Crave Cupcakes

As much as I love baking, occasionally you just want one or two cupcakes, not 24. When I happen to be in Houston around the Galleria area I always make sure to stop at Crave Cupcakes. I've tested a few places around the city and Crave is by far my favorite. From Crave I've had their key lime pie, pumpkin, cranberry orange, and dark chocolate cupcakes. They have an awesome variety each day and often offer season specials. And I'm not just talking Valentine's Day and Christmas. They had special cupcakes for the Superbowl, for the men's college National Championship, and now for the Houston Rodeo! Here's a quick pic from the website of one of their Rodeo special cupcakes:

If you live in the Houston area you can stop by their Uptown Park location for a treat or place a delivery or pick-up order online here: CUPCAKES!

EtsyTX Baby Gift Swap

I joined the Etsy TX Street Team and immediately wanted to interact with other members. I decided to do the Baby Gift Swap going on in February. How it works is a bunch of people sign up a baby (Yes I'm borrowing Evan for this activity, No I do not have a secret child) and then they each get assigned a swap partner. Then you make a gift for your partner and htey make somehting for you. I was assigned Jemimah who has a 9 month old girl for my project. I read her Gift Swap profile and found out that she likes 1950's fashion and green and white were her favorite colors. I decided to knit a hat from this information. I used these two pictures of 1950's hat styles as my inspiration:



I used the shape of the green swimming cap style hat in the collage photo and the bow on the turban-style hat to create the following look:




Hope it works out well!

Auburn Themed Baby Shower Gift Set

So, a friend of mine asked me to make him a baby shower gift for some close friends of his that were due in March. They weren't finding out the sex of the baby so we needed to find a different approach to color than pink or blue. Since both my friend and the couple having the baby attended Auburn University for their undergrad degrees, I figured this would be an awesome theme for the gift set. Little did I know that the yarn world is predispositioned to hate pastel orange colored yarn. I have bought 4 different yarns to finally achieve the orange I wanted in a skein of yarn large enough for a blanket. First I ordered my favorite baby blanket yarn, the Cotton Clouds Softball .75 worsted 1 lb cone in pale orange yellow. This yarn was too yellow and I got stuck with it since it was apparently a special order (lesson: buy the color card even if it's $9!). The next yarn I ordered was the same yarn only in a cantaloupe color recommended by the super nice ladies at Cotton Cloud. Unfortunately the distributor had discontinued this color and forgotten to tell them, huge bummer. My third attempt was the Peaches N Cream cotton yarn in the color shrimp. I decided after knitting about a foot of the blanket that this color was practically neon orange next to the pale blue so I needed to find something lighter. I went to JoAnn's and found a Pound of Love in a peach color and went to town with that. Here are some pictures of the finally underway blanket under construction.

Yarn:


'Wrong side' that I actually prefer:


Close Up of the cable:


'Right side' of the blanket:


P.S. They had a girl! 8lb 2oz :)

Great Etsy Shop

So, if you couldn't guess from my 'Etsy Stalker' button, I spend a lot of time on Etsy.com just browsing all the wonderful things for sale. I came across this amazing store selling handmade mobiles for baby cribs and the like. The store is called PinkPerch and the seller is located right here in Texas (San Antonio)! Here are a few items available in the shop:

Safari Mobile


Dino Mobile


And sure to be a Houston favorite, the Space Mobile


The mobiles are all eco-friendly and can be made even more spectacular with a wood or music upgrade. Give these a look on Etsy!

UMD Basketball!

This is totally off topic from anything on my blog, but I love UMD basketball! Living in Texas I don't get to see them play very often but when my Mom called me to tell me about this buzzer 3 point shot to win the game I had to find it on YouTube:

Can't wait for March!!

Bootie-licious

People are really lovin on the booties in my Etsy shop. I've made a couple of variations that aren't up in the shop but are certainly custom order options for those of you out there in the market for bootie ;) Here are some I've made for a few of my friends lately:




And for those of you interested, here are the fabrics currently in my stash:


I can make booties from any of these fabrics, just give me a holler!

Fat Tuesday!

Fat puppies that is. I received the treat sampler I had ordered from Mia's Munchies this weekend and the pups have been indulging. Or, I suppose, I've been over-indulging the pups. They're almost gone! In the sampler were peanut butter bones, pumpkin paws, and carob chip biscuits. They loved them all (then again they like plastic, so I don't know how refined their palates are)! Check out the great packaging from Mia's Munchies and how much Baloo wants another treat:




Thanks, Lisa, for the amazing home baked treats!

January Goings On

I realize that I haven't made any posts about the daily shenanigans of my life. Probably because I haven't been doing much this January. I did, however, attend a super fun cocktail party at my friend Ali's house last weekend. Her house was wonderful and I'm an idiot for not getting a picture of the extremely intricate quilt she had made and hung over her fireplace. All the usual suspects were in attendance, Club Haven, Steph, Laura, etc. Here are a few shots from the party:


Thanks for having us, Ali! You're a wonderful host and have an excellently stocked bar :)

Wee Mittens

I finally got these pesky little buggers finished. After the failed attempt at making the navy and green ones I've completed these ones in navy and baby blue. They are in the 0-6 months size. I think they're some of the most adorable things I've ever made and very meticulous too. To get the stuffing just right and even for both mittens I did a lot of smooshing and pulling. I think they're pretty perfect now, check em out:




Get your pair on my Etsy store: MITTS

Grosgrain: Only the Best of Etsy Sample Packages GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

A great blog (Grosgrain) is giving away a sample package from Etsy sellers. Check out her blog to enter:
Grosgrain: Only the Best of Etsy Sample Packages GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Cable Knit Set

Apparently my friends are my best customers because Grace has purchased a cable knit set of mittens with a matching hat from my Etsy STORE. I already had the mittens listed and I made the hat to match. Here is a pic of the set all together:

Many thanks to Grace and all customers that request custom items, I love new ideas!

Star-Studded Booties

My cake diva friend, Lindsey (check out her BLOG), asked me to created some baby booties with stars on them and to make them blue and yellow. That leave a lot of design lee-way for me so I've come up with the first set here, and I hope to make one more version this weekend. Check out these booties:





I also want to thank Linds for being my first customer on my Etsy STORE!