Here are the green velvet cupcakes I made for St Patrick’s Day. I used 1 oz of green food coloring in place of the required 2 oz of red.

I got the recipe from Baked: New Frontier in Baking. The malt balls are Koppers Mini Malted Milk Balls. You can buy a mixed 5 lb bag on Amazon for about what you’d pay for a single pound with shipping elsewhere. Then you will use about 20 and, if you are like me, gluttonously eat the rest. I liked the white ones the best.

My mom and everyone at her birthday party really enjoyed the cake.

With only 11 people at this birthday party I didn’t want to go crazy making tons of food. So I got creative. I know Vanessa loved those decadent Baked brownies I made last year so that was definitely on the list. With tons of rich Scharffen Berger Chocolate in them (I use half bittersweet and half semisweet), you only need to eat one brownie to be satisfied.

After baking the brownies I used a biscuit cutter to cut out a dozen brownie circles. That left me with left overs to make brownie bites. I crumbled up the remaining brownies and rolled them into balls. Then I dipped them in white chocolate and sprinkled them with purple/yellow/lavender sanding sugar. You can see from my photo I need to improve my dipping skills. Dipping balls is much harder than cake pops.

To top it all off I made some lavender flavored meringue cookies, for which I will post a recipe soon. I put it all together on my favorite enameled cake stand and embellished it with a cake bunting I made from scrapbook paper and bakers twine and tall candles, and you have a lovely dessert tower!

You can check out all of Hammond’s Valentine’s Day Candy right here.

Every birthday boy or girl deserves a lovely banner celebrating their special day. With $10 and an hour or so you can make something special that can be used for years to come! Here’s how…

Supplies

• 5 sheets of 12×12 scrapbook paper (see notes)
• 5+ yards of 7/8″ grosgrain ribbon
• 2 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ paper in a contrasting color

Tools

• 12″ ruler
• pencil
• paper cutting tool: rotary cutter, x-acto knife, etc and cutting mat
  or
• scissors
• 3/8″ craft punch

SUPPLIES NOTES

The best type of paper to use is the heavy 2 sided scrapbook papers, which are more resistant to tearing. Plus you can use the reverse side for more color/pattern options.

If you are looking for an easy way to find matching papers for your banner – look for coordinating sets in the scrapbook department. You can find this in open stock papers as well as tablets.

For my banner I used paper in a set called Bohemian. It was $0.99/sheet but all open stock paper was 30% off at Michaels so I paid just $0.69. I paid $2.50 for 7 yards of ribbon. Everything else I already had so I spent just $6 on the supplies.

INSTRUCTIONS

The first thing we need to do is trim all of our 12″x12″ paper down to size. Using your ruler cut a 4″ strip off all 5 sheets. This leaves us with a 12″x8″ strip that will yield 3 flags.

Grab your ruler and pencil. We need to make some marks along both 12″ edges. On one edge make a mark at 6″. On the other edge mark 3″ from each side.

Now that we have our marks we can start cutting. If you are using scissors then just use a pencil to trace the lines then cut out with your scissors. Otherwise place your paper on the cutting mat and use a ruler as a guide for your cutter. Make sure to press down firmly as you cut. You want to make sure you slice through the paper completely on the first pass.

Use the marks we just made and the diagram below as a guide for your cutting. You should get 3 large triangles and 2 small triangles from each sheet. The small ones can be discarded or saved for another project.

Repeat these steps with all 5 sheets. You should now have 15 triangles.

Take your craft punch and punch holes on the top corners of the triangles. I used a 3/8″ punch but if you have something different you can try that. Just do a test punch and see if your ribbon will fit through it.

Try to make sure you have about 1/4″ margin around the hole so that the paper doesn’t rip when you are threading the ribbon through.

You need 14 flags to spell HAPPY BIRTHDAY!. Lay them out and determine what order you want them in.

Now we need some letters. You want each letter to fit within 2.5″ wide and 3″ high. The H will likely be your widest letter. I printed some at different sizes until I decided which size I liked best.

I have a vinyl cutter so I ended up cutting these out of white adhesive vinyl. You could also do this with a Silhouette or Cricut cutter. For the low tech version I have a PDF that you can print onto your paper and cut out.

Click the image below to download the PDF

Once you have your letters use double sided adhesive to adhere them to each flag. I placed mine so that the bottom of the letter was about 4″ from the top of the flag and centered horizontally. This doesn’t need to be perfect.

Once you are done with the letters string the flags on your ribbon. This makes a pretty large banner. If you don’t have enough room you can make a double banner by stringing Happy and Birthday! on different pieces of ribbon.

You may want to adjust your banners after you hang it – so I’d recommend leaving some extra ribbon.

To store your banner carefully accordion fold the flags and place in a box.

From marthastewart.com

Martha Stewart has 23 ideas for fall centerpieces. There are a bunch of good ones in there but I think the one with the flowers and pumpkin vase is my favorite.

Here is our first color palette for Thanksgiving. This is a traditional take using the colors of fall with brown, crimson, orange, gold and cream.

Just because your colors are traditional that doesn’t mean that your decor has to be too. You’ll see in our inspiration board below that selecting modern pieces in traditional colors can create a look that is contemporary and yet familiar.

1. William-Sonoma, $50 2. Crate & Barrel, $25 3. Williams-Sonoma, $50 4. Crate & Barrel, $50 5. Pier 1, $25 6. West Elm, $12 7. Mikasa Cocoa Blossom, $100 8. Crate & Barrel, $17 9. Pottery Barn, $50 10. Fishs Eddy, $100 11. West Elm, $29

I have baked the Orange-Grand Marnier cake and the Sour Cream-Chocolate cake with Peanut Butter Frosting. Both were amazing and I look forward to baking many more cakes in this book! It even has some wedding cakes.

Just looking at these photos makes me hungry! My mother’s birthday is this week so I’ll be on the hunt for a special cake to bake for her.

Orange-Grand Marnier Cake

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Then I came across this dress from Madewell. It’s perfect! Elbow length sleeves for a cool November day, fall-like colors, loose enough to have that extra piece of pie, and only $148. It’s silk too. I could see wearing this to work with a blazer or cardigan and more casually with some knee boots. Both colors are great but I’d probably go with the red.

Buy it instore or online at Madewell for $148.

A couple of years ago I saw that Williams Sonoma had these cool pie crust cutters but by the time I got around to a store they were sold out. Last year I managed to grab a set and I am so glad I did! My mom and I have been in charge of the pumpkin pies for years. We use my Great Aunt Rose’s recipe and it’s pretty amazing (when you don’t swap the sugar and salt). With these pie crust cutters our pies are beautiful and delicious. You almost don’t want to slather your slice in whipped cream. Almost!

This new set is a bit different from mine as my set has an acorn replacing one of the leaves. It still has the 2 best cutters – the oak leaf and the maple leaf. The 4 cutter set costs $18 and can be purchased online or in a Williams Sonoma store.