the flavor's in the beans

I love coffee flavor!  Ice cream, gelato, chocolate sauce, chocolate cake, tiramisu, chocolate pudding, hot chocolate... whatever!  And I love chocolate! It is a necessary staple in my kitchen.  Ina Garten, one of my favorite chefs, says that coffee flavor enhances chocolate and gives it depth.  I totally agree!  And it doesn't get much better or more decadant than a good dark chocolate with a hint of coffee flavor.

coffee flavor

I found this really cute site called the Cupcake Project that has a plethora of yummy sounding cupcake recipes, great photos, and some funny dialog.  Steph shares a genius way to get coffee flavor into your baked goods without having to use instant powder (which is usually nasty tasting) or brewed coffee (I don't own a coffee maker) which can sometimes water down the recipe.  In short, you steep whole coffee beans (mmmmm...I can almost smell them) in super hot whole milk (or 2% or half & half), strain off the beans and use the creamy, coffee-y, yummy goodness that results. G-e-n-i-u-s!  I will be trying this method for my next 'must have chocolate' creation.

Super Funny Cards

Okay - just a warning:  If you don't have a slightly slanted sense of humor please don't continue.  I found some super funny cards at Cocodot (no relation but I kind-of wish there was).  I am a big fan of stayre.  I love the retro-style illustrations with the sarcastic sayings.  I have attempted to create a couple of things...some with vinyl, a few with photos.  It has been suggested that I do a line of cards.  Well, I don't know that I could compete with these.

Old School Scrapbooking

I love the 'Sunday Sketch' page at Studio Calico.  It is inspiring and reminds me that I can use all the embellishments that I have collected over the years - and anything I happen to have on hand.  If I find myself with 'scrappers block' I can grab one of my sketches and start working without having to think too hard.


P.S. It was a joy to browse their new on-line catalog.  Very office-supply/school supply-ish.  Some of my favorite things!

Word Art

I love fonts.  I have almost 7,000 of them on my laptop.  It's a sickness.  I also love to design with words.  My 'quotes' file is jam packed and I love collecting and bookmarking ideas for designs. If I had unlimited time, I would love to play with and make things from these ideas.  A few years ago I started making these word collages for some of my family members:

I gathered words from siblings &/or children and then, with my Illustrator program, choose 3 or 4 fonts and 2 or 3 colors and started placing the words like a puzzle.  They turned out to be really meaningful, personal gifts that could then be framed as a piece of art.

A couple of months ago, I came upon an interactive site called WORDLE.  I wish I would have come up with it.  It allows you to enter words (as many as you want) into a form and then when you click the 'GO' button, your words become a really cool design piece.  You can then choose to randomize the document and it will switch it up with different fonts and colors.  I did learn a couple of tricks as I was playing around on the site such as: the word(s) that are repeated become the largest, and it's a good idea to keep a copy of your text just in case you want to try a bunch of different designs.

Here are some of my favorite creations that others have posted from the site:

And here are a couple that I did on the site:

This is text from one of Elder Uchtdorf's talks

This is text from 'A Proclamation to the World'

I love them!!  I will definitely use this amazing site for some of my 'word/font/quote' projects.

Color Party

Here's a look at a party that I helped with a couple weekends ago.  The theme was 'colors'.  The celebration was for a darling two-year-old ~ Lucy.  Lucy's mom, Carly, saw a cake on line that gave her the idea for the theme.  We added colorful banners and garland, balloons, vinyl for the walls and for a sign, colored masking tape and butcher paper for the table, cups of crayons for coloring and doodling on the papered table, veggies and fruit in all different colors, and bowls and jars filled with colorful candy.  We thought it was all really cute ~ and Lucy was absolutely loving the fact that she was the center of attention for the night.

Lucy's face as she watched everyone sing TO HER!

Check out the cake!  Super cool, huh?

Doodling!

For the cake, we used 2 white mixes, divided into 4 each.  I used gel coloring to get the really rich, vibrant color.  
The hardest part was under-estimating the amount of frosting that it needed.  (It took a lot!)  Also, serving was a bit tricky because it was so tall. :) 


By the end of the night, the table was covered with doodles and cake and ice cream and candy.  All we had to do was fold it up and throw it out.  Lucy was a happy, exhausted, birthday girl!