Pieces of a day-Christmas edition

The pieces of Christmas day.

I spent Christmas eve celebrating with my dad and little brother. Since Adam is 9, his tastes change yearly so I'm never without ideas of what to get him.   This year it's Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Both things I approve of and both things that are easy to buy for.

After Christmas eve I came home to Virginia and Shaun and I spent Christmas day with his family. First at his parents house and then at his aunt and uncles. It's hard to believe I've been a part of his families holidays for five whole years, my how the time flies. Every year I enjoy getting together with his family and sharing hugs, laughs, food and gifts. They always remark about how much they love my gift wrapping and as much as I am humble about it I really do appreciate the compliments. I love wrapping things. I think presentation is equally as important when you are sharing something with people as the actual item! Shaun's dad even made an excellent suggestion! (He is really really amazing at anything business related and both of his parents have been so sweet to take such an interest in my etsy shop and encourage me to keep going with it!) His dad said why don't I offer a gift wrap option on the etsy shop? It's easy, quick money and adds a whole new facet of business to what people can do with the treasures they buy! I think this is probably a genius idea seeing as the first item I sold was a birthday present for someones sister!

The key now is to stock up on pretty ribbon and paper, wrap boxes and photograph them and then figure out pricing. The weather has been too crazy the past couple days for me to even think about braving the cold and stopping at Michaels but Friday on my way back to Maryland I'll stop and stock up on all the holiday items for next year and see what other pretty wrapping things I can stock up on.   The more I think about the idea, the more excited I get!  I do love to present things in a nice, pretty way. As un-utilitarian as it is, I think it's important to add things to life that exist simply to look nice and put a smile on someones day. It's amazing how much a pretty wrapped box can brighten someones day!


1/2/3. Shaun's sister and her fiance got a brand new black lab puppy named Sampson. Needless to say, the first thing I photographed after opening my amazing new camera from Shaun, was this little sleeping angel!
4. Shaun also hooked me up with the coolest 300mm telephoto lens and all night I kept telling him to go far away so I could take pictures with it.
5/6. This is their other dog, Lola. The fluffiest, chubbiest husky you will ever meet. (also the hungriest, she will sit her face on your lap until you give her food when you're eating)
7. Every year Shaun and his sisters get their mother a nice present that's from all the kids. This year he picked up a macbook air for her. I remember getting a little dizzy in the apple store when he bought it, I might have laptop fever and as much as I say I hate apple, I might need to get myself a macbook!
7/8. Shaun's youngest sister, Sam with little Sampson. I was incredibly proud of the action shot I got of the puppy!
9. Getting ready to leave for Judy and Ricks house
10. Shaun's dads best of a car.  I'd be a little bitter that I haven't gotten to drive it yet if I wasn't so scared of losing control and ending up in a ditch somewhere.  So amazing!
11. The wreath on Judys door
12. Shaun's sweet southern Grandma, Grandma Whitt. She no longer grabs my face and tell me to behave, so I think she is starting to like me ; )
13. Their huge Christmas tree. This one wasn't as huge as last year, but still a monstrosity!
14. Aunt Judy and Shaun's Momma in the kitchen, cookin up some delicious food!
15. Little Christmas town
16. Shaun's cousin, Tim, posing like a supermodel in front of the fireplace.
17.  Someone looks a little suspect of my shutter fever
18. Family shot of Shauns sister, Stephanie, her fiance Jason and the newest puppy member Sampson!
19. a close up of the sweet pup
20. The fire is finally roaring
21. Setting up the dinner table with Steph and Jason canoodling in the background
22. Everyone sitting down to dinner
23. Shaun's sister Sam, cousin Tim, cousin Alicia and Sampson
24. Playing with my awesome new lens!
25. snuggling up to the fire after dinner.
26. puppy kisses!
27. little reindeer at Momma Hicks' house. I cannot WAIT to have a mantle of my own to decorate!
28. Grandpa Whitt petting the Lola
29. Shaun and his dad sharing a bro hug ; )
30. Momma Hicks and Shaun
31. a little leftover pile of holiday ribbon from the unwrapping.

oh and did I mention Shaun's mom gave me vintage pyrex for Christmas! She is the sweetest! I can't wait to go on many antiquing adventures with her while she's here from Singapore!

Happy Happy holidays to you and yours!

Updating the etsy shop

Woohoo!

I  love the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do something. Especially something productive.  I'm not knocking those little victories like finishing a load of laundry, doing the dishes, taking the dog for a walk, cleaning out junk email. In fact, I think those can be some of the most cathartic events.

