Rule #32: Enjoy The Little Things

We had a Zombie movie night a few weeks ago and watched Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. I saw these cupcakes somewhere online about a year ago and have been waiting to for an excuse to make them ever since! Our Zombie-fest was pretty last minute so I went the expensive route and bought pre-made cupcakes at Harris Teeter.

I chucked the frosting they came with and then re-frosted them with store-bought butter cream I dyed green. The good thing about store-bought is you get vanilla AND chocolate! These are fun cupcakes to make because the work lies in the papers, not the actual cupcake. 

I found this template online and then decorated them with a sharpie to look like zombies. I cut out little arms and since I was short on time (I literally assembled them at the house of the person hosting the zombie night) just taped everything together. Given more time, I would have used a glue stick. I drew the shotgun on white paper and then cut it out for our little hero to defend himself.

He was still standing the next day - so looks like he made it out ok!

Who is Your Favorite?

The Disney Princess line has exponentially grown over the past few years. The original 3 being created over 50 years ago in a span of 22 years. (Snow White in 1937, Cinderella in 1950, and Sleeping Beauty in 1959). The world had to wait another thirty years before little girls everywhere could splash around a pool pretending to be Ariel. Then Disney really got the steam engine going and started cranking out a new Princess movie almost every other year for a decade: Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Mulan all coming out in the 90's. We suffered another lull of about 11 years before getting our first African American and computer animated princesses. (Holla Tiana and Rapunzel!) The newest, Princess Merida, keeps the every-other-year trend going (and doubles the number of gingers!)

So why the run down on Disney Princesses? Well, I just signed up for the Disney Princess Half Marathon and obviously need to choose which one to dress up as! Running in a wig sounds miserable so that narrows the candidates to Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. Right now I'm leaning towards Rapunzel, but I do love pink so maybe Sleeping Beauty. I guess we'll just have to see which costume ends up being easier to put together!!

Friday Musings #21

I can't believe I guessed the right number last week! Way to go memory!!

Tonight I'm heading down to Williamsburg for the opening weekend of Howl-O-Scream. One of my ALL TIME FAVORITE THINGS TO DO IN THE FALL. What's that? Fall doesn't start till next weekend? Haters!! Once the weather decided to be in the 70's during the day I went into full on fall mode. Scarves and boots are coming out!! I'm going to have to go dig around in the attic and try to find my Halloween shirt. We sure do love matching in my family!

Fun with Fruit!

We had a baby shower for a coworker last month. I'd been waiting for a chance to make a baby carriage fruit salad that my friend told me about. However there were a few things I was not prepared for...

1.) How do I choose a good melon? I've never bought cantaloupe before so I had to call my mom while I was at Harris Teeter to ask how to pick a melon. She told me to smell them and if it smells like a melon then it's good to go. Awesome. If you know anything about the Teeter where I live, its always full of attractive bachelors - so of course I wanted to be seen standing there smelling melons. I'm pretty sure I just went with the first one I picked up.

2.) Watermelon is really... well, watery. I've cut watermelon before, but I'd never scooped it out. I was splashing watermelon juice all over my kitchen. By the time I had a carriage assembled, I was covered in it.

3.) Fruit is heavy. I cut everything up separately and brought it in big bowls to work to assemble it there. I could just see me carrying the finished product to work and dropping it in the parking garage. 

I cut out a small hole for the pacifier and used toothpicks in the grapes for the eyes. I found the easiest way is to toothpick they grapes first and then put it in the melon, otherwise the toothpick falls into the melon and there is zero chance for retrieval once all that fruit is in the basket.

I was really happy with the final product - so cute you could eat it up! 

Wednesday Review: Afternoon Tea Parties

The Wednesday review this week is inspired by my future cousin-in-law's bridal shower this past weekend. She had a bridal shower tea. Of course I love any reason to wear a hat!

Afternoon Tea Parties by Susannah Blake highlights 20 different types of tea parties you can throw and appropriate sweets and savories for each.

What I like:

·         There is a wide variety of tea parties highlighted in the book. Themes from different countries -English, Japanese, and Russian teas; different occasions - Mother's day, Bridal shower, and Christmas;  even tea parties you'd never think of - sweet sixteen, and teddy bear/circus themes for little kids.

·         The book has fantastic pictures. Not only does it make all the food look scrumptious, it has great ideas on how to display the food and drinks at your tea party.

·         The book begins with a history of tea parties and for each particular theme it includes more background information and little tips specific to that tea.

·         There are fun twists on ordinary things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. PBJs are one of my favorite sandwiches ever, but I thought them an odd choice for a tea party. However if you cut the crusts off and cut out a heart on the top slice of bread - wallah! FANCY.  

·         The book includes a list of useful websites where you can find bake/tableware, ingredients, and tea merchants.

