Happy Creepy Day

Spiders creep me out.

Pakistan the Only choice

"The Silver Lining, The Spider Webs! An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters. Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees have become cocooned in spiders webs. People in this part of Sindh have never seen this phenome...non before but, they also report that there are now far fewer mosquitoes than they would expect, given the amount of stagnant, standing water that is around. It is thought that the mosquitoes are getting caught in the spiders web, thus, reducing the risk of malaria, which would be one blessing for the people of Sindh, facing so many other hardships after the floods...!!!"

Someday

I really like these shoes. I've been on the lookout for some boots like this, and since I'm apparently a grown up now I require that my shoes be leather if I can. Anybody want to give me 150 bones? It's going to a great cause. And maybe someday I will be able to pull of THESE.

I really like the idea of color on my bottom, but seriously? I just don't know if these thighs can handle that kind of chroma.

Juice

Ok, so I guess I should just get this over with. Matt and I decided to do something so radical and so unusual for us that it required us to make a purchase:

This is a juicer. Why? Because we are going to take all those fruits and veggies you see in the store and make them into liquid. And then we're going to drink them. And then we're going to hopefully start seeing (and feeling) our bodies get happy. We recently watched this movie and decided we wanted to try it. Correction: Matt wanted to try it and I wanted to go along with him. I'm going for two weeks and he's going to try 30 days. The goal is to only drink healthy juice for every meal. EVERY DAY. It's all so ridiculous when you think that Thanksgiving is only 4 weeks from today (weird!). Oh well. I pretty much count on Matt being done before then. He's not one to miss out on turkey day.
I know that my last effort was only completed to about 75%, but I'm more prepared this time. I actually have a scale now, and I have another person with me. I don't think the weight will just melt off like the guy in the movie, but I do hope I feel better. I know from my time at IIN that these things do actually work when done right and under the right expectations.

We start this weekend.

Creepy?

I've never considered myself a 'crafter'. I always left that up to my female counterparts. And let's be honest, Utah is craft central. But when I couldn't attend a class on how to make creepy Halloween decor bottles, my friend and I decided to figure it out ourselves. She's the one with the craft knowledge, so we pulled our heads together and came up with these. And it cost less too! They weren't very hard to do either. You want to know how? OK! Here goes. Get ready for how easy this was.

-buy some bottles. Glass, plastic...whatever suits your mood. A thrift store does well for this.
-get some paint. We only had acrylic paint and some silver spray paint. I really wanted to use black spray paint, which I think would have worked the best, but I totally forgot to get it. ( Did I mention I was sick this weekend? Apparently it was the flu. Who knew.)
-get some awesome labels or make your own. I love that it doesn't have to be anything special here. If it says "potion", you're good to go.
-you can either paint the bottle now, or wait until you glue the label on with Mod Podge. I did a little of both so I could get that aged look.
-then, finish off the label with painting over it with more Mod Podge, and then add some twine around the top.

This was total trial and error. Could it have been better? Probably. If I do it again I would get better labels and black spray paint. I guess the added glitter glue wasn't so bad though...

Happy creepy bottle decor Halloween.

Flea

I don't get out much to these things, but I dragged took Matt along to a small flea market the other day. I was a genius that day and forgot to bring cash. der. But I managed not give in to buying all the little things I saw. Here's a few goodies I saw along the way.

This is what I ended up with. Authentic Fiestaware and Wedgewood. $9 bucks!

It's diamond studded

Ok so it's not really. But isn't it cute? I loved making this cake. It was my sister in law's birthday recently and I was asked to do "just something cute and fun. It doesn't have to be a big deal". Soooo this is what I came up with. You know how when you go to school for something you feel like people might just expect whatever you do to be good or amazing or brilliant or...? yeah I get that sometimes. I know a lot of it is me, but man! the pressure to perform! What if I had just shown up with Betty Crocker making my cake and I slapped some grocery store decor on there and called it a day? Because I was tempted. But then I thought about how I spent 8 months and a million dollars learning how to bake and make things pretty and thought: "hm. That would look bad." (by the way, if you love Betty and easy decor, by all means do it! There's nothing wrong with that if that's the way you roll). So alas here I stand with a cake that took hours and I couldn't even go to the party to see their smiling faces. I hear she liked it. Yay :)

crap. I don't remember the flavors. Wait! Vanilla cake with Strawberry buttercream. There you go.

booties

Some of our friends recently adopted a baby girl. They are just over the moon with her. They've been so patient through the whole process and when she was finally born it was so cute to see how excited they were. I wanted to do a little something for them because it was their first baby. I always want to do something a little different than the standard baby gift, so I tried to find something that would be useful but absolutely darling as well. It is a little girl after all. This is what I came up with . I fell in love with these when I saw them. SO CUTE. Baby girl anyone? It makes me want to start having kids. Sort of...

