Kerissa Bakes!

Hi there. I've been busy. Mostly creating Kerissa Bakes. A fun little gig I'm starting up. Come by! Check it out!

My cake was featured on Design*Sponge, and Wedding Chicks.

Photo by Chantal Andrea.

Plus, there's a new law in Washington (the Cottage Food Act) that is about to go into effect making it all legal and stuff for me to sell cakes from my kitchen for a profit. Yay!

I'm excited. And busy. And really - want a vegan cake? Let me know! I promise they will make everyone happy. And have I mentioned the vegan sugar cookies? Habit forming, I tell you.

I still like pretty!

Oh hey there. I know it’s been a while. I seem to be all work, no play right now. Ok, not all work, but definitely more work. You won’t hold it against me, will you?

Also, if I ever get the privilege of turning 80, I really hope someone makes a big deal out of it. Am I right? I mean, really; 80 isn't something to be taken lightly.

There should be some flowers. Perhaps like these.

Or maybe these, all prettied up with some apples!

And there ought to be some tissue paper poms and some custom signage.

Maybe with a picture of me when I was a child (well, you know, if I was a little boy back then).

Maybe custom signage all over the place!?

If you hadn't guessed, we had a big ol' birthday party bash for my uncle's 80th.

There was a dessert table, because well, duh...

Some of the birthday boy's favorites made their appearance: homemade chocolate chip cookies,

homemade peanut butter blossom cookies,

non-dairy Rice Krispie treats,

and vegan (so I could eat them 'cause I'm selfish like that) mini-donuts from Mighty O Donuts (in two flavors - vanilla and orange, no less).


Also, got milk?


Maybe you do, but, do you got adorable milk bottles? (That just doesn't have the same ring to it, but I tried.)

The ugly cake was delicious (or so I'm told - it was made with cream and whole milk and cream cheese and butter, so it wasn't for me). (Do note my lack of photograph highlighting the drippy, lopsided cake. Not an accident.) It was homemade red (wine) velvet cake with a butter cream cheese frosting. Tragically, it turned out to be a massive cake fail in the pretty department. Probably one of my worst cakes ever, in fact. Sigh. That was a busy morning and I just didn't have time to tame uncooperative frosting.

There was also a candy bar because, well...because knowing when to stop is not my family's strong point.

Cinnamon lips.

Salted caramels.

Australian licorice, Reese's Pieces, Coconut Jelly Bellies (I wonder where those could have come from!? Hello, wedding leftovers!).


Oh, and Swedish fish!

Mmmm.

I know some people are over the vintage stripped straws. But, I'm not one of them. I'm still quite into these straws. This is why:

And don't pretend you didn't see that mini vintage suitcase. You know you love them as much as I do. (Ok, maybe not that much - I do have 3 sets. That might be a tad on the ridiculous side...again with the knowing when to stop.)

Did I mention there were donuts!?

A good time was had by all, and many were forced to take home way more treats than they wanted. But I betcha they ate them in the car on the way home.

Today's the day!!!!!

That Style Me Pretty - that, oh so lovely wedding blog that has sucked away more hours of my life than I can count, featured MY wedding! (Wait...I mean, *OUR* wedding...riiiight.) Check it out here!



I am so honored, and excited, and happy, and...someone get me a thesaurus!

Exciting news!

...but I'm not yet ready to share. Let's just say it's awesomesauce with a side of fantastic!

I do miss writing here, and I have done many pretty things in the last couple of months. Hopefully, I'll find a little time after the holidays to return to my love of pretty.

I will definitely announce my great news, too! You'll like it. I promise!

Meanwhile, check out my totally awesome 80's cakes that I made for a friend's daughter's 14th birthday:



Polka dots and neon hearts - I mean really, who can resist!

Dear Blog: I'm sorry!

Hello! Yes, I still *do* like pretty. Blog, I have missed you. I just don't have enough time in the day! It's been a little crazy with a new career and, oh yeah, I got married!

I'm still waiting for the photos, of course, and I can't wait to share some of the details. I took exactly zero photos that day, so the few pictures I do have are from my guests. Here are a couple of pictures I received from friends.

