Shutter! (Not shudder)

Remember these shutters I found? Turns out they couldn't ship them. But this is one of those rare "ask and ye shall receive" moments.

Guess what my aunt had hanging out in her garage!?


Pretty, right?


I'm going to add either some hooks or small nails to hang place cards with skeleton keys. See? Kinda like this...


except different. But you get the idea! How lucky am I!? And $0 fits my budget so perfectly!

Mmmmmm bread.

I need to go gluten free. At least for two weeks. Just to see if it's causing my headaches and general yucky-feeling-ness. So, I made bread. Makes sense, right?

And I made these:


They're almond macaroons. They're phenomenal!


And you know what!? Gluten free! There is exactly 3 ingredients: almond paste, sugar and egg whites.

So, I'll go gluten free just as soon as I finish that loaf of bread. (Which obviously won't be long.)

But let's be clear. I'm making more of these cookies. :)

Shoe help!

So, I ripped the bow off my shoes. I have nothing against grosgrain ribbon bows. Except they just aren't right for a wedding. If you recall, they looked like this from here:
I think they already look more sophisticated without the bows, but obviously, they need a little help.


So, this lady here mocked up a kiss pleat for me.


I likes, although I haven't really explored other options. Maybe I'll mock up some fabric flowers and see how that looks, too. I'm not sure. I do like the shape of the kiss pleat, though. So many tiny decisions to be made still! And now there is officially less than 6 months left. Should I start freaking out yet?

Also, Chris bought me flowers. Pretty!


And, not surprisingly, I still love milk glass!

Cake Wreck

Have you ever had one of those days where *nothing* goes as planned? No? Really? I don't believe you.

I managed to make a cake last week that I'm afraid I might see on Cake Wrecks. While that website sometimes makes me laugh so hard it brings me to tears, it won't be as funny when one of *my* cakes ends up on there. And this cake already brought me to tears.

I should've known. A red guitar is clearly outside of my ability levels on the decorating front. I knew that going in, but the family who enjoyed the rainbow cake was so excited about their guitar cake that I think I became delusional about my abilities.

Luckily, they are super nice people and didn't gasp when opening the cake box to find this.


I tried. Hard. I even tried not to cry *in* the cake. I was successful, but the cat didn't appreciate it when I used her to wipe my tears.



And, yes, I'm aware that the neck of the guitar is waaay too short. However, if someone pays for a cake, I don't imagine they want four inches of cake and 10 inches of neck, so, I modified the thing a bit. Into a violin. Ok, even violins have longer necks than this. Sigh.

I guess it looks so-so-ok. Hopefully it won't really end up on Cake Wrecks. Because then I would cry. Again. And it would remind me of the series of disasters that this cake brought. (1) Overbaked chocolate cake! Nooooo! (That's what happens when your oven is at least 50 degrees hotter than it's supposed to be. Although I'm used to that, so what's my excuse!?) (2) The frosting wasn't thick enough to give me a nice edge. It was too schloopy. (3) The butter in the red frosting had a funny taste to it. Yuck. (4) I ran out of powdered sugar before making the white icing, so I had to use regular sugar because it was LATE and I just had to be DONE, so it was all grainy and gross. I'm not sure I've ever had such a hard time with cake before.

Cake Muse

Stay tuned!

What wedding?

Who has time to do any wedding related things when there are so many cakes to be made? Not me!

I am, however, in looove with this vegan chocolate cherry cream cake with maraschino cherry hearts as a border. C'mon! That's cute!! I was pretty proud of myself when I thought of it. *Pats self on back.*




Then I made a vegan chai latte cake. It's gooood.



I can't decide which cake I like more. I'd say it's a toss up! (Although the chocolate gets points for adorableness.)

Since my awesome friend (and best customer) Katrina is keeping one cake for her birthday and the other is going to work with her hubby, I made mini cupcakes for her to taste test and decide which stays cake goes to work and which cake stays home. Look how small they are in the cupcake holder! They're adorable.


I can't stop eating them.


Mmmm, breakfast.


At one point during the frosting process I heard a funny sound. It was the cat sitting a few feet away, gazing lovingly at the cake and repeatedly licking her lips. Finally, when the licking got irritating enough and I realized she wasn't leaving, I got a spoon, put a teeensy bit of frosting on it, put it on the floor. She ate it up and went to lay down. She just needed a little after-dinner sweet. She's sooo my cat.

Dear sleep: It was nice knowing ya!

Well, I actually got a decent amount of sleep for the past few nights. Good thing, too, because I won't be seeing any of that for a while. 5 days. 3 cakes. You do the math. Oh yeah, and a job. And teaching kids dance. And attending my own dance class for sanity's sake.

Stay tuned for photos (of the cakes, not of the dark circles under my eyes). :)