Overload

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Originally uploaded by Ruben Brown

Well I am still coming down off of a whirlwind couple of weeks.

I got to celebrate my birthday for not one day but an entire gorgeous weekend filled with great music (A Night in the Box at Lee's Liquor Lounge), amazing friends ( I love you all), and soooo much good food!

On Saturday my mother gave me a plethora of books that I cannot wait to read from cover to cover. She also took me shopping so I could pick out my very own trench coat for my upcoming trip to Ireland. (I have this vision of me in my long trench running around the Irish country side in my rainboots. )

Sunday I was lucky enough to head to St. Paul with one of my bestest friends in the world to pick up her wedding dress. It is so lovely, so her. I am in two weddings this summer and it has made me obsessed with all things bridal. My other bride Sarah had a cake testing THIS weekend that I was lucky enough to get invited to. Who would say no to cake testing? Methinks I will have to start a series of wedding related posts.

Today I finally had time to catch up on reading all of my favorite blogs and I am just so inspired and excited and ready to tackle 20 projects at once! I might be in a bit of sensory overload and it might take me a few days to collect myself but nevertheless I will harness this new energy. New projects include hat making, wedding fascinator making, yarnbombing, and hopefully trying some new recipes (I WILL master macarons!)

Blue Velvet Cupcakes- Check.

YAY CUPCAKES!!! So excited for cupcakes this weekend. I made Sprinkle Bakes recipe and they turned out really good. I had originally wanted to make little bunny cupcakes for a party I was going to but in the end I broke out my trusty Vintage Button Candy Mold from BakeItPretty and made some adorable (and yummy) candy buttons for on top. Everyone at the party liked them but we all had blue tongues for the rest of the night. At least we were in it together.

Getting the ingredients for these and another recipe I tried this weekend was less than successful. There was no small things of buttermilk at the supermarket I usually go to. I only needed a cup- I didn't need a whole gallon. So I stopped by a little supermarket in town that I never go to and they had the buttermilk in a more manageable size. I also realized I needed whole milk. Alas no small bottles of that but I did find this amazing 'Grandma Alice' brand milk that was just so cute I wasn't even upset that I had to buy a half gallon of it.

Birthday Bear

It is my grandma Marilyn's birthday tomorrow. I had no idea what to get her so on impulse I decided to make her a little amigurumi teddy bear. My grandma has so many teddy bears she doesn't know what to do with them but I decided one more couldn't hurt.

Just to make it clear I love crochet but the whole amigurumi thing is a little new to me. A while back I made an adorable little bunny from a pattern on the Lion Brand yarn website. Since I already aced that one I decided to use the same pattern and just change the ears. I also added a little crochet heart because it is sort of close to Valentine's Day and the bear was already going to be a bit late for her birthday. So yes this teddy is a little lopsided, a little uneven, and fairly imperfect but I whipped him together in an afternoon and I am fairly sure my grandma will love him regardless of his imperfections.

Added a little tag "homemade with love" the idea came directly from this article from Design Sponge and these little tags are now my new shop item tags/business cards but I have so many I am really enjoying just playing around with different messages. I might make some up for the epic amount of baking I hope to get done this weekend. I have fallen in love with not 1 but 4 cupcake recipes and I want to try them all!

Blue Velvet Cupcakes!!!

OMG! I just found SprinkleBakes and her amazing recipe for Blue velvet cupcakes. Is there anyway I can make blue bunny cupcakes?

Bunny Cupcakes

Bunny Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by Bakerella

My friend is having a party this weekend in which she is celebrating the departure of a bad roommate- 'Bunny'. So of course I told her I would be bringing bunny inspired cupcakes! This inspiration is from Bakerella. Hopefully I will be able to follow up this post with amazing cupcakes of my own!

Pearls and Swine

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Originally uploaded by Pearls & Swine

You have to check out Pearls and Swine. I just stumbled upon them in the flickr Craft pool and I am totally digging these super sweet fascinators they have going on. I like that they have some that are really 'something' and not just pretty little hat like things (although i loves me some pretty little hat like things). This one of a sacred heart is just too cool for words. I would never have an occasion to wear it but I still want it- and in my book that means it is pretty darn cool.

Golden Globes 2010

(image from cbsnews.com http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2010/01/18/image6109272.jpg)

I LOVE awards season. I love everything about it. The movies, the stars, the dresses, the speeches- it is all soooo good. I love the 'star machine' of Hollywood and that these people are larger than life and that there is no WAY they are normal human beings but really we wouldn't want them to be. Just to make it clear I am not a fan of the stalking of stars and the ridiculous lengths that people go to to get a shot of them buying groceries or picking up their kids from school- frankly I don't care what they do in their everyday lives what I want is the star I know and love in movies, having interviews in magazines, and rocking it on the red carpet. Award shows always seem to bring back a little bit of that glamour of old Hollywood that I love so much and it never disappoints. The Globes are fun because they are a little bit more laid back and there is a quirkiness that tends to happen in the room that is hard to describe.





As far as the awards go I was fairly happy with the results but I am a little over Avatar and as such I was not pleased to see it get so much attention (they already have all the money in the world I don't think they need awards too!) But how cute was Robert Downey Jr.'s non-acceptance speech? And I loved Martin Scorsese's speech about movies and how the preservation of movies is so important to him. You hear him talk and you just know how much he loves movies- how refreshing is it to see someone who loves their job so much?





Also I really enjoyed seeing all the stars deal with the rain on the red carpet. They seemed to do rather well but a couple of the reporters did not. One in particular looked like a drowning rat and it was so funny. I am really not being mean it was just she was struggling so much to hold it together but you knew she was totally pissed that the rain was ruining her look- I would have been too.