Halloweeny Cookies

Do you remember how I used to make awesome cookies? (well, I hope you think they are awesome…’cuz I think they are awesome…) I made some for Easter, and I made some sweet star wars ones…you know, those ones?

Well. I finally got around to making some more. :) YAY!!!

I have been on the hunt for an amazing sugar cookie recipe, and being surrounded by world famous chefs on a regular basis made it pretty easy to find an AWESOME recipe. Thank you Chef Mark!! (he taught us gumpaste flowers, remember?) He recently got his certification to be a Master Sugar Artist, fyi. Cool, huh? Anyway, he gave me his favorite sugar cookie recipe and I’m in love. Nice, soft, chewy, THICK cookies.

So this became my side project at work for the week. Trying this recipe, and then practicing my royal icing flooding and piping! And since it’s halloween, I decided to be festive and bring in some new halloween cutters I found at Michaels, which I LOVE. So let me just show you :)

I found this awesome witch cutter set and it’s been soooo much fun to decorate!! I love my little spider hat décor on the witchy hat ;)
I did wet on wet icing for the ghost’s faces. I like this happy one the best!
Every witch needs her potion cauldron and ingredients!! I also learned that this adorable science beaker is also called an Erlenmeyer flask. Fancy, huh? Thanks Julia! ;)  
And no witch would be caught DEAD in public without her witchy shoes!! This was my favorite cutter. I made several pairs to play with the design. So fun! Look at those sassy witchy shoes! love it!
I decided to add some stripey witchy socks on a couple pairs :)
I did wet on wet for the spirals and I really liked the effect!
And more stripey ones :)
And here’s a little display that I had on a sheet pan as I walked around the kitchens to show off my creations ;)

So that was my little project this week. :) Hopefully I’ll be back soon to share our fun tonight at the trunk or treat!

Vinyl and Decor Update!

Yay! I’m back! With more vinyl awesomeness! I know, you’re so excited, right? Well, you SHOULD be! Because I am. Because I finally had a little bit of time this weekend to put up more vinyl and vinylized décor ;) And I love it. LOVE. IT.

We also finally have all but I think 2 boxes done in the apartment and it actually looks like we live here!  It’s crazy too, because even though this new place is smaller in square footage, to me it almost feels bigger because we are using our space so much more effectively and it’s wonderful to feel like we still have lots of space. Of course, the office/dining area is still kind of the ‘catch all’ at this point, I think everyone has a room like that, right? Right?! I’ll get there eventually ;)

Anyway, the living room. We have this awesome 8’ span of windows on one wall and I decided I really wanted something above them. So here we are:

I had to cut it in several pieces because my cricut only cuts up to 1’x2’ but with this project, it was fairly easy to put together. (The bedroom piece, not so much…;) I love the way it has turned out!
We are loving our windows and we have great views of the trees changing colors. It’s beautiful!

I also got some smaller pieces done for the bedroom in one of my new favorite color schemes :) You might recognize this from the first one I did in black and white. I loved it so much but wanted one to match my new colors!!

This is up on the dresser. I’m trying to decide what else to put up there…

I have a tile to go next to that picture…but I’m thinking I like the white pitcher there instead. I’ll probably get some silk flowers to go in it at some point. What do you think? Picture? or pitcher? (hee hee)

We had to put our second bookshelf in the bedroom because there wasn’t really room for it in the living room, but that’s just more space to put décor for me!! ;) So we have some books and things up there for now, I haven’t really decided where everything is going yet. But I made this to go with one of our more awesome engagement pictures

Our headboard has storage in it, so the top is actually a very wide ledge coming off the wall, so I’m working on putting something up there as well. I found my inspiration HERE, (and I am on a quest for the perfect holder…if you find something PLEASE TELL ME) but of course, I’m doing them in white and yellow. I only have one so far…the others are in the works.

Cool, huh? I made it over conference weekend and the little rosettes are made from party streamers! I showed John when I was done and he thought it was toilet paper…oh well ;)

And that’s all I have for you so far! I’m hoping to get some pictures up on the wall above the bed here soon, and at some point I’ll get the other rosette spheres done…eventually… ;)

For Cameron ;)

I got these at the grocery store for lunches this week and totally thought of you Cameron!

Star Wars fruit snacks! *In my best yoda impression* “MmMmM!! Tasty, Yoda is.”

I’m thinking Storm Trooper cookies again this Christmas, yes?

The Pastry Warrior, Moving, and I’m a Mormon

Hello again. I’m back. Terribly sorry I’ve been away so long…I’ve been a little busy…

So, as usual, things are insanely crazy around here, I barely know where to start!!

