My new nursery

I am having a baby boy some time within the next three weeks.

Disclaimer: This photo was taken a few weeks ago. I have since doubled in size.

And I have been so busy working on another project that I was relieved that I had started the nursery for my second child long before I had even become pregnant.
We have a small house, so I wanted the new baby's bedding to complement my first's
Boy, Girl, it didn't matter - this baby would also have birds.
But I wanted the baby to have its own stuff, too.

This is the crib bumper.
All I have to do is pin ribbons on it to tie it to the crib and then sew the back of the bumper to the front.
And, yes, it took me FOREVER a long time ago to hand embroider everything.
But, now when I am so tired I am so glad it is pretty much done!

So, there you go.
Proof that I didn't neglect my new baby, craft wise.
Even though I have kinda been feeling like I have.

I haven't designed the quilt yet.
But I didn't finish my first child's quilt until his second birthday.
So I have time.

My Christmas

This post serves two purposes - to show you my Christmas decorations
and to tell you about the new camera my darling husband gave me!

For the past five years I have been using a point and shoot.
And it took about three minutes to take one photo.

Pretty much every photo of my child was blurry.
And even a few photos of still items were blurry too.

So my darling husband started saving his pennies.

I am slowly reading the manual and learning how to work it.
I read one chapter every week and then try to implement what I learned all week long
so I can master that new skill.
I just finished the chapter on White Balance.
I understood it fine, but the manual still has me using Auto, so I found it a bit confusing.
I hope to be out of Auto before Blue Bonnet season.
But I have a few insecurities about my photography skills ... which is probably why I am still using Auto.

But, in the meantime, even in auto, my pictures are still much clearer than with the old camera.
And I am very happy :)

The Cake of the Month - January

January's cake was a triple layer chocolate cake with a chocolate mousse filling and caramel meringue buttercream frosting. Some of the caramel frosting was in between the layers, too.

But, unfortunately I have no pictures.

It was really good, but I think I could definitely make some improvements on it.
So it is going to go back in the lineup and you will see it again some other month.

Things I plan on changing:

1. The chocolate cake recipe. Next time, it will have cinnamon in it.

2. The caramel buttercream. I used Martha Stewart's recipe for the caramel swiss meringue buttercream. But I think I was too conservative while making the caramel and the flavor was too light. I might also buy some caramel ice cream topping to drizzle on it too.

3. The chocolate mousse filling. Actually, I don't plan on changing anything with this chocolate mousse filling. This stuff was frikkin' aMAZing. It was actually a pseudo-mousse (meaning it had no eggs in it), was super easy, was my own creation, and was so incredibly delicious that I devoured half of it before it even made it onto the cake. I just kept refilling my taste-tester bowl and exclaiming how good this stuff was.

So, you will definitely be seeing this cake sometime in the near future.

And when that happens I will tell you the recipe for my pseudo-mousse.

... or I might not. I might just put it on every single cake I ever make for the rest of my life and make you all wish you had the recipe for my super simple chocolate pseudo-mousse filling.

We'll see.



P.S. I will not be making a cake in February or March ... so the Cake of the Month won't really start until April.

The Cake of the Month

One day my husband said to me,
"You should bake a cake every month"

and I said,
"No way! I mean, it would be awesome, but I would be the only one eating it and I would gain 700 pounds by the end of the year!"


So, we compromised by me baking a cake every month and him helping me deliver slices of it to our friends.

But, for December's cake, my husband was actually the one to make it.

He chose this recipe from America's Test Kitchen.
We were going to add a lime curd filling ...
but we didn't.
Probably because we made this cake on Christmas eve.
And after all the gingerbread cookies and the homemade eggnog and the chocolate-covered oreos ...

... we were kind of tired of baking.

If we make it again, though, we will definitely add a lime curd filling.

The wedding hairpiece

I spent the month of August in Idaho.
Some of the time I was at my mother's house, some of the time I was at my mother-in-law's house.

In both places I did some sort of wedding decorating, 3 receptions in all.
I did the flowers for one, the dessert table for another, and the decorations/dessert table for another.

And I had so much fun.

But my very VERY favorite thing I did was the hairpiece for one of the brides.
I have people ask me to do things like that all the time, but then never follow through.
But this time I pretty much made her follow through.
I really wanted to make a bridal hairpiece.

The bride was a bit surprised when I immediately pulled up an assortment of pictures of bridal hairpieces that I had been collecting for absolutely no reason.

Confession: I read wedding blogs. In fact, most of the blogs I follow are wedding blogs. And most of the pictures I save on my zotero are from weddings. I have no reason to do this. I am already married. I am not planning another wedding for myself or for anyone else, really. But I love wedding blogs.

the inspiration:

So, here were a few of her favorites:

By Twigs and Honey, seen here

By Twigs and Honey, seen here

By Twigs and Honey, seen here

By Twigs and Honey, seen here

the actual accessory:

As you can see, the bride really liked the chiffon flowers. And she LOVED the tulle netting on the first one.

But her reception decorations were a little more sassy than those hairpieces were.
Her shoes were these darling zebra-print stilettos.
So cute.



So I added in a little color.

The centers have little black metal bows, to give it a rockstar vibe.

All the materials were purchased at either Michael's or JoAnn's craft stores. Because those two stores were my only options in my remote part of Idaho. I just wish I could have used some of that big-weave veil netting.
You know which one I mean.
Like this
Does anyone know where to buy that?

My only regret is I didn't get a picture of it on the bride's head.
It looked great in her hair though. She had beautiful dark hair and it contrasted nicely.


I would love to do something like this again.
So ... if anyone knows someone getting married who wants a custom hair accessory,
let me know ;)

Here are a few of my absolute favorites, pictures I have collected for, once again, absolutely no reason:

By Twigs and Honey, seen here

How stunning is this unique veil? Seen here.

And I love this girl's headband. Made by Courtney at Doloris Petunia (ETSY) and seen here and more here.

And I love this one, but I think the wire part might be outside of my skill level. Seen here by Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD

My recent obsessions

Oh, hello world. Are you still there?

There are so many things I have been wanting to tell you about. But I have been very preoccupied lately.

I am about to take a bit of a vacation though ...

... from crafting ... (gasp!)

It won't be long, but I have been working my tail-end off.
And my tail-end needs a break.

So, during that vacation time I am going to tell you about each of the 9 things pictured above!
Doesn't that sound fun?