Saturday, September 28, 2013

TINY ADORABLE HYDRANGEA CAKES



Photo Disclaimer: I tired a new way of compressing my images for this post, and sadly they didn't turn out well at all. Even sadder yet is that I forgot to copy the originals beforehand :( 
I'm sorry for the poor quality of the images... sad day!





I love hydrangeas. They're so bold and striking with their unreal blues and purples, yet there's something so old-fashioned and simple about them. I couldn't pass up these large, beautiful $5 bouquets at farmers' market and ended up with two big vases of them in the apartment. For the first few days, I couldn't help but imagine all kinds of dramatic uses for them. Some combination of my artistic urges and my sweet tooth resulted in these darling little cakes.

Now, beauty and drama aside, hydrangeas are toxic - do NOT eat them! I was pretty careful to have very few petals actually touching the cake. I placed wax paper underneath the large whole flower on top of the tall cake. Of course if I really wanted to be safe, I should have used silk flowers. But, yeah... no one was eating these cakes except my husband and me, and I was pretty sure we'd be okay being careful...




VANILLA CAKE: Nothing special here, just use your favorite recipe. I just doctored up a vanilla cake mix by adding one extra egg and a small package of instant pudding mix to the batter.

BLUEBERRY BUTTERCREAM

1/2 cup blueberries
1 cup butter, softened
3 - 4 cups powdered sugar
2 - 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

In a large bowl, mash blueberries with a fork. Add butter and beat well. Gradually add 3 cups sugar and beat until smooth. Stir in whipping cream to combine, then beat for one more minute.

LEMON BUTTERCREAM (for filling)

1 cup butter, softened
3 - 4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 teaspoons lemon juice

Combine butter and 3 cups sugar until smooth. Add vanilla and lemon and stir until smooth. Taste, and add lemon juice by teaspoon if needed, to taste. Adjust powdered sugar for consistency.




Friday, September 13, 2013

DIY MAIL ORGANIZER & STORAGE BOARD


Hello, dear readers. Hope you're doing great! Just a quick little weekend project to share with you: this mail organizer/storage board. It's not too glamorous, I know, but it happens to be pretty hidden in our apartment. And the sage color really is pretty in person, even though it looks kind of gross in my extremely sub-par photos. 

Anyway it's amazingly useful. 

Plus, it was much cheaper than buying something like it. 

(That little black remote is actually our light switch. And now it's actually on the wall by the door! Yep, it's a big step up from sitting on the kitchen counter.)

Now I'm going to tell you the long version of the story because I'm proud of it, and because I'm kind of in love with organization (my life is full of post-its). A few months ago, I eliminated our junk drawer and catch-all spot. My thinking was: if you designate a spot for junk, it's inevitably going to be FILLED with JUNK. But if you don't, then you will either be forced to find a spot for something/throw it away OR the thing will clutter up your space, and you'll eventually clean it up (as opposed to hiding it away where you don't have to deal with it). Believe it or not, it has totally worked. Now our "junk drawer" contains ONLY things we use regularly (and a few miscellaneous occasional-type odds and ends). You can do it, too!

But we still had the regular, everyday-object clutter, which can become so annoying when trying to clean up the apartment. 

So after a few minutes of Pinterest and Google Images re: organization, I made an early morning trip to Ikea and Home Depot. I came back with this stuff, and some sage spray paint. 


It's now tucked perfectly out of the way behind/by the door. We use it for keys, wallets, mail stuff, bike stuff, shopping stuff (and any other lonely clutter that needs a last-minute home when people are coming over). It's been up for a few weeks now, and we really use it (I more than my husband, admittedly). High five for a successful de-cluttering project! (Those are rare, are they not?)

Happy de-cluttering! Hope you have a WONDERFUL weekend :)


UA-46365231-1