Oh and I got these (where else?) on Etsy. Here is the shop. They come all the way from ye olde England. I wish Matt could say that to you in some sort of amazing accent. It'd make that statement so much cooler.

yarrrr

Here is the finished birthday cake. I hear it was a hit at the party. I'm always so happy when things turn out.

chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream

coolio

Workin' hard today folks. Workin' hard. Beehive Bazaar will come faster than I think. It always does.

I'm also working on getting a bunch of pictures put together for all the adventures I've been having, so stay tuned...






BAXTERIUS

yer gonna love him

And yet again

The secret (not secret) allure of Ryan Gosling continues. (Why?) You should know I also have a thing for Conan O'Brian. Why not wrap it up in a bow and give you both! Here! You can thank me later. It talks about cats and everything.

oh, and I just got back from the great city of New York. Lots of pictures to come my friends, lots of pictures...

I've got some 'splaining to do

So Ryan Baxter. You're probably wondering. He is the persona created by Brandon Haberman, acted by my huz, and produced and made by the two of them. Not just the two of them mind you, but they are the drivers behind getting this movie made. Last year the movie was shot, and now, a year later, they have a great, almost finished product. Movies cost a lot you know! They are very serious about this. This isn't just for fun, they are doing it FOR REAL. FOOORRRR RREEEAALLL. They need all the help they can get in getting the last things finished. That's where you come in. If you can, donate. We'd all love you to the moon for it. If they don't reach their goal, they don't get anything. Nothing. See how sadly that echos? This means a lot to us. It's been a friends and family effort, and we really believe in it. Here's hoping we get in to lots of film festivals and see lots of fun cities. I'm so excited!!

Here you go. In case you didn't notice.

I can't believe you don't know about this

RYAN BAXTER. You heard of him? You should know this guy. You should know allllll about him...

GET IT

Workin hard...

I've been working on a little boy's birthday cake this weekend. I am finishing it tonight, so I should have pictures of it soon. I figure that with an apron this loud I should post about it early. heh. What you don't know is that I have lazy man sweats on under that. The nerve.
Also!
I decided to give the Beehive Bazaar a go for their holiday market. I'm a little nervous because I'm just one person and it's THREE DAYS LONG. I will have so. much. baking. ahead of me. ehhhh good idea? We'll see. Go check it out! It's the second weekend in December in P-town Utah.

A Real Human

Fall is awesome.
So glad we took the chance to go up the canyon last weekend and eat KFC (even though the KFC isn't required) because this weekend's gonna suck. boo.

Be aware of the slew of grumpies that like to go hiking.

And, reasons my husband loves me: he finds this song. You guys, go see Drive. I mean, if you're into this kind of thing...

College feat. Electric Youth - A Real Hero by College

Date Night

We don't get a ton of these. Actually, I lied. We go out, but it's not labeled a date necessarily. I guess that's the difference. We labeled this a date (it's the small things guys). We were super excited to be going out to a new place and then get frozen yogurt and see a movie. We figured that since we were those cheap people and used a gift certificate, then we'd be ok to go to a full price movie. Wow. The luxuries.

Drive was the movie, and The Garage was the food. It's out in Industrial Land Utah, which means those megawatt lights you see in the picture are actually some sort of refinery. Weird? Whatever it works. They have deep fried mormon potatoes! Seriously. If you don't know what mormon potatoes are, go here, and then go make yourself some. You'll be converted! (heh heh. get it? I kid, I kid). Anyway so after we finished our saturated fat, we rolled out the door and headed to a local yogurt place. I shared a cup with Matt of original with mochi and these little juice filled berry things. I don't know what they are but they are delish-ous. I made Matt try lychee with it. It took some convincing. He said it looked like...I'm not going to say it. Anyway when he discovered it actually tasted like a really sweet fruit (because, I don't know, THAT'S WHAT IT IS) he ended up liking it. I win.

Drive was awesome, by the way. I have a secret crush on Ryan Gosling. I don't know, I guess it was The Notebook that did it.

Mr & Mrs Mabe

I love it when friends trust me to do their wedding cake. I did this cake for a couple of friends who were meant for each other. Darling couple, those two... Anyway, I tried to pattern this cake after her dress. It was a vintage lace sort of style, with a really pretty tulle sash. She wasn't sure what she wanted, so we settled on that design. Her colors were a very purple purple, if that makes sense. Oh and gray-ish charcoal. It's funny because when I got their to put the flowers on, her mom handed me this HUGE bunch of flowers wrapped in paper and said, " we asked for purple and this is what she gave us". Heh. Looks purple and burgundy and... whatever! I like it! I think it turned out ok, and honestly nobody notices those things anyway right? Happy wedding!

lemon poppyseed cake with strawberry buttercream and chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream

You know I've got to be honest. I hate the way these pictures look. Granted, I took them, but I just can't edit them the way I want right now and I was too impatient not to post something seeing as how it's been forever. This is what you get for now internet...

Oh and,

photo by V

the VERY happy couple :)