{ hello baby! }

Another baby shower, this time for a baby girl! I'm a girly girl at heart so I had so much fun with the decorating and making everything pink and girly :)

Growing up, I love love loved lacy party dresses, red sequin shoes a la Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and twirling in frilly tutus. Somewhere down the line, I traded in the lacy party dresses and the red sequin shoes (that momma would never let me get) for jeans and sneakers. But I find myself being drawn back to all the girly stuffy. I'll see something sparkly and think ' yes, please!' or I'll see something sweet and pretty and think ' I heart, must have now!'. Hello girly me!

I digress...word on the street was that the soon-to-be-momma loves red velvet so I made some red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, adorable mini pink flower vanilla cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream , and iced baby carriage sugar cookies (pink of course!). Honestly, my favorites were the mini flower cupcakes - so cute! so pretty! so girly! They were so much fun to pipe and the more I piped the happier I got. By the end of the night, I had surrounded myself in a sea of cute little pink flowers. Mini always = cute; it's a rule!

                     

{ 2 + 8 = 10 }

I swear it's true...at least when it comes to birthdays :) In honor of a bfffff's 28th or 10th (who's counting, really?), I made her a Quatchi birthday cake to celebrate. Who/What is Quatchi you say? Only the greatest Sasquatch ever who also happens to snowboard, ski, bobsled, and does all Vancouver Olympic events!

Quatchi watches while I eat my pancakes

Quatchi was a success! He tasted great (even his blue earmuffs and giant feet, which were made Ace of Cakes style with Rice Krispie treats) and I wasn't tooooo stressed from making the cake. Minor panic attacks did occur I will admit - it was a hot hot day and even hotter in my apt, which made the buttercream weepy so I had to constantly put Quatchi and buttercream back in the fridge to firm up again. I also underestimated how much buttercream would be needed to frost Quatchi. By the end I was scraping the mixing bowls and squeezing every last drop out of the pastry bag.

Recap: Quatchi is the greatest Sasquatch ever, who also happens to be a chocolate root beer cake with coffee whipped "mousse" filling, covered with chocolate and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and topped off with rice krispie earmuffs and feet!

Happy Happy Birthday!! To many more years of crazy adventures and ridiculous stories to giggle over! :)

{ swirls }

On a dreary winter day a few weeks ago, I had me some meyer lemons laying around waiting to be made into something delicious. So I got to it and whipped up vanilla cupcakes topped with fluffy swirls of meyer lemon buttercream frosting. I got a chance to practice my cupcake swirling technique and play around with my new S90 camera!

Perfect for reminding me that spring is peeking from behind that darn cloud :)

{ tiny hands ~ button nose ~ chubby cheeks ~ little toes }

Irene's been busy planning out an incredible baby shower for her co-worker - planning out every single detail and, of course, baking everything for the shower!

Her army (me) helped out and attacked the sugar cookies, which were a total failure the last time I tried to make super cute corgi cookies, but SUCCESS! Her royal icing recipe was great and I didn't have as much difficulty as last time. I'm ready to give those big bad corgi's another shot! Note to self though, must not be lazy and just dot the eyes with food coloring on the rubber duckies - those poor duckies had some way wonky eyes.

Hip-hip-hooraaaaay for an awesome baby shower!

Don't eat the diapers! But look it's baby elmo diapers!

{ it's a snowicane! }

i woke up this morning to snowflakes the size of meatballs whirling about (yes, i think in terms of food!!). today would be perfect if i could spend the day snuggled in bed with a nice big cup of vosges hot cocoa and giant chunks of marshmallows.

vosges chocolates describes la parisienne couture cocoa as bittersweet velvet on the tongue - sounds like i would get a mouthful of velvet fuzzies, right? BUT BUT BUT!! it's absolutely scrumptiously like the greatest hot cocoa ever!

to the start of tart's adventures!