Oops. My bad.

I didn't post a single thing this week. I'm not very good with my time management. Eeep!

I've made myself a big list of posts to do so hopefully I actually stick to it and get them done this weekend so I have some fun stuff for you all to check out next week.

This week has felt really short to me... Monday and Tuesday I was in Wellington so I only had a 3 day week at work which was fantastic. I could get used to that quite easily!

Hoping for some nice weather this weekend as a bunch of friends and I are heading to Tree Adventures. Looking forward to being extremely sore on Monday morning... not! I'm so unfit and not flexible at all. So this should be fun!

Is everyone watching the royal wedding tonight? I'm a little bit excited. :P It's just a shame I will have to switch between that and American Idol... Oh what have I become!?

Have a great weekend everyone! I promise I'll get my act together soon! Here's some fun links to keep you going for now...

1. These DIY paperclips could be used for all sorts! I want to make some.
2. I may really really really like this dress.
3. I've never seen album packaging this unique and look this good.
4. The use of typography in this cafe is awesome!
5. I know link No. 1 is a DIY paperclip as well but this DIY bow tie paperclip is too awesome not to post!

Anyone notice how I kept a very neutral colour palette for this week's links? I didn't even notice till I was getting the last link together haha. !WIN

Happy Easter!

I think my brain might be a little fried at the moment. Trying to catch up on a lot of things. Failing to be inspired and motivated. Good thing my long weekend has just begun...

I'm posting this slightly early because I will be leaving very early tomorrow morning to get to the airport. I'm flying (by myself for the first time! Ah!) to Wellington to visit my grandparents in my mother's side, who I barely ever get to see, and my brother. I can't wait!

It's just a shame that all of these public holidays are going to take up some quality shopping time. I will only have Saturday to shop and I plan on making the most of it.

This week's links are to give you all some last minute Easter inspiration! I found so many fun Easter things this week that I've decided to do double the amount of links I usually do.Lucky you guys!

Happy Easter everyone!

1. Downloadable Easter candy box - cute!
2. I might just make this bunny garland, not even for Easter!
3. The chocolate truffle egg ganache torte is too much for me to handle.
4. Very neat recycled Easter egg bunting DIY.
5. A sweet paper-mache egg tutorial.

1. Some cute surprise eggs with little stamped messages on them.
2. This could be a great invitation idea for an Easter party.
3. How cool are these embroidered eggs?!
4. DIY Easter place cards - these could be used for any party really, love the idea!
5. Some yummy looking baby chick s'mores - nom nom nom.

My first feature!

I woke up this morning to find that my passport wedding invitation had it's very own feature post on Paper Crave!

Check out the post here!



So so so happy! I've had such fantastic feedback about my invitation and couldn't be more pleased. I cannot wait to do more fun wedding invitation designs to follow this one up!

Fizzzzzzzzz.

I can't stop eating Wonka Fruit Tingles. Someone stop me. It feels like my insides are about to burst with fizz. Probably not a good thing...

I've had a pretty good week so far, but nothing interesting to report other than another ear infection. GOODIE. I don't even have any plans for the weekend. I can tell I'm probably going to do nothing and get nothing done. Ha!

Maybe I should make some more to-do lists. Right after I finish eating this last roll of Fruit Tingles... :P

Hope you all have an awesome weekend and don't forget to check out the awesome links below!

1. A 'scratch-off' save the date - the guests had to guess where the location of the wedding was going to be. Such a fun idea!
2. The location of this wedding and all the little details and flowers are just stunning.
3. Every bunting should compliment you! *free download*
4. Yummy - a gelato themed bridal shower shoot!
5. This inside-out neapolitan layer cake looks to die for!

Miche and Steve say 'I do'.

Check out the amazing stop motion movie of my co-worker Michelle and her new hubby Steve's wedding day. So super cute!

The passport wedding invitation that I designed for them (you can see the full post about the invitation here) features at the start of the movie. It's doing a fun little dance. Hehe.



Michelle looked absolutely stunning and her dress was gorgeous! She got it made so that the bottom half came off and it turned into a sweet cocktail version of her wedding dress. AWESOME!



My friends Si and Soph of Bayly & Moore did the fantastic photography. They are the kings/queens of stop motion. You should check them out. If you're getting married in New Zealand you should definitely consider them for your wedding photography, they're the best!

Cannot wait to see the photos from their special day!

P.S. The song playing on this video is Love Love Love by Avalanche City

A hoot of a baby shower.

My best friend, Brit, became an aunty yesterday. Her wonderful little sister, Kelsie, had a sweet baby girl named Sophia Rose. Such a cute name.



Ages ago (not sure why I'm only just getting around to posting this now, I have serious delays in posting things sometimes...) I made up some baby shower invitations to help Brit organize Kelsie's baby shower.



They knew that baby was going to be a girl and Kelsie hates the colour pink - so purple it was! Cute little owls became the theme of the invitation.



There wasn't enough time when I originally made these to make up custom envelopes (they're pretty fiddly, and Brit had already sourced some perfect white ones from her work) but I thought I would make one up for my own portfolio copy anyway.

I made the inside of the envelope match the purple striped border on the invitation. I also made up some little owl stickers to go on the envelopes, which Brit got copies of to go on her envelopes too.



