Easy-as-anything cake topper

My very talented sister Julia and I have had a long standing pact that when I got married, she would make my wedding cake. This may sound like folly, but she just so happens to thoroughly enjoy making cakes and was no stranger to fondant work. So she made a wonderful chocolate cake with minty frosting between the layers. Just beautiful.

Now topper-wise, Etsy has all kinds of adorable, customizable options, where your likeness can be made into peg figures, or your wedding ensembles painted onto squirrel figurines or (my favorite) a little bust of a tree trunk has your names or initials "scratched" into it. As the wedding got closer, my attention moved away from figuring-out the cake topper to important things like schedules, catering, and booze numbers. (It should have been about what hairstyle I should have, but I will tell you that story later).

A trip to my not-so-local Michaels produced a very simple, pretty and yes, DIY cake topper. And it cost about a buck fifty.

3 wooden pieces, an L, K and a heart, spray painted with blue and red Krylon that we already owned and then each piece was hot glued onto its own wooden coffee stir stick. I was very happy with the results!

This Summer

... was amazing and busy and I am now a Mrs.! Our wedding was more or less of the DIY variety (though I am loathe to use that term when I can avoid it) and we had a lot of help from amazing friends and professionals. I will be detailing some of our projects on here in the weeks ahead. Hope your summers have all been wonderful...

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE VANILLA EXTRACT

I had a couple vanilla beans sitting in my cupboard. Though fancy recipes often call for whole vanilla beans, it just seems like such a waste to use a vanilla bean once and then toss it. My friend told me how easy it was to make your own extract, and cheaper than buying, so I thought I would try it. Basically, you sterilize a jar and fill it with vodka (or rum if you want that kind of taste in your baking) and then for every couple ounces I think, you use one bean. Here I have a baby food jar with two little vanilla guys. Now I wait..... 2 months.
For one, imitation extract comes from the byproducts of the paper industry.  And at one time, 60% of the world's imitation extract came from Ontario, where there is such a big pulp and paper industry. Also, vanillin is not found solely in the vanilla bean (which is from a type of orchid), it is a chemical compound that can be made artificially (ie; from wood) and can occur naturally in things like wine if they have been in certain types of wood under the right conditions (Yellow Tail Shiraz, anyone?)

Update- The homemade vanilla extract was DELISH

Gorgeous Kitchenware

I wish I lived-in Sweden or at the very least understood the Swedish that could explain to me where to get these gorgeously patterned items from retailer Rorstrand. The colours are killing me!

Gift for the in-laws

Fun little project- maybe my last non-wedding project for the next few months....

Constellation Cross Stitch Project

Great beginner cross stitch project from MiniatureRhino at Etsy. Also happens to be gorrrrgeous and does not contain kittens sleeping or anything.

xoxo