Averting a Pinterest Fail

How is your 2013 so far?  Did you have any fun New Years Eve plans?  We have been lazing around the house with the girls for the last two days reading new books, watching fluffy movies, and playing card games with the girls.  It's been lovely!  Oh, and eating.  My husband has decided that he is really into cooking lately (which is great for me!).  He made a whole mess of appetizers, my favorite being parmesan puffs (mmm  fried!), fontina fondue (with green apple was best), and bacon wrapped dates filled with goat cheese.  YUMZ.  Last week, he made Moroccan Chicken with Lemons & Olives, and it turned out very good!

We've been so lucky to have great neighbors on our old street AND our new street (which is right around the corner from where we used to live).  Our neighbors across the street brought over wine & two little stuffed bears for the girls the day after Christmas.  I decided I wanted to make some cute Pinterest New Year's Eve cupcakes for them.  Here are what they were supposed to look like:

Here is what the clock faces looked like after simply following their instructions (not good):

Those Wilton food writers they say to use?  They don't work.  At all.  Maybe they would work better on fondant, but they do NOT work on Oreo cream.  And they were expensive too. 

First off, you need to use a sharp knife to cut off the top layer of cream & Oreo crumbs.  Good thing I bought Double Stuff!  Luckily, I am a huge hoarder of sprinkles & baking products in general.  I pulled out my bottle of Halloween sprinkles containing confetti & tiny nonpareil sprinkles & pulled out all the black ones.  Then I sent hubby out in the snow to a candy shop to get black licorice strings (I'm not that mean-- he had other stuff to get, and it was on the way to the grocery store). 

Here's what I ended up with!  Did not nail it, but not exactly a Pinterest disaster either.  Give-worthy I'd say.

And here are the little labels I made to attach to the top of the cupcake box:

Feel free to use.  You can save these at the original size then paste them into a Word doc or otherwise.  Print out on cardstock or full sheet label sheets and attach to hostess gift bags, boxes of treats, wine bottles, etc., and I left a place to sign your name!  Voila.

2013 Resolution: Blog Again!

Tap, tap, tap...is this thing on?  Is anyone still there?  *crickets chirping*

For anyone who may still be listening, I must apologize for my absence.  I have been away building up my immunity to iocaine powder just in case a battle of wits should occur. 

 
I'm making a conscious effort to get back to blogging in 2013.  I have a lot to say!  Those of you who are Facebook friends with me know this.  But we're old friends, right?  And old friends can pick up right where they left off, so I hope we can do that. 

So many things to talk about!  We have been in our new house for over a year now which I cannot believe.  Um, Pinterest??!!  How great is it?  Although I don't know about you, but I've had my share of Pinterest fails (nailed it!).  Also, a friend of mine has started a new personal stylist/shopping business in the Detroit area called What to Wear.  I designed her business cards, Facebook page, and website!  I don't have a whole lot of room on the old hard drive that is my noggin, so I'm not sure why I opened up that WordPress can of worms, but I've been learning as I go.

I will be posting more, I promise.  But in the meantime, and in the immortal words of one Mr. Andy Dufresne, I hope this blog post finds you and finds you well.  xo

Q's Bedroom & Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum

We took the girls to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. It reminds me of some cool place that Heidi might find and explore with her kids. It is literally 20 minutes from my house, and I had no idea that it existed.

It's a zillion old timey coin-operated machines-- some from the early 1900s and some from Coney Island. There are some newer games like Dance Dance Revolution and such, but of course, I was loving the oldies. And there were some CREEEEPY machines! I could not talk Q into having her bday party there in November. Booooo. Their favorite was the very realistic-looking dude who pukes. I know it's only fake puke (it's some sort of brown liquid), but I can only imagine how nasty the inside of that machine smells. Ew...now THAT creeped me out big time.

Here are some of my favorite pics:





And a video of Wally & Wanda, the Polka Babies:

Besides that, I completed my first Craigslist transaction!!! I got this super pretty French Provincial nightstand for $20 (!), and it's wanting a beautiful coat of turquoise paint for Q's room (like this).


Speaking of, here is the design board for Q's room:


Inspiration was taken from Lay Baby Lay's Little Girl Wonder inspiration board! I couldn't work the peach in there properly and Q wasn't feeling the peach anyway (she was allllll about the purple-- I could barely get the teal in there at all). But I think it will be good. I am bummed that her forest-themed room is already defunct, but once we get the attic playroom finished, those items will be transferred up there.

Hope everyone's weekend was swell!

