqe" Pom poms in hot pink and white. She made hers with rounded edges and they looked incredible. I whipped up a few last night and I am sticking with a baby pink and black color scheme throughout. I cut the edges to a point, I thought it made it look more "fru fru", like a boa?? We are going to use lots of these, White Christmas lights and some big feathers (hoping to find some like in the picture below) with fresh flowers for centerpieces. I need to find a wire Eiffel tower, and I am hoping I can, I feel like I see them all the time but that just means since I am looking now, no such thing will exist.

Lastly, I am going to continue to make macaroons (even if it kills me) but I might not use them as favors. I feel like they are too much work to package up and risk the chance of getting thrown out or crushed in someones pocketbook. I will still make some for the shower, so a tower of them can be put out, however I was thinking of doing something else for favors. Little French milled soaps. What do you think?? I found some really cute pink heart soaps (of course they were noodle and boo and $15 a pop-Go figure) but I would love to find less expensive ones and package them up with a tag saying something like "Thank you for coming..A gift from soandsos Shower to yours"??

Hope everyone has a great day! Au Revoir:)

I guess its a learning process...

Oh Parisian Macaroons, I am humbled. I attempted my first batch yesterday, which were much smoother than the ones came out today, but I under baked all of them and threw them out. The filling came out perfect, but I don't care for it (who knew I could whip something up with butter and sugar that I wouldn't like??!) so I think for the final product I am going to try to do a raspberry filling instead. I finally came out which a decent batch today. I am not happy with the texture of the cookie, but I figured out how to get a good "foot" on each one.

All the recipes and tips say to keep the oven cracked while baking. Do this or else they will puff up like snowballs (like the pink ones you get at 7-11). Baking time is around 15 minutes so at minute 13 or so I closed the oven for about a minute, and the most perfect little "feet" sprouted. I opened the oven door for the last minute of baking and they turned out pretty well. The recipes also call for parchment paper, I tried it and the ones I made on my silpat turned out much better, with better feet.

So I am going to keep at it, but its a start at least:)

They have to stand after you pipe them for 15 minutes at least.

My finished (but lumpy) product.

The filling looks a hot mess, but I am used to cupcakes where more is better, not so much here, it just squishes out over the side! But I am proud of my "feet"

Happy Friday everybody:)

Shots all around!

So I know I have mentioned before that sometimes I will completely forego the baking of the cupcake and just whip up some frosting in order to "practice" my piping skills. Well I usually wind up eating most of it right off the wax paper, which gave me an idea (and something to "google"). Low and Behold I am apparently way late to this party...

Frosting Shots..

How perfect would this be at a shower, or when you have girlfriends over for Happy Hour drinks???? No cupcake necessary (ideal in a time crunch or last minute get together!)

A few inspiration "shots", I am hoping to work with for the upcoming shower Mom and I are throwing

I have the Baking Itch bad today, and I may be getting in way over my head, however The shower Mom and I are planning is "Parisian Inspired", and I am dying to make a Laduree style macaroon (yes I did say I was in over my head) and package a few up in clear containers with a big bow to hand out as favors.

Have any of you dolls every made these? Do you have an inspiring, easy recipe? Tips or Tricks (to me it looks potentially disastrous!) Do I need to turn right around and stick with my cupcakes? But with all things I need to try to make these, and I would love to hear your thoughts..

Happy Thursday!

Vegas was AMAZING!

Next to our Honeymoon, Vegas was hands down the best trip I have ever been on. We came back winners, but exhausted! A few pictures from an incredibly fabulous trip...

My Vegas Bride-to-be! She lives a few minutes from the strip and certainly showed us an amazing time:) Getting ready for Sushi Samba and TAO!

Hubs and I at Freemont Street (Old Vegas). We were right in front of the Golden Nugget!

Hubs and I before dinner at LAVO (love how the tiger looks like he is eating hubs head!)

I wish you could see better, but in our Baller sweet at the Polazzo we had a huge window looking out over all of Vegas (Obviously we were dancing in front of it while getting ready!)

Hubs and I in front of the Bellagio fountains

The King himself serenading me! Madame Tussauds wax museum was the coolest! I kept having to touch all the figures because they looked sooo real

Hubs with Stevie-This is my favorite picture from the whole trip

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! Hubs and I at the Mirage before we saw the Beatles LOVE, which I am now completely obsessed with!

As many of you know I heart Peanut M&M's, so when I found one dancing around in front of M&M world on the strip I absolutely had to get my picture with him!

For any of you that live in proximity to an IN-N-OUT burger, I am JEALOUS! We made a stop and it was the most amazing fast food burger I have ever had, IN MY LIFE

My Cotton Candy Martini at Serendipity 3, amazing

The beautiful Sunshine on the Strip...

Hubs and I feel so lucky to have had such a wonderful trip, there are still a million things I want to go back and do, so I am ready to plan our next trip!!