The candy (and cookie and rice krispie treat and beef jerky) bar.

No joke, people raided the candy bar before dinner. Especially the beef jerky, which was gone by the end of the night! (However, I will have coconut jelly bellies for *years* - not that I'm complaining!)

And here's a photo of the table from one of my awesome guests! (Hi!)

I can't wait for more photos! (As in, I stalk my photographer's blog in hopes of a glimpse!)

And, you know what? I loved having all my decorations around making everything look pretty, but in the end, on the day of, none of it mattered. It just didn't. All that mattered was we got married, we ate amazing food, and we had an awesome dance party!

I will rave about my vendors in a future post because they are amazing and I can't say enough good things about them in enough places!

Love, love, love!

Sneak Preview

I thought it would be helpful for the venue to mock up a table. Ok, mostly I wanted to see it for myself, but I will have a photo printed for the venue.

It will be much more lovely with a simple cream tablecloth and white plates, as the design on the tablecloth distracts from the overall effect, but this is what I had.

Top view:


(On a side note, I want to host a party based solely on this tablecloth my grandmother bought in Europe because it really is gorgeous, but that's a post for another day.)


I hope to have even a few more yo-yos and fabric ruffly flowers per table so they can come down closer to the plates and feel as though they spread into the settings themselves, especially since the tables will be much bigger.




The tags and keys will have people's names and their entree choice noted on them.


Those dahlias are, in fact, the dahlias my uncle planted all over his backyard for me to use at my wedding. They're going to be lovely when I work harder to cluster them properly, plus, these were cut a number of days ago, so they are beginning to wilt, but I still really like them.



The clock is ticking! We're getting close!

Tissue paper flowers. Everywhere.

I know, I know. I've been neglecting you, blog. But I've been trying to be a doer. You know, one who does. So, here is one of the things that I did:


There are tissue paper flowers taking over!


These are the Martha Stewart's poms that are absolutely every.where. Just google it - I promise, you'll find them. Instead of pulling them both ways to make a round pom, I just pull them up one way, and ta-daaaa: Flower. It's kind of the opposite of magic because it's so simple, but when you need to make a bunch of something, simple is good.

I'd say that most of these flowers made with tissue cut about 14 inches long and 6-8 inches wide. But I made some that were a bit bigger. None of this was very scientifically or exactly measured. I used between 5-7 sheets, most of the time. But if you want a more carnation-y look, use more. Be forwarned however - too many sheets of paper can make it very hard to to get a nice clean flower. Ditto if you make the flowers much smaller than 6 inches wide. A couple of them met the inside of my recycle bin for that reason.


Sometimes I rounded the edges. It makes for a more peony-looking flower.


Sometimes I made spikey edges, which makes them look more dahlia-like, which is really what my other flowers are going to be, so I probably should have stuck with that, but I liked the variety, and since I did this for 5 hours one day, I mixed it up a bit.


Yes. Five hours in a row. Now I'm going to have to figure out how to get rid of the tan lines on my shoulders because my dress is strapless. Oy. The good news is that the sun was out in Seattle, and while the rest of the country is experiencing a heat wave, we're having a very lackluster summer here. So, if the rest of the country wants to come cool off, it might be time to come visit Seattle!

Ok, focus. Here we go. My pile eventually grew from this:


to this:


Which I thought would be enough. But it wasn't. So I had to make a few more. In the end, I had enough to make plenty of bouquets of flowers.




And what will I be doing with these, you ask?

Well, these puppies will be holding up the table numbers. Like this.



And this.


Then there will be some real dahlias hanging out with them as well and hopefully each table will have one tissue and two "real" arrangements, 0r something along those lines. That will cut down on cost, and also on the time it will take to make the arrangements the day before. Yes, I know I'm crazy, but there will be a number of us hopefully just squishing the dahlias into the vases the day before. I'm not going to be too picky about it, and it should go pretty smoothly. Don't worry, I have a couple of plan B's - or is that a Plan B and a Plan C? It'll all work out, I'm sure.