Wedding inspiration: save the date
Happy Tuesday friends!
I am getting super inspired for the big day. The church has been booked (relief!) and now the next step is sending out the Save The Date.
This is the kind of look I’m going for…
I love this style of Save The Dates. I want to go for a vintage, 50’s look (think Audrey Hepburn and James Dean) with a Vespa as a prop. How cool will that be? Check out my Polyvore board below.
Let’s hope I can get Mr V to agree to doing this shoot!
‘Til then!
100 happy days: day 4
I love getting fit!
100 happy days: day 2 & 3
A night with my Continue reading
2014
Well friends, here we are. 2014 is well on its way. Can you believe it’s the 17th of January already?? I feel very behind as I only came back from holiday on Sunday afternoon, so I’m still in holiday mode. By this time of the year I normally have my cupboards spring cleaned and my new year’s resolutions in place. Diving straight in to work has left me no time for me. I’ll get there though.
My above-mentioned holiday was amazing – a month long family trip to Italy. I ate, shopped, built a snowman and walked myself silly. I have a few pics to share.
Coming back to real life will always be a drag compared to a holiday, but luckily for me this year is full of exciting things:
* I am getting married to the sweetest, kindest man I know, my boyfriend and now fiancé of four and a half years (Mr V).
* Mr V and I are moving in to our first home.
I can’t wait!! I have less than 9 months to go. I’ll definitely be sharing my thoughts and inspiration for the wedding and house as I go.
In the mean time, I’ve come across a little project that I’m super excited to take part in. It’s called 100 Happy Days. It basically makes you find the good in every day. Today was my first day sharing what made me happy…
… Friday makes me happy! Check the project out here: 100 Happy Days
I hope your days to come are filled with fun and happiness.
‘Til then.
All lined up in a row
Hello, hello! Yes, I am still alive. And I’m bringing you a peak of a new batch of cupcakes I’m working on. I received an order for 25 cupcakes – Minion cupcakes to be exact. I decided to make flat fondant toppers instead of 3D characters. These little gremlins will be placed atop a swirl of fluffy vanilla buttercream (plain vanilla cupcakes for the base). I think they look a bit scruffy, but not too bad for a first attempt. It was my first time using a food colouring marker too. I think the next time I use it I’ll wait for the fondant to dry out first. Let me know what you think. Have you ever made Minion cupcakes or cakes? Please share if you have!
Carrot cake cupcakes
Hello dear readers. How is your Sunday treating you? I am so excited! I received my first baking order this week for a carrot cake. Yay! Let’s hope this is the first of many. I decided to try a Jamie Oliver carrot cake recipe, and boy is it yummy. The cake is moist, soft, light and subtly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. The topping is a zesty mascarpone, cream cheese and lime icing. I made cupcakes instead of a big cake, but next week I’ll be making a big carrot cake for my order.
This cake is really quick and easy to make. If you are a fan of carrot cake, then try this one.
Jamie Oliver’s Carrot Cake with Lime Mascarpone Icing
Makes 24 cupcakes
For the cake
- 250 g unsalted butter, softened
- 250 g light brown soft sugar
- 5 large free-range eggs
- zest and juice of 1 orange
- 170 g self-raising flour, sifted
- 1 slightly heaped teaspoon baking powder
- 100 g ground almonds
- 100 g shelled walnuts, chopped, plus a handful for serving
- 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- 1 pinch ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 250 g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
- sea salt
For the lime mascarpone icing
- 100 g mascarpone cheese
- 200 g full-fat cream cheese
- 85 g icing sugar, sifted
- zest and juice of 2 limes
Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line two cupcake trays with cupcake paper cups. Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one by one, and add the orange zest and juice. Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder, and add the ground almonds, walnuts, spices and grated carrot and mix together well.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold them into the cake mix. Scoop ice cream scoop sizes of batter into each paper cup and cook in the preheated oven for 15 minutes until golden and risen. You can check to see if the cake is cooked by poking a cocktail stick into it. If it comes out clean the cake is cooked. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out on to a rack and rest for at least an hour.
Mix all the icing ingredients together and spread generously over the top of the cake. Finish off with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts. (In my case, I caramelised some slivered almonds and crumbled that on top for a bit of crunch.)
It’s as simple as that. If you try it out, let me know what you think of it. I’m still on the fence about the icing. I like it, but I’m wondering if my cream cheese icing that I normally make would possibly go better with this? I’d definitely still add some lime zest though! I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday dear readers.
‘Til then.
Get inspired today: beautiful blogs
Hello everyone! Here’s a quick question for you on a Thursday morning. Where do you get inspiration from? Magazines, books, nature? My biggest source of inspiration has to be blogs. Oh my word, when I discovered blogs a few years ago, my life changed. Before the blog discovery, I used to tear inspiring images from magazines and paste into scrapbooks – these books were my inspiration source. I still have them and occasionally paste in them.
I’m a very visual person. Give me a beautiful picture to drool over and I’m happy. When you couple beautiful images with inspiring words – I’m sold! Blogs transport you to another world, a world where everything is pretty. Their words inspire you to action, to dream, to take risks. Ever since I started reading blogs, I’ve been wanting to start my own. I hope to one day grow my blog into an inspiring,pretty place – just like the ones I love.
I’ve been wanting to create a series highlighting the most inspiring blogs out there. Sharing is caring they say, and I’d like to share some of my favourite blogs with you. My aim is to share a blog once a week, it’s important to get inspiration as often as possible.