Laundry Room & Back to Black

Before I post my laundry room board, I'm just now putting aside my whining to contemplate the passing of Amy Winehouse. Was her demise a surprise to anyone? Not really. Is it a total shame? Absolutely. I'd say that Back to Black was one of those albums for me that affected my life. Have you listened to it? Please do.

So back to my laundry room! I will freely admit that I snatched this color combo from Nicole's basement bathroom. Right down to the exact paint color! Speaking of paint, I am so ecstatic to be able to move right into a house and NOT have to worry about painting. I get to pick all the room colors out and the painters will do it for us. PHEW! All the fun and none of the effort-- that's what I'm talkin' about.


Hope you all survived your respective Mondays! xo

Is It Fall Yet and Girl's Bathroom!

Ready for some more whining?? I'm so sick of this weather!!!!!!!!!!!! In Michigan, it's been about 100 degrees for the past 4 or 5 days. Our power went out from Wednesday night until just this morning.

Everyone is or has been sick in our household for the last 3 weeks...besides me (knock on wood). Poor hubby has strep. The girls had relentless fevers for 5 days apiece.

And did you know we sold our house faster than our new house was built? We had to move into a two-bedroom lower flat. BUT something kinda nifty-- I unknowingly moved into a flat between two people I already knew! The first is a Jazzercise buddy I met through a friend. The second is a super cool author that I have met and written about before. Small world!

So really, things have been pretty stressful-- we're cramped, sick, recuperating from the 4 day power outage, and just plain tired of living out of boxes. I just have to keep looking to the new house. It makes me happy. I drive by it every day. Here's what it looks like right now:


At this point, dreaming about decorating and picking out every nuance of this new house is what's keeping me going. I love Nicole Balch's boards, so I thought I would create some of my own.

Here's my first design board! The girl's bathroom. The only bath in the house with a bathtub, actually, or shower curtain. But I found the perfect shower curtain from Pottery Barn Teen. What do you think?


I'm going to try to create a design board for each room in the house, and then I'm going to compile them into a book with the pictures of the construction of the house. I think this will be a good creative project for me. Hope you like it too and will follow along! I know my posting has been sporadic. Thanks for sticking with me. :)

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Miss you all! xo

I'd Say I'm Due for a Bit of Ranting...

One great thing about my blog and Girl Land is that I don't really rely on either for making a living. It's always simply been a hobby that if I happened to make money from, it's simply a bonus. That's a segue into justification for my complaint of the day...

Have any of you ever watched Cash and Cari on HGTV? For various reasons, I've never been a fan. But definitely not now. Yesterday, at my place of employment, one of her producers thought it would be a great idea to bring their TV cameras in to have a "gotcha" moment with my fellow co-worker and friend, a great guy who does his job and does it WELL. They placed their estate sale signs illegally and the signs were taken. They came in to confront my friend because they apparently thought it would make for some great TV. You know what, Cash and Cari?? Maybe follow the rules like everyone else and read the ordinances and don't try to make people look stupid who are trying to make an honest living and don't have the luxury of being on TV. ARGH.

On a nicer note, I stumbled upon the cutest site the other day when I was looking for a couple fiberglass elementary school chairs for the new house called Bianca and Family!

The site is in French, but I'm thinking I may be able to muster up enough of my 6 years of French to maneuver around at least a little because I HAVE to have this metal cotton candy jar:

And these woodland animal paperboard suitcases:

And maybe even this wallpaper (I told you-- I'm on the precipice of caving in to wallpaper for the new house)!!!!


Le sigh. Thanks for bearing with me. :) The house is coming along. Framing starts next week. Yikes.

P.S. Although I'm not a C&C fan, I LOVE LOVE LOVE HGTV. Don't get me wrong. Sarah, Candice, Antonio, etc...I could watch them all day long.

Postless for 3 Months

Sickening, isn't it? The past three months have been filled with baby showers (my kids have a second cousin now!), weddings, house selling and house building. I'm going to try to be better about posting here, but I have been so consumed with all the changes going on around me that it's hard to have the energy to do much else.

Our new house is under construction. The basement walls were poured on Tuesday, and framing will begin a week from Monday. To tide you over, here's a teensy taste of decorating ideas for the new house:



And you can go to my Pinterest board for more!

On a completely separate topic, Jack Kevorkian died today in a hospital 2 miles from my house, and I'm pretty sad about it. He was a nut, but a nut with principle. Gotta admire that.

I hope this post finds you all well...