I do all my own stunts

No animals were harmed in the making of this party

A baby shower

Not just any baby shower.  This one was for me and the twins, hosted by my amazing friends, Dana and Jill.  It was beautifully planned and executed;  every detail carefully thought out - even down to the colors of the beverages and the sprinkling sugar on the cupcakes.  

The lovely hostesses and I.  

To my tremendous delight, the entire menu for the event was 100% VEGAN!  

The cupcakes were from Flying Apron Bakery.

All the other food was made by Dana and Jill.  It was absolutely fantastic!  Even the omnivores were quite impressed.  

Partygoers Grandma, myself, Mom and Mother in Law

The diaper cakes made by Jill were so sweet and adorable.  Why two?, you ask - I asked the same thing.  Because there are two babies, of course.  Like I said, no detail went unaccounted for.  

Jill followed my tutorial for these diaper cakes.  They turned out beautifully.  It makes me wonder if she shouldn't be writing this blog.  

In addition to her crafting talents, Jill is a fantastic photographer.  These photographs come to you courtesy of her!  Check out her blog for a sampling of her photography and in-depth documentation of her son Jackson's major milestones.  

I felt so honored by Dana and Jill for hosting such a gorgeous and thoughtfully executed party.  And to all the guests who attended and literally showered me with gifts, thank you so much.  It was perfect.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day & How to Salvage a Baking Failure (Sort of)

Vegan Chocolate Stout Cake

Oops.

St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Britain and was captured as a slave by Irish raiders when he was about 16 years old.  He toiled as a herdsman for 6 years and eventually escaped back to his family in Britain.  After joining the Church, he returned to Ireland as a bishop where he lived and worked in the mid to late 5th century.  Legend credits St. Patrick with banishing the snakes from Ireland, but scientific evidence (read: Wikipedia) reports that Ireland never had snakes.  Possibly the snakes refer to the serpent symbol of the Druids of that time.  In writings credited to St. Patrick, he describes his time as a foreigner in Ireland as not easy.  His refusal to accept gifts from kings made him an outsider in the normal order of things and he was at times beaten, robbed and put in chains.  

St. Patrick has been revered as the patron saint of Ireland since about the 8th century.  I scoured the internet for any mention of St. Patrick as being especially forgiving, but I couldn't find anything that specifically states that he was.  I imagine as a saint up in heaven, he would have to be quite forgiving of all the green-beer-induced debauchery and transgressions known to happen on his feast day.  

That's good because I totally screwed up.  See below.  

(What would have been) perfect for St. Patrick's Day:  Chocolate Stout Cake.  If you don't want to drink your Guinness*, go ahead and bake something delicious with it!  Just don't screw it up like I did.  

I've made this cake a couple times and had great results.  But this time, when I had my camera handy, I was stupidly impatient and didn't wait until the cake was fully cooled before I flipped it out of the bundt pan.  

It started out great, and even tasted great as I sampled forkfulls of cake from the bottom of the pan.  As you can see from the top photo, it just didn't look great.  Looking beautiful is of huge importance in my world and I almost didn't share this recipe with you folks because of it.  

But thankfully, this cake has an incredibly marvelous component that allows the baker to fudge a less-than-perfect execution (somewhat).  

A glaze.  

This cake is deep, dark and decadent.  It is supremely moist and the stout really adds a richness to the flavor.  I made this cake, with prettier results, for my Dad's birthday back in February.  I think it is a perfect dessert to make for dudes; the beer makes it sound so tough.  This cake is delicious on its own, not too sweet, but I think the glaze adds just the right amount of luscious indulgence to make it not just a chocolate cake, but 'A CHOCOLATE CAKE'.  

Plus, the glaze helps to cover up an impatient mistake.

Vegan Chocolate Stout Cake

adapted from this recipe

1 cup stout

1 cup canola oil

3/4 cup dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1.5 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

2 replaced eggs (I use Ener-G egg replacer)

2/3 cup silken tofu (about 2/3 of a 12.3 oz package).  

1 tbsp lemon juice

6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

6 tbsp soy milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Oil and flour a bundt pan (don't skip this step or the cake will stick to the pan and your results will be even more disastrous than mine).  

Bring stout and oil to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.  Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  Blend the tofu and lemon juice together in a blender of food processor.  Add the egg replacer powder and water and blend again.  Add tofu mixture to the stout-chocolate mixture pan and beat just to combine.  Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and fold batter until completely combined.  Pour into the prepared bundt pan and bake for about 45 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Transfer the cake to a rack and let cool completely in the pan.  

When cool, turn out the cake onto a cake stand or plate.  It should come out relatively easily.  Heat chocolate chips and soy milk in a double boiler stirring until smooth.  Spoon or pour the glaze over the cake and serve.  

The glaze does cover up some mistakes, but if you practice patience, a virtue St. Patrick would no doubt approve of, your cake will look absolutely gorgeous, I promise.  

*Strict vegans should note that Guinness technically isn't vegan due to the use of isinglass - from fish bladder - in the filtration process.  Appetizing, huh?  Check Barnivore.com for more info.  Anyway, I used Pike Brewery's XXXXX stout which does not use isinglass and is more vegan friendly as far as I can tell.  

