{ Anthropologie Love } Adorable ceramic farmer’s market baskets

Photos:  Anthropologie 

I was so excited to see Anthro carrying this ceramic produce holder this year and even more excited to see that the small one is in an aqua blue.  The white one is larger, and sells for $20, while the smaller blue one is $14.

How fun will it be to take these out to the garden and hand pick the blueberries, blackberries and raspberries in these?  And they are equally functional allowing you to both rinse and serve the berries in them!  I definitely will be making a run to Anthro this weekend to pick these up.

{ Entertaining } Cutest summer appetizer plates

CB2 – oliver appetizer plates.

Sadly, the one with the umbrella was the only one not backordered, but I grabbed four of the umbrella one.  I am hoping that they might have them in the CB store in town!  They just make me smile.

{ Crafty } Princess Lasertron’s Felt floral bouquets

Photos: Princess Lasertron.

I am in complete awe at the unique bouquets there are today compared to when i got married.  I just love these felt bouquets by Princess Lasertron.  Having two daughters… I love keeping all these ideas in my head for the weddings some day.  The craftmanship ….what a wonderful momento of your wedding.

She also has a kit where you can make a 10″ bouquet yourself.

{ entertaining } … a wedding in wonderland.

kim le photography.

This Alice in Wonderland inspired wedding is just phenomenal.  The hanging teapots, the garlands of playing cards, the color scheme.  Absolutely stunning.  I wish I had seen this before I had my daughter’s party.

{ Entertaining } …Utterly Engaging…

Photo: Utterly Engaged.

If you have never come across it, definitely go check out the Utterly Engaged website.  Their Ezine rivals any bridal/special occasion magazine you see on the shelves.  So full of amazing details for not only brides, but anyone who loves to entertain, do DIY projects, flowers, photography etc.   There are eight issues to keep you inspired and in awe of the creative people they have found.

{ Thrifting/Entertaining } … inspired by Alice.

When looking for party decorations for my daughter’s surprise party the night of the opening of Alice in Wonderland, I came across this little white teapot at Goodwill ($4.99…which I thought was a bit pricy, but I was in a hurry and grabbed it).  The teacups were .49 cents apiece … grabbed four sets of those.  Since my grocery store didn’t have a pale yellow, I went with the white flowers then had on sale (12 for 5.00– steal).  I think I ended up loving the monochromatic look even better than the yellow.

…if you can’t tell, I would have loved to have done party planning in another life.

Even if none of the party-goers noticed the arrangements, I had a lot of fun thrifting and styling this cute little vignette.  I will do another post about all the good finds I got that day.  It was definitely a GOOD thrift day.

{ Entertaining/Food } … the fabulous neon rainbow cake.

So, this cake found on the Whisk Kid blog (with instructions) was the inspiration for my daughter’s birthday cake.  When I first saw it online, I thought baking the separate layers and mixing up the colors would be the tricky part.

We started with the following (I chose to go the quick and easy box method way).

Then, we poured equal amounts into 8 bowls and added the funky neon food coloring (not shown).  I wish I had more available colors of food coloring though, and will definitely acquire some next time.  You then put that batter into individual pans.  I did 8.

We ended up baking them for 15 minutes, which was about 10 minutes less than the normal recipe called for.

(Sorry I didn’t take any pix of building the cake…it was a bit messy). Here is where the cake got difficult I thought.  I didn’t spend enough time researching before I jumped into this and I found out one tip too late.  When the cake bakes, it naturally gets a bit mounded on the top.  The bottom will be perfectly flat, but you need to try to slice the mounded portion off each layer of your cake so that both sides are flat.  I didn’t know this, and the result is a lopsided cake.  You don’t need to worry that the top of the cake is no longer smooth because the icing will be on top of it.   We used a cream cheese frosting, … but next time I think I will go with a buttercream, because there is a bit of a tartness to cream cheese frosting that gets a bit overwhelming when you have soooo much of it.

The next tricky part I thought was frosting the sides and tops.  I can tell if you do it enough, you probably can get the technique down, but… it was definitely a learning experiencing on this cake.

The fun thing about the rainbow cake I think is that from the outside, … no one has any idea the craziness that hides beneath the frosting.

In my case, it just looked like a poorly done homemade cake!  I was so excited to find this perfect glass cake stand that morning at Goodwill (thrifting post coming soon).  It really helped to make my cake look fancier and gave me space to do the blue frosting at the bottom.  That is my daughter cutting into the cake … she still didn’t know what kind it was.  Nice hefty piece she was dishing out.

So, even though this cake looks a bit daunting to make, I want to encourage everyone to try it once.  It was a lot of fun to make, and even yummier to eat.  Next, time I think I want to try more typical rainbow colors, but this was a unique version.

{ Entertaining } … a sneak peak.

Can you guess what cake we might be attempting to make in our house?

{ Holidays } Happy Valentine’s Day Ya’ll

Happy Valentie’s day…. some cupcakes my daughters decorated this weekend. We made about 2 dozen of them…. and I am having the hardest time resisting eating them all.

I saw these cakes/cupcakes on line, however, I sadly did not write down the source.

Cakes made to look like candy hearts.

I think I might try to grab some after holiday chocolate boxes this year on clearance, so I can fill them with cupcakes like this next year.

{ Entertaining } Chat Plates from the MoMa store.

via MoMA Store – Chat Plates.

I just love these plates.  How fun would these be sitting out on the table?