Pepper Design Blog - Page 219 of 438 - A Little of This & That... Renovating, Decorating, DIY Projects & Family

Breakfast with Friends, Ballparks, Farmer’s Markets & Picnics by the Lake

May 22, 2012 by Morgan

What do these four things have in common? Four awesome events I was lucky enough to enjoy this weekend, the weekend I’m officially stamping as my birthday celebration (even though it’s actually today!).

Our San Diego Padres have the most wonderful little ballpark – it’s downtown, stone’s throw to the bay, part old brick warehouse, part field (for you know, the players) and part huge grassy lawn in the back where you can cozy up with picnic blankets, kids and friends. Afterwards a handful of us went out for a celebratory drink at one of the rooftop lounges nearby (also overlooks the park and the bay) and enjoyed a raspberry champagne mojito!

Oh yes, and that IS a cookie within a cupcake! Two of my favorite desserts combined (I sometimes make cookie dough just to keep in the fridge and eat. All day long.) and one amazing idea. Stephanie shares that the trick is to freeze the cookie dough chunks before adding them to the raw cupcake batter so that as the two bake the cookie dough stays just that – doughy and yummy! Thanks, Steph for the birthday treats!

Earlier on Saturday we wandered upon a bounce house at Pizza Port in Ocean Beach:

and I was completely caught off guard when our awesome neighbors made a cake! Aaron even made those fondant ribbons – and all of the cake decorators out there can appreciate fondant skills.

Sunday morning brought with it a vanilla latte and farmer’s market goodies:

And more eucalyptus branches. Because a house can never have too many…

Last but not least at the end of the day we enjoyed an impromptu picnic at Lake Murray. Very last minute and very wonderful! Liv and her friend Gigi practiced ‘skipping’ rocks:

Michael learning to fish with his dad:

How cute is Michael? He was concentrating so hard…

And then a couple of ducks came along!

He stopped to wave.

For those in the western US, did you catch the eclipse this weekend?

I was not fortunate enough to snap that night shot on the right (source here) but we did have a friendly gentleman stop by our picnic spot to loan us a pair of ‘eclipse glasses’, and that’s exactly what we saw. Amazing!

Today will be a usual day, though I’m taking a Starbucks break this afternoon with a friend and I’m excited for that!

Have a lovely Tuesday!

Dr. Seuss Themed Cupcakes & Baby Shower!

May 21, 2012 by Morgan

Hope you had a lovely weekend! We celebrated my birthday on Saturday night (so fun) which made it an extra special weekend for me. My actual bday is tomorrow and I’m looking forward to celebrating again with Kevin and Liv. There’s nothing like a little family time to make for a great day.

During a bit of my spring cleaning around here, I came across a camera card full of photos from this time last year, including this adorable Dr. Seuss baby shower thrown for our good friend Grace and her baby boy Cyrus! I had made Dr. Seuss-themed cupcakes for the special day and I forgot how much I had loved using the creative children’s books as inspiration

The shower was absolutely adorable with lots of Dr. Seuss inspired decorations and food. Great job Cassie and Denise! As for my part, I put together four different cupcake designs based off the One Fish Two Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 & Thing 2 books.

I’m pretty sure I used a standard boxed cake mix for the actual cake part of these guys, but when it came to the neck up I had the chance to get a little creative. I had fun creating four unusual looks and used inspiration from plenty of images found ’round the web, two designs that I especially loved were this one and this one.

The base for each of the four different cupcakes was a flat round icing disk that I made out of a pliable homemade fondant. I must have spent an hour yesterday looking for the recipe I used 11 months ago to share here – but I can’t find it anywhere… argh. You can actually purchase pre-made fondant and marzipan from craft stores or there are a ton of great DIY recipes out there (the marshmallow ones look especially intriguing). Now I need a new go to!

My one suggestion for creating your own is to watch how much you mix your icing. You want the fondant to be stiff enough to mold but you also want to avoid any cracking when it begins to dry. Aim for playdough consistency. (This is for small projects – if you were covering a cake with this stuff I would say that playdough consistency is far too soft and will lead to several lumps and bumps).

First up in assembly were the Cat in the Hat cupcakes. I dipped marshmallows halfway up in a small bowl of water and then in a dish of red sugar (or red sprinkles) to create the illusion of a striped hat. I stacked two marshmallows onto a skewer (that has been cut in half to size) and used the pointed end of the skewer to hold the flipped over hats into place on top of the cupcakes.

