Combo Baby Shower

One of my dear friends is expecting a daughter in a couple of months, and she is about to graduate with hers masters. She has a lot of exciting changes going on in her life. She wanted to throw a combined party to celebrate everything going on her life.

I normally prefer doing paper invitations to parties, but when the mother-to-be wants to make my life easier by doing an evite who am I to say no? But of course I couldn’t use a standard invite, so I designed the above graphic to put on the invite. I will probably use aspects of the invitations when we throw the party; cupcake toppers, custom beverage labels, and signs.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

A couple weeks ago a few friends and I met up for a much needed girls night at a wine bar. Fabulous company, conversation, and excellent wine. But the best part of the evening was easily the scoop of salted caramel ice cream that we shared. I think each one of us was eyeing the bowl and hoping nobody would notice if we licked it clean.

I got home and decided that I wanted to try to capture those flavors in a cupcake. I searched around for different Salted Caramel cupcake recipes. The one I attempted was a little underwhelming, so another attempt will be made…but oh that salted caramel! I made a brown sugar cupcake and filled it with some of the salted caramel, and then whipped some of the same salted caramel into the buttercream frosting. So tasty! I was at home so I had no shame in licking the bowl.

I had some leftover chocolate cupcakes that I also frosted with the salted caramel buttercream, and I think those came out much better. The chocolate cupcakes were much fluffier and suited the lightness of the buttercream.

I made a double batch of the salted caramel so that I could have some left over for ice cream, and to give as a thank you gift to one of my friends.

I can’t wait to try making these cupcakes again! Okay, I really just want an excuse to make more salted caramel.

Fiona Fest

Fiona fest has come and gone and we are almost recovered. It was a fabulous 1st birthday party; tons of people, live music, good food, and 1 happy birthday girl.

I made posters that matched the invitations, they went on the gate and around the backyard.

I also baked 7 dozen cupcakes for the party. I made 3 different flavors; a vegan banana with a marscapone/cream cheese and maple syrup frosting (that was for Fiona and the other babies, the cupcake and frosting had very little sugar but was still tasty), an angel food cupcake with organic strawberry whipcream, and vegan chocolate cupcakes with vegan buttercream frosting. To answer the question, no I’m not vegan I just really like the way these cupcakes and frosting tastes. I made cupcakes toppers to identify the different flavors.

I also made a flag banner to hang up to decorate part of the yard, it now is hanging in Fiona’s room.

The decor looked great! Mostly I focused on 3 colors; candy pink, purple and black. With the simple color palette it was east to tie every thing together to make the party look great. The table clothes were purple and pink, and the balloons were purple, pink, black and white. The overall look was cohesive and great for a little rock stars birthday party. The birthday girl had a great time.