Storybook land

Beatrix Potter Decoupage Changing Table/Dresser

When I found out I was pregnant, my mom, who had been eagerly anticipating this event for a very, very long time, immediately jumped into action.  She, of course being very familiar with my tastes, knows that I have a fondness for vintage items and began hunting for unique, classic nursery decor.  She hit the jackpot at a local bookstore that was sadly going out of business.  They had a number of old prints and illustrations from children's books that had been gathering dust in the basement of the bookstore since the '50's.  She scooped up a bunch of these treasures at thrift store prices.  Among them were these fantastic Beatrix Potter illustration panels.  I remember being enthralled with the adventures and misadventures of all of these characters when I was young, Tom Kitten, Benjamin Bunny, The Tailor of Gloucester.  And the colors of the illustrations are so calming and lovely, perfect for a nursery.  At first I wasn't quite sure I could incorporate the panels into our decorating scheme; they were an odd shape for framing, but I had to put them to use somehow.  

So I decided to get crafty.  

Here's what I did:  

1.  I found a changing table on Craigslist.  The girls would need a changing table, of course.  It was actually in pretty good shape.  Just not my style, see:

2.  I removed the drawer pulls and roughed up all the surfaces with sand paper to give the paint something to adhere to.  

3.  I chose a new paint color.  I finally went with 'Gumdrop' from Benjamin Moore.  I used their High Gloss Impervo oil-based paint, because I read that it is the best for repainting furniture.  It is fantastic paint.  But, all you pregnant ladies out there, fumes from oil-based paint are very, very harmful to your baby.  I didn't know this at first, but it's true.  Thankfully, darling, patient Brian was lovely enough to do the painting for me.  This crafting thing is definitely not his gig, but I think he did a great job.  

4.  Brian painted the changing table and the outside edges of the drawers.  Then I measured and cut the illustration panels to fit the inner rectangle of the drawer fronts.  I was very deliberate with my measuring and precise with my cutting.  I think my patience paid off; the panels look as if they were designed specifically for this piece of furniture.  

5.  I then used a sponge brush and Mod Podge (which ROCKS, by the way) to adhere the panels to the drawers.  I've learned that the key to a great Mod Podge project is applying a very thin coat.  It dries pretty quickly - about 15 minutes.  Then I sealed it with 3 more very thin coats.  

6.  I then drilled new holes and put in some awesome glass drawer pulls.  I found these at Rejuvenation.

7.  Et voila.  Fancy decoupage changing table for the twins' little nursery storybook land.

Babymoon in Vegas vs. Weekend Craftastical

Sweet Pea Cardigan

Did you know about this?  This 'babymoon' thing.  It really exists.  Parents-to-be are supposed to whisk themselves away to some tropical destination as some sort of a 'last hurrah' before the baby comes.  Relax and reconnect with one another...before it's too late.  

To each his own, I guess, but this just seems like one more example proving that this baby-having business is a RACKET.  Have you checked the price tags in some of these maternity boutiques?  Not to mention the baby gear.  They would have you think that all of it is absolutely essential of course, right down to the wipes warmer.  Seriously?  That seems like the pinnacle of frivolity to me.  If you're interested, Simple Mom did a post recently on the things you don't need (but they say you do) for a new baby.  I love that site.  

Anyway, Brian and I technically did have a 'babymoon' way back in November when I was newly pregnant.  We went to Mexico for a wedding.  It was nice, but it would have been nicer if I could have imbibed a margarita or ten.  This is one of the reasons Brian set out for a babymoon in Vegas...on his own.  He did his 'last hurrah' thing with one of his buddies who coincidentally is also expecting twins.  I swear, it's in the water.  

It worked out well for both of us, because while he and his boys were on the Vegas club scene until 4 AM, a tornado of yarn, Mod Podge, fabric, paint and glue guns swept through our house.  My idea of a babymoon:  an intense Weekend Craftastical.  It was awesome.  

I was able to finish up these little Sweet Pea Cardigans.  The pattern is as fast and simple as the design is adorable.  I used a double strand of Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend yarn with US 10 and US 9 needles.  I absolutely love that yarn.  They are knit from the top-down and there is absolutely NO SEWING.  The pattern is available online for free here.  These cardigans just flew off my needles.  And having getting to make two of everything for the twins, I appreciate that immensely.  This is my new go-to pattern for baby sweaters.  

You should try it.  You'll love it, I promise.  

Reports on more Weekend Craftastical exploits are on their way...

Daffodil and Mary

Mary came with our house.  At one time she presided over an intensely overgrown yard choked of all daylight by dozens of unpruned trees and a 6 foot privacy fence.  She stood underneath a sickly noble fir that the previous owners had brought back from a hiking excursion in the Cascades. Our neighbor told us that they were wont to engage in this sort of activity and our jungle-like front yard proved it.  I have described before our unrelenting siege in taming the profusion of plant matter that we inherited with this house.  The overgrown vines, trees and weeds were formidable adversaries, but the darkness was the real enemy.  The lack of sunlight was depressing, but it was also very damaging.  Even Mary's noble fir had hardly a needle clinging to it when we moved in.  Had the previous owners exercised some restraint in their plant gathering expeditions, many of the organisms in the yard could have been salvaged.  But as it stood, we had to clear out truckloads of debris.  What we were left with was blessedly sparse, but beautiful.  Three gorgeous japanese maples survived, as did a collection of quaking aspens and about a million bulbs.  

My apologies to all you snowbound folks across the country, but our weather here in Seattle has been fantastically warm and uncharacteristically not soggy.  The bulbs have popped up and are starting to bloom.  I am hesitant that I might jinx it, but for now I am thoroughly enjoying it.  And it seems as if Mary, from her new perch at the base of our chimney surveying the front yard, is enjoying it as well.