Well, in the midst of packing and getting ready to move, I had a minor accident at my internship. I was making caramels for production (we wrap them into little candies and use them for events, gift bags, etc.) and just as I was starting to caramelize my sugar (=SUPER HOT) I started to scrape off some clumped up sugar off my spatula to get it back into the pot to caramelize, and instead of going back in to the pot like it was supposed to, it flew back out and onto my face! YIKES! Now, I’ve been told when you get sugar on your skin, you are supposed to leave it there until it cools and then gently get it off, because if you pull it off when it’s hot, you rip your skin off. Now tell me, if you have hot sugar on your face (or anywhere on your skin, really) WHAT are you going to do?? RIP IT OFF! And that’s exactly what I did, burning my hand in the process, but hey, it was off my face and in the sink, which is where it needed to be. So I ended up with a pretty nasty burn down my chin (and yes, I totally ripped some skin off…), with a little spot on the bottom of my lip and to the side of my nose. Yeah. Not pretty. The funny thing is that of all my burns, the one on my hand hurt the most! So I wrapped up my hand and went along my merry way for about 45 minutes until one of my supervisors saw me, freaked out at me a little for not telling anyone, and sent me to another supervisor to get bandaged up and sent home. So a burn pad and 4 band-aids later, I was on a train home, feeling quite ridiculous for having band-aids all over my face. My supervisor told me I was a pastry warrior. ;) And no, I don’t have a picture. I really meant to get one with my knarly burn, but with everything going on…it didn’t happen. So sorry. In the next couple of weeks it healed nicely, though I still have some scars on my face from the ordeal. Hoping to get something to help with that here soon. And wouldn’t you know? The caramels came out great!

And we’ve moved! All last week was a bit of a scramble to have everything packed and ready to get things over to the new apartment (I can’t believe we’ve already been in the new place a whole week now!). We were up bright and early Saturday morning to pick up the U-Haul we’d rented and get situated so that when our help arrived, we’d be ready. And we had so many people from our ward show up! It was so wonderful to have so much support. In about 3 1/2 hours, we had everything moved out AND moved in! It was awesome. It was such a relief to have everything moved in. Then came the best part: unpacking… Given both mine and John’s schedules were ABSOLUTELY crazy this week, it has gone slowly, but steadily, one room at a time. I’ll let John show you the pictures he took with all the boxes everywhere. On Sunday I tried to make waffles, and I had about 1sq ft of working space! We’ve had some bumps in the road too. Something was wrong with the heater, so it was REALLY HOT all the time and when we’d turn the air on, we were basically wasting energy trying to get it to cool down. Then we realized (when I was trying to light the gas stove) that our gas hadn’t been turned on yet. Whoops. Thankfully, both issues have been resolved. This weekend I was able to get TONS done with the kitchen (very important) and the living room.

I’m down to much less cupboard space in the new kitchen, so I went to Target and got a large wire shelf to act as my pantry. It’s pretty intense, but it’s soooo nice to have everything in the kitchen right where I need it, as opposed to in the last apartment, when my pantry was actually the linen closet on the other side of the apartment…

On the left in that second picture you’ll see my new step stool! LIFE SAVER! Half the cupboard space I DO have is way too high for me to reach. Enter awesome step stool. I can now reach the rest of my apartment. ;) John really likes the colors of the new kitchen, so I’ll give you a brief photo tour :)
Loving my kitchen window! It’s so nice to have the kitchen all put together. Now we can eat… ;)

I have most of the clutter out of the living room, that was pretty much the catch-all for all the boxes that came in until I was able to sort them a little. Got the TV set up and out of the way and tried to figure out where the side tables, lamps and piano were going to go. This room is still a work in progress…
We are loving all the natural light we get in this place!
Note rubber ducky blanket on the couch…I totally curled up and watched Tangled last night (with ice cream) while John was at a Scoutmaster training thing last night and all of today…

The office/dining room is also still a work in progress, still trying to figure out where everything in going to go, but we got the desks set up and we have a place to eat (you’ll notice eating is very important around here ;)

The bedroom is pretty much all set up, so 2 out of 4 isn’t too bad ;) AND while I listened to General Conference this morning, I got some vinyl done for the bedroom! I’ve been wanting this up in our room for ages, but didn’t do it because I wanted to wait until we moved. So here it is!!
Sorry it looks a little wonky in the picture…I can’t hold my camera straight…but don’t you just love that saying? I sure do :)

And the dresser and bookshelf. Not pictured are the awesome closets. Yes, closetS. We each have our own closet, which is awesome :)

So I’ve already started working on decorating, I’ve been working on some décor for the bedroom, and I got to work on it during Conference sessions. More to come on that (hopefully)…

Speaking of General Conference, it was amazing today! Conference weekend is such a spiritual recharge, and I always find that it comes at the right time, when I really need it. I’m so glad we have two full days to listen to our beloved prophet and leaders. And I don’t think it was mere coincidence that I also realized this weekend that my Mormon.org profile is published! You’ll see a spiffy button to the left on my sidebar that looks like this:

(You can also click the above picture to see it too! :) This will direct you to my Mormon.org profile, where you can read a little bit about me and my faith. I think it is an awesome way to share what I believe, because I don’t talk about it much (even though I should). My faith defines who I am and I’m so grateful for this awesome technology that allows us to share the gospel. So I hope you’ll stop over and take a look!

And that my friends, is the much needed update. For now. ;) Hopefully I’ll be able to get some time to share with you my progress in decorating the new place! Because you KNOW there will be some vinyl and crafting happening…so prepare yourselves