Baby Shower Gift For The Dad-To-Be

Baby Shower Gift For The Dad-To-Be

Dads-to-be need to feel special too. All tucked in as snug as a bug in a rug. Uh-oh… Time for binky and bottle. “Burp!”  Ahhh. Just for fun for the wine connoisseur dad-to-be.  This gift for the dad-to-be will accompany baby shower cookie favors tied with the baby blue polka dot ribbon and a  mini cupcake tree, which I’ll post next week.  The tag and pennant were very easy to make. I printed out what I wanted to say and… [Read More]

Seattle (Macaron) Space Needle Cupcake Topper

This past weekend my family had two occasions to celebrate so I decided the requested chocolate cake would incorporate both upcoming events – a Valentine’s Day birthday of my brother and the departure of my nephew, his wife, and baby-to-be who leave this week to make Seattle their new home. When I thought of Seattle, it was obvious to me what I had to make – the space needle!   I made a batch of lemon macarons without color tinting… [Read More]

Hosting Your Own Backyard Movie Night

A few years ago we hosted a backyard movie night for the high school marching band. With over 80 teenagers the evening was a lot of fun and something I always wanted to do again for our family and friends. Not knowing what we needed back then we rented the equipment for the night which included an inflatable screen, speakers and a projector. The menu for the night was pure concession stand nostalgia: hotdogs in paper boats, boxed candy, soda… [Read More]

Collegiate Cupcakes – UCLA

To honor and celebrate a very special recent UCLA graduate I made UCLA cupcakes for his graduation party. I started out with a new oh-so-yummy vanilla cupcake recipe, made a variation using vanilla bean paste and voila! Next, I had to lock in my colors. I fell in love with the Decco Drops I found at Williams-Sonoma (in-store) so I had to commit to using a slightly more aqua color than the true Bruin baby blue. This also meant using… [Read More]

Jennifer’s Wedding

wedding cookies favors bridal shower cookies

It was a lovely day.The day before I had finished making 140 wedding cookies for my niece, but you might have already known that. On Saturday, as we were leaving for the ceremony, I received a call from the father of the bride. “Where are you?” Three little words at the beginning of a conversation that always makes your heart beat faster.Seems the florist came and left before the bakery dropped off the cake so there was no one to… [Read More]

Cookies, Picnik and Bokeh Hearts!

Originally this was going to be a post on a Valentine’s Day cookie with a familiar look but I decided to share my heart bokeh find with you. You know what bokeh is, right? ~the little glittery out of focus lights on your photo. Cookie Note~I created this decorated cookie design for my niece’s nautical themed wedding this past September but with pink hearts they’re perfect for Valentine’s Day too. Nautical Wedding Part 1Nautical Wedding Part 2Nautical Wedding Part 3… [Read More]

“You’ve Been BOOZEd!” *if you’re over 21!*

“You’ve Been BOOed by the Spirits of Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo!!” Pumpkins, ‘Trick or Treat’ and Halloweens past, Remember, ‘You’ve Been BOOed!’ Which time was the last? The kids are gone and out on their own, Once were costumed cuties but now have college loans. The fright of climbing tuition costs always on the rise, They think we’re made of out money but that’s not our Halloween disguise! Halloween isn’t the same for us and this we know is… [Read More]

Tailgate!

A house divided with tailgate togetherness. Menu ~ *Chicken Curry Wraps Lentil Salad Team Colored Chips Grapefruit Margaritas *Vanilla Bean Cupcakes We kept the menu easy and disposable so we could go directly from the campus to the stadium. Since the filling for the Chicken Curry Wraps was a beautiful Trojan golden color, I found red tortillas to use for the wraps and cardinal and gold sandwich picks. Oh, yes I did! I made yellow cake cupcakes with vanilla bean… [Read More]

Hollywood Forever Cemetery Movie Night

I have the best memories of summers at the drive-in theater in San Gabriel on Valley Blvd. My cousins and I would lay in the back of our station wagon munching on popcorn in brown paper bags brought from home while washing it down with 7-Up from the slender necked green bottles. James Bond with all his suave and sexy moves loomed larger than life on the screen. I fell hard and fast for Sean Connery and knew that’s how… [Read More]

More 4th of July Party Decorations

I found some fast and simple 4th of July decorations from Kate’s Paperie.Utensil Holder Starry Streamers Now why didn’t I think of this? 😉