·         Can't forget the conversion chart! American, Metric, AND Imperial!?!

I'm not going to do a "What I don't like" section for this book because I couldn't really find anything I didn't like. I really need to start having more tea parties. Time for some hat shopping!!

Comic-Con Cosplay - Zombies!

This is what we were going for at first. But when the time came to actually dress up, none of us wanted to wait in line all day in Zombie make up. So instead we brought swords and just pretended we were the Bennets fighting Zombies!

I bought our dresses from Etsy and got the swords from Amazon. The dresses are sooooo comfortable. And really flattering! You can eat a big meal and don't have to worry about a food baby stomach! And believe me, we ate a lot at Comic-con. My friend had a poet's shirt I borrowed for my brother, and I bought his vest on Amazon as well. He is a big slacker though so did nothing for the bottom half of his costume - hence the hipster pants. It's a little known secret that Regency men were all really hipsters. 

Walking to the Convention Center! Approx 5:15am

When we were for a brief moment the end of the line.

Weapon Skillz.

So while nobody knew who we were outside of us telling them, I still had a blast dressing up! Next time we'll bring some zombies to kill.

Gift Exchanges

I love presents. I love giving them and I love getting them. My whole family does - that's why at Christmas time, our tree looks like this:

No room for all the presents! 

Today I got an email from RedditGifts announcing their new gift exchanges. I've done 2 of these before - a book exchange and a board game exchange and have been really happy with both. Gifters on Reddit are really thoughtful and go above and beyond. I actually feel pretty self conscious when giving because I think my gift wont be as cool as others. But in the words of Echo - I try to be my best.

In today's email they announced 6 new exchanges which include HALLOWEEN and DOCTOR WHO!!!! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Guys - I LOVE these 2 things! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I mean, look at the cell phone cover I just got on Saturday:

And if you don't know me already, then you'll come to know how much I love Halloween in the coming weeks as I can guarantee 99% of my posts will be about it.

Anyways - if you've never done a RedditGift Exchange - then I highly recommend it - you'll definitely get something awesome. And if Halloween and Doctor Who aren't your thing - they also have exchanges right now for Makeup & Nailpolish, Ties, Postcards, and Cubicle decorations. Time to start brainstorming on what Halloween/Dr. Who things to give others!!

Friday Musings #... what are we on now? Lets go with 20?

So many things to muse about - which one to choose? The VMAs? Thank god I don't work in a profession where I would have to try to wear an outfit that outcrazies this:

Believe me, nobody wants to see me in an outfit like this. Though I can't lie, I'm digging her hair. Then there's the DNC... I dvr'd it, but haven't watched it yet. Apparently the speeches were amazing/life changing/lies/baby killers... this is why I hate politics - so polarizing. Why can't we all just get alongggg????? I do appreciate people who take it all seriously though because it's a job I could never do - I avoid confrontation AT ALL COSTS. 

Anyways, I'm happy its finally the weekend. This 4 day week has been the longest ever! Okay, not really - but I've been struggling lately on getting things accomplished. Here's to a productive next week!! 

Comic-con Cosplay - The Others.

The San Diego Comic-Con this summer was per usual... AMAZING. It's fun to see how things were different from last year. We did not get nearly as much swag. (Last year I think we walked away with 13 t-shirts each - this year we got 3). But we still had an amazing time - even my sister who we basically dragged there had fun!

As you may know, Cosplay is a HUGE part of Comic-con. Here are some of the crafty/awesome costumes I saw.

Please somebody tell me where to buy this skirt and/or fabric. I NEED.

Doctor Who decoupage FTW.

 

Hobbits! These women were so cute - pulled the look off wonderfully! Need to figure out how to do the feet for the midnight showing.

This is definitely the coolest costume we saw this year - it was a fully functioning (in that things moved and lit up automatically, not in that it had real fire power) Iron Man suit! I have no idea how long this would take to make or how much money - but my bet is on a lot for both.

Lolz. Only at cons do you just see a Stormtrooper just casually walking down the street.

Because I am obsessed with Doctor Who.

Avengers FAMILY!? I need children immediately.

Deadmau5.

This Katniss was all over the con. I saw her multiple times, and then I've seen her on tons of blogs since. I think it helped that she wore the costume multiple days, but I guess when you've got a good one you need to show it off!

Aaaand We're Back!

I realize I've been M.I.A. this summer. I was on vacation for most of it, and when I was actually in town, I had a TON of work backlogged from my time away. Imagine that. Now that summer is over, and the holiday season is upon us (j/k, that isn't for another month!) I plan on posting a lot more. Get excited! There will be posts on Comic-con, baby showers, and other random stuff from over the summer, and then - the most wonderful time of all... Halloween through Christmas! a.k.a. THE BEST CRAFTING TIME EVER. Woot!