A Photo A Day [Day 6]

Day 6

This week's theme: "The many faces of me." This is my working out face. Similar to my regular face but upside down and with messier hair surrounding it.

I think Loofy's determined to appear in at least 30% of the pictures I take during this project. Next thing I know she'll have an agent and she'll start demanding royalties. She's going to be the real star of the show.

Halloween Fabrics

I haven't mentioned my absolute favorite Halloween fabric here because I wanted to make sure I stocked up on enough before letting the masses know. Yes, all 52 of you followers. I'm sure you could single-handedly deplete the world's supply of Alexander Henry's "The Ghastlies" fabric. Now that I've seen it in person and have mine safely stashed away I can wholeheartedly recommend this amazing fabric:


As soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it! It's slightly Edward Gorey-esque, which I love, and the sinister details like the cute little girl wielding a hammer really make it for me. I found a good deal on Etsy and bought yards and yards of the stuff with no idea yet how I'll use it. It's selling out online in certain stores but I found a pretty good selection and the best prices on Etsy so check it out there.

The rest of Alexander Henry's Halloween line is also enthralling and I picked up a few yards of these as well:






That last one reminds me of our dearly departed black cat who won't be with us to frighten people this Halloween. Although she wasn't that thin until she started wasting away from cancer. Ok, that was a little depressing but it's how I cope. At least she had a nice long life full of (often unwanted) love and delicious food, which was her only interest in life.

Because Halloween is my favorite holiday I'm letting myself splurge a bit and pick up creepy fabrics that come my way. Today I made some great finds at Jo-Ann Fabrics taking advantage of the extra 50% off red tag (clearance) fabric prices plus an extra 10% off coupon. I cleaned them out of most of their skull fabrics in the hopes of one day using them for bags and aprons to sell in an Etsy shop. Until then I'm sure I'll use a few yards of these bad boys for myself:

Only $1.35-$2.25/yard!

Happy Halloween hunting!

A Photo A Day [Day 5]

Day 5

This week's theme: "The many faces of me." This probably qualifies as a silly face.

A Photo A Day [Day 4]

Day 4 - Two Cool Cats

Today I was going to take a photo of my "tired after a long, busy week at work and when, dear god, will the weekend get here" face but then little Loofy showed up in the middle of the photo shoot and cheered me right up. Even though it meant I was roped into what we call "Loofy Time," a period of 5-10 minutes that have to be solely devoted to petting Loofy and letting her lick my face and hands with her rough kitty tongue. Running away is not an option as she is persistent and will follow until her petting quota has been met. It's kind of cute in a sometimes annoying way.

A Photo A Day [Day 3]

Day 3

What? I'm just hanging out with my roomie, Donna. 'Tis a typical Wednesday night around these parts.

P.S. Click on the image for a larger view of my glowing yellow eyes. If you dare...

A Photo A Day - 365 Project

I'm only a day late at discovering Positively Positive's A Photo A Day Project. Since I'm all about following routines the idea of taking a photograph every day for an entire year, no matter what's going on in my life, appeals to me. I'm also a fan of documenting my life so it'll be fun to look back a year from now to see what I was up to today. I'll get 365 chances to work on improving my photography and photo editing skills so I'm game.

I just so happened to snap a few pictures of myself yesterday so I'm going to post both days 1 and 2 so I'll be on the same time line as Positively Positive. This week's theme is "the many faces of me" so expect to see a lot of close up photos of my (weird) face taken from weird angles.

Day 1

Day 2

If this is something you think you'd enjoy too, visit Positively Positive and join in the fun.

Summertime Cupcake Challenge Wrap Up

Whew! I don't think I've ever baked that many cupcakes in such short span of time! Hoosier Homemade's Summertime Cupcake Challenge has been a real challenge for me not just because of the sheer quantity of cupcakes involved but also because some of the weekly themes took me way out of my comfort zone. It's been a fun ride and a great way to let me relive the fun of my summer just as it's coming to a close.

