Fall Party!

Some Jack O' Lanterns I made. Templates here.

I want to get this out there before Thanksgiving is over and the world prepares for Christmas!
My extracurricular activities (such as updating this blog) have been seriously hampered by the fact that I am now in school. I am studying Graphic Design at the Art Institute AND continuing my full time job. I am definitely excited for Christmas break!!!

I had a fall costume party and wanted to share some of the decorations I made.
My goal was to make it fun and fall but not Halloween-ey. I found this styled shoot and that was it!

Unfortunately, I was so focused on getting my costume together after school and before the party that I didn't get very great pictures of the set up.

Here are the shots from the styled shoot by Love Me Sailor, Mr. Caballero, and Geronimo Balloons in L.A. originally posted by 100 Layer Cake.

I mean. Beautiful right?!

I ordered one chocolate brown and one orange 30" balloon from balloonsfast.com and these gold foil baking cups, borrowed all of my mom's silver serving dishes, and decided to make everything else for the decor.

I plan to write up a tutorial for the balloon tassels soon and will link it here.

I had orange crush to drink with gold pipe cleaner curls, some beautiful french macaroons that I found at Trader Joe's, a tassel garland made from gold ribbon and tissue paper tassels, a silver bowl of clementines, and Gluten Free chocolate cupcakes (this recipe but with GF all purpose flour) with salted caramel buttercream icing (this recipe with coarse salt sprinkled on top).

A couple other people brought caramel apples and some fall doughnuts and we had a sweet time of it!

I also whipped up a vanilla cake with the help of a friend's recipe and cake frosting tools because there were a couple birthdays coming up.

For the cake topper, I cut triangles of brown paper, wrote Happy Birthday on them with gold paint marker, threaded them through with white embroidery floss, and tied them to kabob skewers.
The cake is decorated with gold stars and edible glitter.

I dressed up as Frida Kahlo complete with a light unibrow and mustache:

Happy Autumn Everyone!! (Even though it's pretty much over…)

Fun times, Birthday Times

November 7, 2011

I had a wonderful birthday this year.
Birthdays are a pretty big deal at my house. I never thought much of it until I started finding out that not everyone has such extravagant birthdays. Usually we stay up way too late the night before a family member's birthday so they wake up to a house full of decorations. Now that I am the only one of my siblings left at home, birthdays are a little more low key... compared to how they were.
My mom did a superb job this year. So light and cheery! Taking advantage of our City Sukkah frame that had not been taken down yet!

She made me such a lovely breakfast!

Fruit & cheese kababs and fresh squeezed orange juice included!

She got very creative with DIY gifts. (LOVE)

She stenciled me an apron with a Julia Child quote

Matted and framed a painting that I had done as a kid

It was sweet, personal, and all around home grown. What could be better?

~*~

The weekend of my birthday, my dear, sweet, wonderful boyfriend took me horseback riding for the first time. My mom grew up with horses and talks about them all the time. I feel like I know about horses and how to ride... but somehow I missed the actual riding experience until my 24th Birthday! I travesty that was remedied beautifully. :)

I even got to meet some wonderful friends for dinner. What a satisfying Birthday. I'm happy.

Thank you!

Love, Caitlin