The Late Afternoon

Everyone likes FREE, right?  Ginger & George is offering a printable version of this note card here. The hexagons and loopy font mixed with splashes of color make for a fun, yet understated note card – great for an out-of-the-blue "hello.” Best of all, its free! All you have to do is print it on hard cardstock and fold along the dotted line.

Photo & Card courtesy of Ginger & George.

Seriously, iKea has everything. I can spend hours browsing their colorful showrooms and racks of knick-knacks. I always find something that I just had to have..even if I only realized it upon setting eyes on it. Now, iKea has something else worth browsing – their new cookbook, “Homemade is Best.” The food photographs are superb and completely different than the usual photographs featured in cookbooks.

Photographer Carl Kleiner and stylist Evelina Bratell are responsible for making the most mundane ingredients like flour, butter, and salt, look artistic and playful. Its not everyday that ingredients can look this good. 

The ingredient layouts are very simplistic, but I can’t even imagine how many tries it must have taken to create the perfectly shaped flour blocks and tablespoon mounds. Seeing these combinations of ingredients makes me wonder what delicious concoctions they’ll make once their mixed all together.

Unfortunately, Homemade is Best has yet to be released in the US and is currently only available in Sweden.  For now, we’ll just have to enjoy these few photograph glimpses…

I posted this very same cupcake last week, but today’s post is not so much about how adorable this cupcake looks drizzled with sprinkles. Today we’re focused on the deliciously moist chocolate cake recipe used to make this cupcake. I specifically called my mom just to get her to email this recipe to me because it is that good. The “secret” (but not so secret) ingredient is the sour cream. It seems sort of strange, but I think it adds to the moistness of the cake. Here is the recipe below:

Keep in mind that this recipe makes A LOT of cake batter. So much that I was able to get a 9×2 inch cake and 12 cupcakes out of it…and I’m still enjoying them a whole week later (I finished one as I was writing this).

This weekend’s camping trip at Monresa State Beach was the perfect ending to the summer season.  I only discovered how relaxing and fun camping can be last year when we adventured to Crater Lake in Oregon and got stuck in a crazy thunderstorm. It opened my eyes to a whole different kind of getaway and I was excited to finally get camp again this summer. Luckily, the weather was beautiful this time around (more like summer than fall!) and our campsite was just a short walk away from the beach. It was one of those trips that let  disconnect and forget about to-do lists and the pending Monday work morning.

 {I’m not really sure what this beach creature turned out to be…a crab of sorts?}

{We were at the beach when the lighting was seriously perfect} 

We spent our Saturday setting up our site, playing beach football, kite flying (and chasing), watching the sun set, campfires with camp-y food (hot dogs, s’mores, jiffy pop popcorn…). It was a great weekend with amazing friends.

A list of things that I need to remember…

Happy Weekend!

It seems like just yesterday that I was wishing for heat waves and 9 PM sunsets. While I love the idea of sunny summers, fall always brings a certain fresh, cozy crispness – burnt orange leaves, t-shirt & jeans weather, the start of school, and the beginning of the holiday season. To celebrate the official first days of autumn, I’ve collected a few fall items to get in the autumn spirit.

{1} The “Know-It-All” Pencil Set from Paper Pasteries are not only good for writing, they also make you look like a smartie with know-it-all facts stamped on their sides.

{2} Autumn is always a little more woodsy and raw in comparison to the other seasons. Its like summer baked the earth and made everything crispy. This raw, striped wooden candle holder describes that feeling perfectly.

{3} {7} These Jonathan Adler pillows are in the most standard Fall colors – dark oranges and fire engine reds.

{4} OK. Who can say “No” to Caramel Apple Pops? These are a definite Fall (and Halloween) staple.

{5} Even though I’m no longer a student, I still love the idea of fresh new school supplies. Blank notebooks and new packs of pencils…like this striped chevron notebook by Wit & Whistle. 

{6} With Fall comes the perfect weather to get wrapped up in cozy knit scarves and cardigans (my fav!). These tiny knitted bows  by Emma Dime were too adorable to pass up.