Baking and Grieving

As many of you may know from my previous posts, Cleaning and Baking are two of my biggest stress relievers. There is something about both of them that allows me to escape for the moment and not focus on current stressors. This morning after dropping Hubs off at the Airport I found out from my mother that a dear family friend had passed away early this morning. Not being good at dealing with grief, I barreled through my front door, only to realize everything (including the bath tub) was sparkling clean. I grabbed an apron, preheated the oven and just let my hands take over. Baking can be very therapeutic, and it forces you to concentrate on the task at hand. There is something very relaxing about rolling out dough, cutting out cookies and especially piping out frosting (sometimes I skip the whole cupcake and just frost on wax paper for the same relaxation effect). I zoned out for two hours and found this ...

Apparently for the past two hours I had been doing this...

And this... (And I took pictures of it! I never take pictures, but for some reason I did today!-Bizarre how my body took over)

Needless to say, I am going to freeze these cookies and hopefully ship them out with some pink frosting for Valentines Day. And even though the situation is not happy, I did find the silver lining. This cookie recipe is amazing (and if you knew our family friend who passed on, He would absolutely love that I am thinking of him while baking and love the fact even more that I am sharing this cookie recipe with you). So here it is (I am not sure where it came from-I'm sorry)

Uncle Jims Hearts

-7 Cups All Purpose Flour

-2 Cups White Sugar

-2 teaspoons of Salt

-2 teaspoons baking powder

-1 1/2-2 cups of Shortening

-3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

-1 Cup Whole Milk

-3 Eggs

Combine dry ingredients, add shortening to dry ingredients in 3 parts mixing well in between, add in Vanilla, Milk & Eggs and mix well until ball is formed. Roll out on floured surface with floured rolling pin. Cut the cookies thick. Bake in a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes (the edges and bottom barely turn brown) at 375degrees F. Frost with your favorite icing and decorate with sprinkles or colored sugars.

Give them to someone you love:)

Sweet Puffy Clouds

SOOOO excited to be planning another bridal shower with my mom for two of my dear friends (who are twins!). I am always looking for ways to make favors or decorations unique and memorable. Last night something struck me and now I have become a little bit fixated on the idea.....COTTON CANDY!!! Can you think of anything prettier, than puffy pink clouds of delicious sugar??!! Am I the only adult who still gets a bucket of it at baseball games, or on the boardwalk at the beach?? Cotton Candy is honestly one of those things that evokes such wonderful childhood memories its incredible! I am struggling to find a company that will sell bulk pink cotton candy that I could package up in cute containers to hand out as favors, so naturally I researched an at home cotton candy making machine (which might be cheaper in the long run!). Needless to say I found some beautiful inspiring pictures to share with you all.

Doesn't that just make you want to eat some???!! If anyone has used cotton candy for weddings or events, would you please recommend a vendor or company to purchase it from??

** I found out that one of the huge gluttonous buffets in Vegas serves Huge sticks of cotton candy on the dessert table...D.I.E!!! So pumped:)

Bon Voyage!

Inspired by my bestie (who was here this weekend and is the most organized traveler ever!) I have been in search of ways to travel "lighter" and with more detail to make packing and unpacking easier on myself.

1. Carry On!

I am going to make a serious effort to only carry on luggage for short trips from here on out. Not only is it such a pain to check(and pay) for luggage, but this way you know all of your goods are with you from departure to arrival and back again. I would love any of these adorable carry on bags!

Tumi

Longchamp

Louis

2. Label Everything & Use Clear Bags

My Bestie had little Ziploc bags with "liquids", "Shower" etc on them, She even had a clear bigger bag labeled "dirty" to minimize laundry efforts when she got home. The Container Store has perfect clear zipper "sweater bags", to add your own label to with a sticky label or even a waterproof sticker. I found these at Cherry Hill Designs and thought they would be perfect for adding to travel size toiletry cases.

The Container Store (Those are not my socks!-or thread or clothes)

3. Unpack and Repack

There just isn't anyway around the fact that your items will be jumbled up, reaching in and out of your suitcase while on your trip. So set aside some time before you are set to leave to re-fold things, organize clean/dirty and make sure you have all of your belongings. It will save you time and effort when returning home!

Since I am going to Vegas next week (YAY!) I am going to really try to get all of my little ducks in a row and have the most organized trip ever:)

Hope you all are having a great day!

Happy New Year!

I am finally back in the swing of things after a busy past few weeks! I made one specific new years resolution this year and I am really hoping to stick with it. I read in "better home and gardens" that January is national letter writing month and I have resolved to write a handwritten note to the important people in my life every month this year! There is something so wonderful about receiving a handwritten note just to say hello, so I thought what better than to let those important people in my life know how much I love and appreciate them throughout the year! With a world full of electronic everything I am going to go "old school" at least a few times a month and I hope that my recipients enjoy cards and notes as much as I enjoy sending them!

Obviously sending thoughtful notes on personalized stationary or cards just adds to the excitement:) Here are just a few of my favorites...

I heart Lilly & I think this one is my fave!

Boatman Gellar always has really pretty stationary as well

I thought this would be perfect for the busy mom, it even includes little notes that you could send in a lunch bag, or to your child's teacher!

The simplicity of this is perfect, and its still pink!!

Classic.

Polka dots & Pink! Yes Please:)

PSA Essentials...I want a million stampers-they are so pretty and look great on an envelope-I don't know that I could decide on one design!

Hope everyone has a great day!