Things I learned about myself over the course of this competition:

• I am weird. Not really news to me but this is a new level of weirdness I discovered. My idea of "summertime fun" isn't exactly like everyone else's. Heck, one of my entries involved vampires not of the Twilight variety. Everyone else seems to do normal things like go out to the beach or hit the theater to see a movie with the kids. I suspect I'm part vampire, which is why sunlight and I don't get along, hence no trips to the beach for me. I don't have kids and even if I did I'm not sure I'd go to the theater more often than the three times a year I currently go because I'm so old and curmudgeonly at the age of 28 that I can't stand the other patrons. They ruin the movie-watching experience too much for me. Instead, many of my summertime memories involve being holed up at home in front of the TV or in the seclusion of my backyard garden. Some may call it a sad, solitary life. I call it the freedom to do whatever the heck I want whenever I want while wearing my pajamas because no one's there to see.


• To me it's the little things that make me happy and add up to memories I enjoy looking back on. Something as simple as treating myself to a root beer float once a year on a hot summer day sticks with me as a fond memory. I hope this doesn't make me seem boring to those of you out there with exciting lives filling your summers with action-packed adventures.


• There is apparently one (and only one) way to get me to stop eating cupcakes: infect me with the plague. I caught a nasty cold smack dab in the middle of the contest, which threw my baking schedule out of whack and also left me unable to appreciate the cupcakes when I finally got the energy to bake. :( Most of the cupcakes went straight into the freezer because I didn't want to miss out on sampling the goodies I toiled over for hours. Not as good as freshly baked but better than letting my husband eat them all.


• I'm extremely opinionated about something as silly as cupcakes. The challenge forced me to use an evil cake mix and make frou frouy decorations for my cupcakes, which are things I'd never ordinarily do and duly ranted about in my posts. Who knew I cared so much and had such a philosophy built up about what constitutes a "proper" cupcake? Actually, I have a live and let live about most things that people do and cupcake baking is no exception. This challenge just further cemented my ideas about what works for me in my kitchen.

To recap my fabulous entries (click on the photos for the individual posts):


Week One (Flavor) - Fresh peach cupcakes with mint-infused ricotta white chocolate filling topped with whipped white chocolate ganache and a drizzle of peach simple syrup, all adorned with candied mint leaves

My homage to my flourishing garden and fresh summertime produce. I doubt this challenge would have been half as much fun at any other time of the year if only because of all of the delicious fresh fruit I had to play around with.



Week One Continued - Orange Tea Creamsicle Cupcakes

Ever the overachiever, once I discovered I could enter more than one cupcake I linked these up as well. One of my favorite childhood summertime treats with a grown up flair.



Week Two (Event/Activities) - Eton Mess Cupcakes: Yellow cake filled with fresh macerated strawberries topped with dollops of whipped cream and homemade crisp meringue

An ode to Wimbledon, which captures my imagination and all of my free time for two wondrous weeks in June/July. Incidentally, those also happen to be weeks when the temps start to shoot up so I'm happy camping out in front of the telly taking advantage of the lovely air conditioning.



Week Two Continued - Vampire Cupcakes: Chili-spiced cake with white chocolate chips, a "bloody" cherry pie filling, and cinnamon whipped white chocolate ganache on top

Entry #2 depicting a fun activity I did this summer. Weirdly enough, I'm counting donating blood as fun. This is not only because I felt good doing something to help others but also because the employees at the blood bank were fun to hang out with for the 45 minutes my husband and I were there. Plus I got a free pint of ice cream in exchange for my pint of blood! Yum! (The ice cream, not the blood.)



Week Three (The Dreaded Cake Mix) - Root Beer Float Cupcakes: Spiced root beer cake topped with a rich fudge root beer frosting and a pint-sized scoop of vanilla ice cream

Alright, alright, you twisted my arm and made me use a cake mix for the first time in years. And you know what? It actually turned out well. The spice cake mix combined with the root beer and sassafras flavor created a lovely symphony of flavors and it was all cooled off with that scoop of ice cream. One of my favorite summertime treats in cupcake form.



Week Four (Candy Decorations) - Princess Cake Cupcakes: Sponge cake layered with whipped cream, jam, and pastry cream all topped with a layer of rolled marzipan and adorned with pink marzipan roses

A recreation of the cake I look forward to eating every year for my grandmother's birthday in June. I'd been wanting to make these cupcakes for some time so I'm grateful to this challenge for pushing me to finally do it.


Thanks to Hoosier Homemade for hosting such a fun and challenging challenge!