Caramelized Pear Upside Down Cake

Yum. What better way to celebrate fall than with a delicious pear cake. I found this recipe in one of my favorite magazinzes, Fine Cooking. It turned out tasting good but it definitely doesn’t look as perfect as their gorgeous photo. I have no idea how they get those oh so perfect pear slices. Maybe a mandolin? Maybe I’ll try that next time around. I think it still looks pretty darn good and the caramel was fun and easy to make.  At first sight the recipe might seem a little overwhelming with all the caramel making, but if I can get it done between newborn naps, I think it’s safe to say it’s not that bad . I did make one small change to the recipe by adding in a 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom to go with the ground cinnamon and ginger. Anytime I get a chance to add in some cardamom I jump at it. I love cardamom.

Pear Cake Up Close and Personal

Fabric of the Week Contest

Today starts a new Fabric of the Week contest over at Spoonflower, and this week one of my very own fabrics is competing (mine’s the black and white one above).  Head on over to their site and check out all the cool fabrics from designers all over the world, and don’t forget to vote!  Maybe you’ll be inspired to whip up a few designs of your own!

This week’s fabrics

Hello again

Hey there fellow handcrafters, it’s been a while since life has slowed down enough to get some handmade items up on the blog, but soon you’ll find a new, fresh-faced blog with more pretty little things. In the meantime, skip on over to my new favorite blog, The Pioneer Woman. I’m sure you’ll find yourself inspired.

~S

Pretty Pincushions

We had dear friends visiting this summer, and us ladies decided we wanted to be creative and make ourselves some pincushions. So we found a pattern by Bari J. and got to work. The pattern was a little complicated for us at first, but we got it all sorted out and ended up with a nice cushion.

Bittersweet Chocolate Truffles

Our church women’s group had a chocolate night this week, so I decided to make some delicious chocolate truffles! I had never made them before, but I was up for the challenge. I found a good recipe from one of my favorite cooking sites, epicurious.com, and I was ready to go. The truffles turned out great once they had a chance to sit in the fridge for a bit. The only problem I ran into was once I had them out of the fridge for a while, they started to get a little too melty and the texture wasn’t as nice. I skipped the step of adding the chocolate coating (I ran out of chocolate!), so I think if it had a separate coating on the outside it would have held up much better. They still tasted great though! These would be an awesome treat for a wedding or baby shower!

If you’d like to try your hand at making this delicious treat, you can find the recipe I used here.

Modern Baby Shower Invitation

So here is a baby shower invitation I created for a dear friend who is throwing a very chic and modern baby shower. The pattern of the dots on the invitation is actually taken from the fabric she’s using for the napkin rings. I can’t wait to see photos of the shower!

Kirsten’s Wedding Shower

I have this filed under a previous post, but it’s sort of hidden and I believe it’s worthy of it’s own post. This was a shower we did last summer for a good friend of ours, Kirsten. Their wedding colors were red and black, so I wanted to keep at least within the red theme. So the backdrop of the shower was white and then we had red accents in the floral arrangments, food, and plates. It was a really fun shower!

Here’s the menu:

White Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Angel Food Cake with Strawberries

Mini Chesse Pizzas

Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

Raspberry Tartlets

Mini Openfaced Sandwiches

Spanakopita

Beverages: Iced Tea, Raspberry Lemonade, Water

Wedding Programs, Menu, and Tags

Here’s some things I designed for our own wedding! Yes, that was 2 1/2 years ago, but I still think these things are very cool. You’ll see our wedding programs, menu cards, and the personalized tags for our favors. I’m a little biased, but I loved our wedding…

Fiesta Wedding Shower Invitations

These are some really fun wedding shower invitations we designed for a fiesta themed wedding shower. We wanted to maintain some sort of elegance that comes along with wedding festivities, but at the same time stay true to the fun theme of the shower. Congratulations guys!

Back in Action

Hi Everyone!

We’re all settled in and back on track! I thought I would give you all some idea of what will be coming up in the next few weeks. There’s several projects in the works that we’re really excited about. In the next few weeks you’ll be seeing:

Alli & Dave’s Wedding Shower Invitations (Fiesta style!)

Baby blankets for two different orphanages (more info here)

A sweet baby girl’s quilt (sneak peek below!)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!