I’m kicking the series off with the blog that started it all. Whenever I browse for inspiration, this is my first stop! You may know her already, or own one of her books. Holly Becker, creator of the blog decor8, is my hero. She has inspired me from the first day that I stumbled across her blog. Holly launched decor8 in January 2006, after 10 years in the corporate world. Her goal was to live a more creative life, write about topics that she felt passionate about and encourage others to do the same.
Her dream paid off, with now over a million page views per month! Not only has she founded one of the greatest design blogs, but she has authored two best-selling books Decorate: 1,000 Inspirational Ideas For Every Room In Your Home and Decorate Workshop: Design and Style Your Space in 8 Creative Steps, and she has founded a series of online workshops called Blogging Your Way, aimed at the new blogger who is looking for guidance, tips and tricks. (I really want to take part in that course!)
I love Holly’s approach to her blog. It’s fresh, truthfully written and totally identifiable. Her projects are inspiring and simple enough for anyone to give it a go. Her images, oh her images, are stunning. Light, colourful and playful, they are truly inspiring. Here’s an example of her photography.
Beautiful no? I also like the fact that she has weekly contributors that bring another dimension of creativity to her blog. You can honestly find it all on decor8 – great design tips, crafty projects, blogging advice, yummy recipes and general awesomeness.
Do yourself a favour and visit her blog, you won’t be disappointed. You can thank me later.
Til’ then.
Kick-ass inspiration for a Tuesday
Nothing wrong with these very inspiring quotes for a Tuesday afternoon. Hope these lovely sayings spark something within you today!
Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!
‘Till then.
Pinterest inspiration – rainy Mondays and fresh starts
Good afternoon to you all.
It’s Monday! (I’m not sure if that exclamation mark reads excitement or dismay.) Ah, who am I kidding, we all know what it means.
At least my Monday has started off chilly and overcast with a promise of rain. Yes, I’m saying it’s a positive thing. I love waking up to the sound of rain, there’s nothing better! Truth: I’d rather stay in bed than go to work on said rainy morning, but you know what, I’m looking at this rainy Monday as a fresh start (oh ye, I’m going deep people).
Before I start on my tangent, here is some dreamy rain images for you to stare sleepily at (you can pretend it’s that spreadsheet – I won’t tell).
Ok, are you feeling calm and peaceful now? Good. Let’s start with a question.
How important is another person’s happiness to you?
Let me rephrase. How do you treat people who come across your path?
Whether it’s someone you know and love – like a family member or friend, an employee or acquaintance – when you meet and interact, you form a human connection. You see and hear one another, you open yourself up for communication and sharing. You form a connection one way or another (whether intentional or not).
This connection can be deep, meaningful and loaded with history (as you would have with a family member or close friend). This connection can also be superficial (when meeting someone new or when interacting with an employee and having to keep within certain acceptable boundaries). Regardless of whether our interactions are deep or shallow, we all leave a mark on people’s lives. It could be a good mark, bad mark or no mark at all.
Now, back to my original question: how important is another person’s happiness to you? I ask this question because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about relationships and how respect, encouragement and support fit in to that.
I’ve witnessed pretty sad occurrences over the past month. I have seen a lack of respect, a lack of genuine caring amongst people, and it makes me sad and angry. It has made me look within myself and made me question how I treat people I come across in my life.
I can speak truthfully and say that I tend to put my needs above others. I tend to live within a bubble, a “me” bubble where only I have issues and problems. People must support me. I need all the encouragement I can get. Selfish? Yes.
Unfortunately, I tend to live in my own little world much of the time, and I forget to look around me, at all the people who need my encouragement and support. I’m sure a lot of us can relate to this (oh gosh I hope so. I don’t want to be the only selfish one out there). Life gets hectic. We all have a lot on our plates, goals to achieve and dreams to make come true.
There’s nothing wrong with that. If we don’t live for our dreams, who will? Of course we need to focus on our wants and needs. But I think a lot of us (including me) can afford to take a little bit of time to step back, outside of our bubble, and look at the people we come across everyday with new-found respect and genuine care. Every person has a dream. We all have certain beliefs and values, things we find important. I believe all anybody wants is respect. Respect for who they are, their beliefs and their dreams.
I watch shows like Masterchef Australia and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE seeing the immediate transformation in people’s faces when they are encouraged, supported and given a chance to be true to themselves. It’s amazing what a little bit of respect, encouragement and patience can do for a person.
I believe that we are on this Earth for a reason. We are given a certain personality, gifts and talents for a reason. People come into our lives for a reason. We hold a lot of power as human beings. Our thoughts, actions and words can make or break the people around us. That’s a scary responsibility to have, but we all have it! I think we should use this power for good. I’m tired of seeing people being disrespected, put down and dreams dashed.
What are we without a good heart? God gave us a heart for a reason – to love, respect and encourage.
You may be thinking “I don’t have time for this.” “People don’t care.” “They seem fine, they don’t need my help.” I can tell you that no matter how confident or sure people may seem, they more than likely feel the same insecurities that we do, and experience the same injustice that we may experience. You’ll be surprised at how much we all have in common!
I know that I barely have time to pursue my goals and dreams, so how will I find the time to help others? We have to make the time. By helping others we will help ourselves too. We are not living on this earth in isolation. We can’t think and act in isolation. We need to react as a group of people, willing to care enough to make a change to people’s lives. Life is hard enough without the critics and haters always on our backs, don’t you agree? Offering respect, encouragement and support to others is what is needed!
Let’s think about this for a few days. Please share your thoughts! I’d love to hear what you have to say.
In my follow-up post, I’ll share some ideas on how I plan to implement this in my daily living.
‘Till then.
dollytoast 