My Sweet Tooth for Christmas

Hey everyone, so here is a follow up to my last post on Christmas. But instead of all the Christmas decor and crafts I want to show you all the Christmas baking I've done this past season. Now I will admit I was pretty ambitious this season, considering all things. I somehow made time while working practically everyday to make a bunch of goodies that I was able to share with most my friends.

So I was browsing Pinterest and saw this amazingly really easy recipe for a chocolate truffle, that I had all the ingredients for stocked in my pantry. This was the first time I had made truffles, and as simple as it was to make it, I found it there was a lot of waiting time- particularly waiting for the chocolate to settle before scooping them into chunks, then letting them settle again before rolling them into balls. I then coated them with simple confectionary sugar or a cocoa/sugar mixture.

Happy Holidays

Hey everyone! So I know it's been almost 2 months since my last post but in my defence, this time of year is always so busy for me. You see around this time of year is when I usually take on another part/full time job to add on to my other one, making me have to juggle 2 jobs plus all the Christmas celebrations. So pretty I haven't had a single day off since December 3rd, but hey that's life right? Come the New Year it's gonna get a lot less intense.

My first Christmas tree

Mad for Madelines!

Hey everyone, so here's another quick and fast treat you can make for your friends and would be perfect for tea!  The first time I made these were last year when my dear friend Anna gave me a madeline pan for Christmas because I was talking about them so much.  It was for a Secret Santa exchange and I had casually mentioned it to her one day and she somehow remembered and got me one! 

A seasonal favourite; Pumpkin Marshmallows!

It's officially my favourite time of year!  The leaves turn beautiful shades of red, the brisk wind sets and scarves and toques are becoming a common sight.  And there's pumpkin flavour everything!  From lattes and pies to marshmallows! There's no shortage of pumpkin anywhere and that is completely 100% fine by me. 

Starting this month I want to do something different and will help add some consistency to my posts; a marshmallow of month flavor!  I recently discovered how to make them and I can't seriously stop.  There's so many different flavour combinations you could do and you can have them alone as a dessert or a perfect topping to hot chocolate!

Stanley Park photo shoot!

Hey everyone! So for today's post I thought I'd post up some of the shots I took for a fun photo shoot I did with my friend Susan!  We headed off to Stanley Park in Vancouver because A, it has beautiful surroundings and natural backdrops and B, it wasn't so public haha.  

I managed to take a lot of amazing shots with my camera (considering I don't really know how to use it to its full potential- I somehow managed to make it work!). I shoot with a Nikon d5000 with your basic kit lens and a fix focused lens as we'll- maybe someday I'll get a better lens but for now it does it's job.

Plus with finally purchasing an IPad I put it to good use and edited all my photos (well the ones I like) on it.  I took close to about 250 shots and here are the top 30ish? (In my opinion) with a little help of iPhoto, so enjoy!

A couple Ap.PIE.tizing creations

Pie 1

Hey everyone!
So, I am a complete failure at this weekly blogging thing but with 2 jobs and everything else, I don't feel so bad! I've been pretty busy because I recently started a youtube channel where I try to do fun DIY stuff there. (Link at the end of post), I got a new restaurant job where I work 4 days a week as well as my 3 days at the coffee shop.  Plus I have so many projects in mind that I'm trying to get started.  I also really value my social life so whenever I get a chance, I try to reconnect with old friends or get to know new friends. But I hope whatever your doing, you're well and thanks for checking out my blog; I really appreciate it.

Pie 2

 Recently in the past few weeks, I've gotten into baking pies! I've never made them before, so I thought I'd try my hand at it and I might be slightly obsessed.  Now, normally I would want to try to make everything from scratch but obviously with my lack of time I had to resort to buying pre-made crusts, which surprisingly taste pretty good.  Now onto the important question; what kind of pie did I make?  Well, I've made a couple but here are 2 that I've made that I really enjoyed! 

DIY Letter Decoration

So it's time for DIY project my fellow enthusiasts.  This week I really wanted to put something on top of my giant entertainment unit where all my DVDs were.  I thought that installing a shelf for the DVDs would allow more room for decorative stuff to showcase me.   Now window shopping around furniture stores I always seem to find these really cool letter decorations that have the words 'love', 'faith' or other really lovely expressions to them.  Now as much as I liked these, I obviously couldn't afford any of them on my budget so I decided to go the crafty route and make my own DIY version!  *Plus it could be a lot more personal with whatever message I wanted it to say.

 So to do this, I first figured out wanted I wanted the expression to say, then off to my local craft store (Michaels for me here in Vancouver) and got all my supplies ready for this project!

Summer Dinner Party?

Hey everyone, my apologies on this whole lack of blogging thing, apparently I can't seem to commit to it as much I as I wanted too (not the only thing I have problems with committing too) but I'm back, and full of motivation as ever...hopefully.
 
