Baking Friday...

Grace's first birthday party was set for the 4th of June & I offered to make some duckie cupcakes & a cake topper for her birthday cake... It took me a few days to make all of these & I had a lot of fun mixing colours and trying to figure out how to make a duck not look like a chicken!! These were the results:

cake topper for big cake < >  mini-ducks for cupcakes

...and while I was at it, I baked a cake (mom's fail-safe best chocolate cake recipe) for Danelle's birthday party which we attended on the night of the 3rd which I decorated with loads of 'plastic icing stars'! :

Danelle's Birthday Cake :)

View from the Top

I just LOVE the things I find on Pinterest & around the internet... I am so happy with the boards I've set up as far as categories go so I have decided to start introducing some of my favorites on my blog :)

My board of the day is:

Click HERE to view this board.

and my pin of the day comes from that board:

The source of this photograph's post before Pinterest is here... To re-quote from Airline: Identity, Design and Culture by Keith Lovegrove.“In stark contrast (often to the point of prudishness) shown by most airlines to that date, in 1973 Southwest Airlines threw caution to the winds with its stewardess uniform. ‘The girls must be able to wear kinky leather boots and hot pants or they don’t get the job,’ said the airline’s male bosses.”

Stan and I were living with T'Neal (and quite frankly driving her mad I think). One night she gave us some of her hard saved money & sent us off to movies so that she could have the flat to herself. We decided to see View From The Top & enjoyed it so much! ( I've seen it a few times since! Plus I just love Gwyneth Paltrow! )

A clear distinction is made in 'class' in the movie & the uniforms that the air hostesses wear play a big role in defining the kind of airline the girls are employed by - from the colour and design through to the type of fabric used - and the ultimate: "First Class International" - and in particular: New York > Paris the coveted job destination (and uniform) for our leading lady!

 

The irony of the situation is that people used to 'dress for flights', and yet the hostesses were dressed provocatively! 

In this day and age, one never sees air hostesses that aren't beautifully presented -- I just cannot imagine a professional airline such as Emirates with air hostesses dressed in any other way but in their smart red and tan outfits! :

Who Wants To Not Be Skinny?!

I just found the most awesome ad promoting Ironized Yeast to help women put on weight so that they don't have to be skinny any more!!

I just LOVE the intro: 'Now there's no need to be "skinny" and friendless...'

The original website that it came from is here

Staying Creative

I think that these are great principals to implement in order to stay creative:

 

 # 27 is particularly challenging (especially when dealing with an invisible dead mouse which stinks & is generating flies on top of having displaced my entire workspace!!!)... and I could do with a touch more perfectionism & less breaks that amount to procrastination... and must remember #19 and get more rest!!

My 32nd Birthday....

It was my birthday on Sunday & such a beautiful day with Geoff & my family...

I got spoiled with a Le Creuset cast iron oval casserole pot which we've already made Moroccan lamb shanks (from the Entertainment Ideas magazine from my mom & dad) in... I've been dreaming about owning one Le Creuset for many years now - it is a great asset to our kitchen repertoire ...especially now that its chilly and Wintery..!

Geoff and I drove through to Kalk Bay where we had breakfast at The Annex with my Mom, Dad, and T'Neal, Dave & Grace. 

Grace turned 1 on the 1st of June & is just about the cutest thing on hands and knees!

From breakfast, Geoff and I headed North on the N7 and ended up at Riebeek Kasteel for the night... On Monday we looped upwards & back down to Cape Town along the coast - stopping in at 2nd hand shops to look for shop stock (I realised that in addition to closing the fridge door & my stomach now getting in the way, I can't actually fit between narrow shop isles any more!!)

Pintrest

I just LOVE Pinterest!! 
Finally there is somewhere on the web where I can just save all the things I see that I love into categories in order to do something with them at a later stage. Its so much better then saving things into folders on my desktop because its so much more interactive! ...I love linking straight through to projects, tutorials, printables & recipes from one place! ..and of course, seeing who follows me and what they've been pinning.

Sometimes something funny will happen eg: these 2 photos ended up next to one another so it looks like the girl's hand extends to the next frame for the cat to lie on! :

Time to stop pinning & start making....as soon as we have more room (*watch a space close by!)

Lack Of Blogging?

I have actually been blogging -- but not on this blog... and otherwise it seems that I'm spending waaaaay too much time collecting & not making things off Pinterest. I just found this little cartoon which illustrates the mindset of the procrastinatory brain state:

because, yes: it does feel like I'm procrastinating quite a bit on things that need to be done. It doesn't really help that I've hit the 3rd trimester 4pm exhaustion which is comparable to the 1st trimester 4pm exhaustion *(luckily without the nausea!!)

I have been getting things done, but at a rather random pace involving much fitting & starting.