cake #2

Well, lads and ladies, it's official: I'm a slacker. With a day and a week until the wedding I still have AT LEAST 7 cakes to bake... whoops. Meh, no worries. I'll pull it off! Y'day I polished off the rest of the cupkies (my signature deep-dish chocolate chip cookies, which I had to make more of because I ate a ridiculous amount of the first batch!), as well as whipping up a seriously tasty mocha cake that will just need to be glazed. Today I'm using that gorg pan pictured above (which I got as an AWESOME shower gift! Thanks Baba!) to do a test run of this recipe. The plan is to take the cake with me tomorrow to my buddy Eva's 10yr anniversary party (see how far behind we are!). Wish me luck because if it works out, we might have more than a few of our own pretty rose-shaped cakes at our wedding!

avoiding the unavoidable

So, first off, so sorry about the lack of posts. Ironically, I've been so busy with wedding stuff that I haven't had a chance (or the motivation) to post. Oh, and I've also been super busy AVOIDING doing wedding stuff! By painting. And painting. And painting. Our little '45 home was painted this weird, almost dusty rose-ish colour, that at first glance seems neutral, but is SO NOT! NOTHING matched or blended or whatever with it! Most importantly, none of "my" colours did. So I couldn't help myself. Especially in an open-concept house, wall colour makes a HUGE impact. So, I had already painted an accent wall at the back of my kitchen in what can only be described as brownie batter brown (seriously, that's exactly what it looks like), which, not surprisingly, pushed me to keep going. So, I picked out Buffy (the paint not the vampire slayer), a greeny/gray-ey/taupy beige and painted out the main hall, "front"entry, laundry area, the rest of the kitchen (minus the backsplash which got brownie-batter), including the bulkhead above the cabinets, and the dining area. Conveniently, we have a framed-in archway which separates the kitchen/diningroom/laundry from the office/living room which gave me a natural stopping point...

Anyway, long story short: it looks AMAZING. I always thought I would hate "beige". But with the crisp, wide white moldings, almost-black wall, and HUGE windows everywhere it looks GREAT! Best yet, it pushed me in a new colour direction as I realized that the perfect colour to tie the whole space together, including my future plans for the rest of the house, was a deep, rich MacIntosh apple red. Alone, the taupe looks too green to be able to play with my favorite aqua-ey accents, but paired with that Dr.Pepper-can red, it works SO well! Yay! I even did a quick diy, printing out Googled pics of chili peppers, raspberries, and said apples to fill up a multi-shot frame I already had! Cheap and chic! Perfection.

Now, here's hoping I can score a couple red accessories at my shower lol! *SO am kidding!* *kind of* Regardless, it's my 28th bday coming up on Thursday and I'm seriously looking forward to a day of junk stores and thrift shops to hopefully scores some cute new accessories. Above is my total inspiration... image from Apartment Therapy by Lily Gahagan.

my shower theme ( and my sistah!) rules!

Good job kid. And hey, don't worry about ruining the suprise. Let's face it, somethings are more fun when you see 'em coming!

seriously, don't even ask

I refuse to divulge how I came across baby shower game cards, but... these could sooooo easily be repurposed for a wedding shower, dontcha think?! I think it could be super sweet and really easy way to get your guests to ACTUALLY put down advice, or wishes for the couple without expecting a full paragraph or whatnot. I NEVER fill out those kinds of cards, but the super-simple, almost mad-libby tone here could be pretty fun! *hint hint shower organizers of mine* Image originally found at I *Heart* You.