As it is finally drawing near to the summer season (though the weather here in Vancouver begs to differ) I thought it would be perfect timing for a summer themed dinner party!  I've always loved hosting things and now that I am on my own, I figured why not? I am making it a goal of hosting at least one successful dinner party a month (seems do-able right?) So I wanted to start small (group of 4 friends) so in case it was a complete disaster I wouldn't have to clean up after so many people AND it would've been less embarrassing haha.  I started creating a menu a couple days prior to it with some ideas being thrown at me by my coworkers.  I wanted a simple, summer, picnic feel to the menu so I figured lemonade, and some sort of sandwich and pie would be perfect.

A Fondant Frenzy

I love to bake, anyone who really knows me, knows that baking for me is relaxing and creative all the while appeasing my sweet tooth.  I also love to see the reaction of my friends as they taste my creations. Now before I had moved out on my own, I had trouble baking things for my friends because of transport time of the baked goods, but now thanks to living on my own, I have the freedom to bake as much as I want.
The first thing I really wanted to dab into was making a fondant cake.  Luckily my Catherine was having a birthday soon so I had the perfect occasion to bake a cake.  I decided to make a 2 tier Victorian vanilla sponge cake with strawberry jam and buttercream frosting.  I never made it before so it was a little daunting but I knew I could make it.  Now the party was also on the night of the Academy Awards so I decided to decorate the cake with an Oscar theme in mind.  And with all that planning done, I was off to start the baking!

making the cake

Craft Recap: Balloon Pop Painting

So, I'm really excited about the fact that I am trying hard to commit to posting a new blog entry once a week, even if it's something really simple and small, the consistency of it will hopefully make this blog last longer.  Over the past year I've created so many things that I really wanted to share with everyone but never had the discipline to sit down and blog about until now.  I was smart enough to gather photos throughout the year in case I was ever able to commit to posting them- and this would be the day.

The next few posts I'll be putting up will be a quick review of all the things I've done in the past that I found worth blogging about.  Let's start off with some of last years paintings I painted.

Wallis filling up the balloons with paint

Coming back from Europe I had a lot of inspiration to create things and the first thing I really wanted to do was some balloon painting!  It was a simple enough craft to do and it seemed like it would be a lot of fun- especially with some friends.  I gathered up the necessary materials needed:

-a 16x20 stretch canvas (or any canvas really)
-tape (we used painting tape)
-acrylic paint (I got a bunch of cheap ones from the craft store)
-balloons (dollar store)
-sewing needles (ideally you'd use darts but I didn't have any)
-straws (to act as a blowdart with the needles)

A Happy Housewarming!

So after a whole year break from blogging I finally decided to get this blog back up and running.  Before it was meant as a means to showcase my adventures in travelling Europe but as I have been back home already for a year I am using it as a base to display my many creative creations. From different recipes I've learned and tried to different types of DIY art work I've made, this blog is now going to be a collection of the little things I do/create to make my life good.  Plus I'll throw in some tidbits/updates of my actual life that hopefully tie in with these projects as I also use this blog as a means to communicate my thoughts and experiences.  So let's dive in and get started!

After arriving from Europe I found myself itching to move out of my parents place and finally get a place on my own.  I figured if I could plan and execute a whole 3 month trip across the ocean, moving out to a different city just a 40 minute drive away shouldn't be that bad right?  So after months of saving up and working I finally moved out last February to a quaint 450sq ft apartment in the heart of the West End in Downtown Vancouver.  Now the first thing I really wanted after I unpacked was host my very own housewarming with some of my friends.  I thought that a Carnival theme would represent the celebration of moving out and the fun of the unknown quite well so a few internet searches later and ta da! a Carnival themed house warming was created!

 I started to think of some games I could play that revolved around the whole Carnival theme.  The first thing that came to mind was a simple and inexpensive jellybean guess!  Where everyone would have to guess how many jelly beans there were in a jar without going over the actual amount. Using just a simple mason jar and a couple of bags of jellybeans, this game added  a quick game of fun. 

Next up I used an idea I got from surfing Pintrest on making felt bowties as a take away from my housewarming.  So I got some felt, folded them into a bowtie shape then using a hot glue gun I stuck them onto a bamboo skewer  to make a little gift to all my guests.  All my friends know I love to wear bowties so having these as a takeaway I found very appropriate. 

For decorations, I thought that keeping the colour scheme of the party to the 3 simple and bright colours of Red, Yellow and Blue would be best, especially since Carnivals are all about the use of colour to attract visitors and guests.

I had acquired a really nice wine cabinet from my parents when I moved out that is situated in the corner of my apartment where I decided to focus the majority of the decorations on.  Using tissue paper and string I folded yellow, blue and red tissue into giant pompoms that I dangled around the cabinet as a festive decoration.  Again I got the idea from Pintrest.