I'm having a mini victory in terms of my etsy shop! It has been a slow, procrastinated process mainly due to my lack of a nice camera for pictures, working during all the good daylight hours and the excuses that I make, like the first 2 ones I just made.  But since Kim and I are interested in doing this as a joint venture, we collaborated for one of our typical cook and be crafty nights. Where Kim spends the night or I go to her house and spend the night, we collaborate on creativity and brainstorm brilliant, crafty ideas for the shop.  This usually involves me cooking or baking a lot as well. So there's a lot of laughing, epiphanies, planning and eating involved.

We ended up only taking pictures of eachother and a few of the milk glass vases I have for sale, which you can see here. But I'm still trying to decide if I want to paint/glaze them a pretty teal color as an alternative to the standard milk glass you see everywhere. Either option is  gorgeous as a standalone decoration or for a pretty dinner event.  With all the house-shopping we've been doing lately I am SUPER excited to finally have a place to put all of my thrifted treasures! Anyway, here are some photos from our day.

Kim flipping through a fashion magazine to gather some inspiration on a cluttered counter while cupcakes are being baked



making some lemon-mint ice cubes and for some reason a picture of my butt. I like those pants, so who cares.

frosting the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes. Looks like we have a cupcake bandit in our midst!

setting up a backdrop for the milk glasses that we ended up not using.

my treasured box of milk glass and new plates ready for their big moment. Not selling those plates, too in love.

I was also considering selling these beautiful juice glasses but could not bring myself to do it. I need to use them a few times for a brunch before I can part with them.

Finally snapped some pictures before the clouds rolled in and storms began. 

 It was also getting late in the day and Kim and I agreed that next time we would try to get out early and take some good fashion photos for the clothes and accesories I'll be adding to etsy and blogging about soon. Can't wait for more productive days like this! Hopefully next time I'll be able to get even more done!

Cupcakes

I've been baking since I don't know when.  Typically I bake for family and friends during birthdays or other special occasions. It wasn't until the past year that people started asking me to make them for them and telling me that they would pay me to bake them.

What?

You mean you will give me money, to do something I love and share with the world? Amazing!

Well I was thrilled with the idea of this and after several commissioned cupcakes and birthday cakes I came to the realization that I do love to bake and I love to share my baking with the world.

The problem with baking is that, no matter how delicious whatever it is that I bake is, 3 people can only consume so many baked goods.

Since I was rear-ended last month and my car is still in the body shop, I decided to make some of my famous Strawberry cream cheese cupcakes for the guys at the shop so they take extra good care of my baby ; )

My little brochacho, Adam, is not as big of a fan of the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes as everyone else. I think it has something to do with how he pieces apart the cupcakes starting from the top, licking off all the frosting and then munching on the cupcake itself. I decided to make his own special batch of simple vanilla cupcakes, topped with whipped cream and a strawberry. I think the picture describes how much he liked them!

Adams strawberry whipped cream cupcake on one of my favorite thrifted plate sets!

I got these plates for $1 each at Goodwill, all 8 of them! Aren't they the perfect cupcake serving tray?

Here are the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes. The problem with giving/selling them now is that my favorite cupcake box manufacturer is on a temporary hiatus. I am dying for them to come back so I can keep spreading the cupcake love!

These babies are filled with cream cheese and strawberry jam. For sure my most popular cupcakes to date!

I have a dream of one day combining all of my favorite things in the world into a little brick and mortar store.

It took me a while to come to this dream, for years and years I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. It sort of came upon me accidentally as my interests in things started becoming passions.

Of course dreams take time, motivatio, sweat, blood and tears which I am willing to shed to pursue my passion. But one day I do hope that I can fulfill that dream. That dream, of course, being to have a little brick and mortar cupcake/vintage/handmade shop. Where I sell cupcakes on beautiful, vintage and artsy little plates. Walls of shelves filled with vintage pyrex and Catherineholm bowls and bakeware. I'd like a little corner of vintage clothes, accesories and handmade trinkets/pillows/artwork all the while beautiful music wafts through the air.

Sounds pretty dreamy, right?

I do get a little ok, a lot excited sometimes, and this starts that bubbling up inside of me that I just cannot contain! It makes me giddy with excitement just daydreaming about it until I can finally put it into fruition.

In the meantime I'll start with my modest online cupcake-facebook page, making local deliveries and my humble little etsy shop with only a few items in it. But one day, I hope to turn it all into my full time career, spreading the joy of all the things I love to everyone else in the best way I know possible.

Maybe Meatwad can even make a cameo as a little shop bunny. ; )