The One Fish, Two Fish cupcakes were as simple as a bit of blue sugar, a couple of Swedish fish and a small black icing dot to accentuate the eye facing up. A small dot of icing will also hold the fish in place.

My Green Eggs and Ham cupcakes were actually just green eggs without the ham… but I used a green M&M to serve as the egg yolk and reshaped the flat round icing disk into more of an over easy egg shape. Black icing (bought pre-made in a squeezable tube) helped to outline the cracked egg.

Tracking down blue cotton candy for the Thing 1, Thing 2 cupcakes was a bit more challenging… luckily we had visited Sea World the day before the shower and I snagged a cotton candy on my way out for 1/2 price! A glob of semi-shaped stringy cotton candy helps form the hair for Thing 1 and Thing 2, and a simple ‘1’ or ‘2’ in black icing finished the look off.

Cotton candy has a tendency to melt when in direct sunlight! Lesson learned. Best to bring out the dessert just before everyone gets ready to eat it lest you have a melted, sugary, globby mess on your hands:

All in all a success though! And so much fun to put together. I think my favorites were probably the Cat in the Hat cupcakes and next time I might try and cover that fondant base in a red sugar too for a little extra pop.

Dining Room Update: Time for a Buffet-Over

May 18, 2012 by Morgan

That is, a makeover for the buffet. Not the color! Not my dear blue, but the top, sides, inside…

The dining room is well on its way, but it’s in need of all of those pretty little accessories that make a home feel like a home. She’s had her light fixture updated (ahhh, such a difference!) and the easy next on the dining room list is tackling my big blue box because it involves a fair amount of house shopping for items that we already own (but that might be in need of a new or better location).

A little rummaging around and a few Michael’s frames later…

Now it more represents our family and our mishmash style.

The noticeable big difference is moving the giant mirror out – which was initially a tough choice because it helped to bring in plenty of extra light. The decision was twofold: A. I was hunting for an over-sized mirror for the mantel in the living room and this means that I didn’t have to splurge on a second:

and B. we had been gifted a beautiful piece of personalized art from my hometown of Santa Cruz, California and I was ready to display it somewhere easily seen.

So pretty! That’s the harbor in Santa Cruz and those boats have had their names rewritten by the painter – one for ‘Madness’, our sailboat (more on the story of that name later ;)) and one for my family’s boat ‘Crew-zen’ (my mom owns a martial arts school – have I ever mentioned that? She cleverly included ‘zen’ in the name).

Here’s my intial little mock up in Photoshop of how I thought I would plan out the wall collage:

But then widdled it down to about half of the items. I can always add more later.

In the end I settled on: a wedding photo of Kevin and me dancing (one of my favorites from the day), a photo of a beautiful village Church in Fiji (where I’ve volunteered several times), a sweet in-the-buff black and white of Liv when she was brand new, an Italian pasta plate + stand that was a wedding gift, and a large round mirror I found on super super sale at Clayton Gray (it’s back to its original price now). Plus my little terrariums and a white pitcher full of eucalyptus branches (Farmer’s Market find, they last forever so I’m replacing the $3 bunch maybe once a month and I love love how they look).

When my dad was visiting from Santa Cruz he was kind enough to help me with hanging the frames (a task I’ve never loved).

And then I added the rest:

You can kind of see how stuffed this cabinet is slowly getting in the above photo, so in full-buffetover style I also emptied her out and went through my dining decor piece by piece. Only must-use items could stay.

Back into the buffet went a handful of platters for entertaining, my favorite BBB punch bowl (I purchase replacement glass cups en mass from Ikea – they’re not visible but behind the champagne flutes), flutes (because life is full of occasional champagne moments) candles with life left in them, tiered platters (in the middle section) a few vases (some holding my fancy napkin holders) and a whole bunch of paper napkins that I had no idea I had. Ah! Feels much better. Room to breathe!

Other minor upgrades from actually quite a while ago include replacing the old, rusty knobs with new versions from Anthroplogie (still need to hunt down a matching turquoise paint to touch up behind the knobs).

I think that about does it for the buffet! That’s one madeover part of the room down, several more to go.

Happy Weekend! We’re celebrating my birthday on Saturday so I’m a little excited for it to arrive!

Read the full dining room story by starting here: upgrading the lighting, the before!

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