They made a list of gift ideas for the baby which I put on the back of the invitation - gift lists are so handy! And a special mention of 'no pink please' was noted as well.



Love how the invite turned out in the end - I might be a little biased because I love owls and I love purple. :P

I also made a matching paper bunting for the shower. Stealing one of Brit's photos (you can see more photos of the shower here)...



How cool is that massive mug bowl?! I think it was full of candy. YUM.

Calm before the storm.

Don't have a lot to say about this week. Or about this weekend for that matter. If I can I will get another post out over the weekend - maybe about macarons, maybe about an invitation design. We will see...

I'm agitated, but calm. Wasn't calm at all yesterday...

Excited for work to be done with for the week. That is all.
Hope you enjoy these links!

1. Dark chocolate yoghurt cake?! YES PLEASE.
2. A wonderfully branded wedding invitation suite.
3. I just need to figure out what word/s I want and then I'm gonna get one of these Nuzzles made up. So awesome!
4. Hearts flutter. LOVE BLOOMS. A sweet wedding shower invitation.
5. An amazing candy inspired wedding shoot that I can't stop looking at.

Baked Explorations.

My brother is really good at picking out presents for me. And by that I mean he is really good at reading the list of things I picked out for myself and deciding what to get me from that list. :P

Thanks Cam! (He also got me Matilda on DVD! Yussss!)



Baked Explorations is the second book by the boys behind Baked, an amazing bakery in Charleston and Brooklyn. This book is all about reinventing classic American desserts. The photos make everything look super yummy!



Cannot wait to try out some of these recipes! In particular I'm looking forward to the chocolate coffee cake (pictured above), the mississippi mud pie, the maple cupcakes and the grasshopper bars (mmm mint!).

Yay for baking!

Gluten-free for the bride-to-be.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to my friend's hens party not last weekend but the one before, and we had to bring a food item that was gluten free). As requested by the bride, I made gluten free vanilla cupcakes - her favourite flavour!

I hunted around for a recipe for a while. So many of them had a few different kinds of flours in them and xanthan gum. All of which I was too lazy to try and find since my local supermarket didn't sell xanthan gum. Ended up finding an extremely simple recipe that called for normal gluten free self raising flour so I went with that.



Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes
Taken from Katie's Kitchen

225g softened unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
225g self raising flour (I used Orgran's Gluten Free Self Raising Flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 175 C.
Place all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until smooth and pale.
Spoon mixture into cupcakes cases.
Bake for 20 minutes.



This recipe ended up making about 20 normal sized cupcakes, however I overfilled my first tray of them and they spilt over the sides and the tops of them split a little. Oops. My second tray came out perfect though!

The photo above shows good ones, the photo below shows the overfilled ones.



White Chocolate Frosting
Taken from How Sweet It Is

113g softened butter
2.5 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
113g melted white chocolate (I used Lindt)
1-2 tablespoons milk (or more if needed)

Cream butter with electric mixer until fluffy, then add vanilla.
Slowly add in powdered sugar, half a cup at a time.
Add in melted white chocolate and beat until incorporated.
Add in milk 1 teaspoon at a time with mixer on low speed to reach desired consistency (I didn't actually add any at all).
Add in your colouring. I used violet colouring gel.
Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.



The frosting turned out a little grainy and that only happened when I added in the chocolate so I might have done something wrong there. Ah well. The frosting tasted really good. I'm not usually into buttercream type frostings but this one was really good and I couldn't taste the butter at all!

The cake part was super soft and melt in the mouth, almost like a sponge sort of texture. Plain vanilla cupcakes aren't usually my thing but these were pretty good! Plus the simple recipe and low amount of ingredients made them really easy to make.

In conclusion, using the gluten free self raising flour worked out really well. You can pretty much use it in any recipe in place of normal self raising flour, or normal flour for that matter cause you can get the GF version of that in the supermarket too. Can't wait to do more experimenting with gluten free baking. My boyfriend will be happy cause he can never eat what I bake!

A pretty little package.

Getting mail is THE BEST. I check the letterbox all the time, hoping for something good, even if it is junk mail. Makes my day when I get something that's actually good!

Check out this adorable little package that I got from the amazing Claire (part of the brother sister duo, Neverland Collective). Love the packaging material!



While I was at home after my surgery she decided to send me this little gift to cheer me up. She sent me these adorable cupcake pendants!



Not sure what I'm going to do with them just yet. Might make some jewelry, might use them in some kind of gift wrap packaging or even packaging up some cupcakes! So many ways I can use them...



I think the chocolate topping one is my favourite.

Huge thank you to Claire! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Check out some of Claire's awesome photography here (wedding, events, fashion and music).



Check out some of Claire's awesome jewelry here.

This pen is always by my side.

A few weeks ago I got given my late birthday present from my wonderful friend Jessamy. It contained some Nerds (YUM!!) and a fabulous book called Where's Willy? - a rude take-off on the book Where's Wally? :'D I laughed rather loudly when I first saw it.



What I really loved about my gift however, was the amazing card that came with it. Jess's sisterAlyssa is an awesome illustrator and animator, so Jess had Alyssa draw a little illustration of me with a cupcake! She's so talented and has a really unique illustration style. LOVES IT!



It even has my sweet square jaw! Haha! Wish I owned that dress though, super cute!

If you want to see more of Alyssa's illustrations and animations you can check out her deviantART page.