I was pretty proud of myself with today’s updates for you. I added some really amazing Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies to the Domestic section, then wee little Post It Packages from scrapbooking paper (which are really, really cute, I have to say) in the Crafty section and I even managed to get my Deceptively Delicious Banana Bread post up in the Healthy section – all long before my self inflicted deadline. Then I got to the Pretty section, and there are a couple of hair tutorials I was going to post, but I’m not too happy with the photographs so I decided to do a Window Shopping post on Apothica instead. Oh boy. I got sucked in. I adore makeup and shiny things and girly colors (and even matte things and dark colors) and before I knew it, I was almost late to post this!! Ack! Way to be distracted by shiny things, May.

Moving on.

	These cookies are a lot easier to pull together than they seem but so so so much yummier than photos can possibly get across to you. Imagine. It’s a chocolate chip cookie, which is already pretty great and then BAM, you’re hit with a mouthful of caramel. Right?!
	This is the post that assisted in making me late today. Apothica is now accepting PayPal and for me, that’s cause to celebrate! Lipglosses that are so shiny they rival MAC’s Lipglass and shimmering face powders so pretty they’re right up there with Too Faced’s Candlelight Powder. Color me in love.
	This banana bread tastes just like banana bread! So what? So it’s made with pureed cauliflower! Hello serious vitamin boost with no questions asked!
	This was an end of school year gift for the hard working secretary at my kids’ school. All elementary school secretaries work hard, I have on doubt, but they so often are overlooked when all the teachers get well wishes and mugs!

I would love to get some photos up of my new kitchen, but every time I think to do it there is something more pressing that needs to be done. The whole fridge to sink to oven kitchen work triangle is great in this house – for sure the best and easiest I’ve ever had. My husband has serious issues with clutter so I try to hide most of my kitchen power tools and this kitchen has decently deep cabinets so my blender, food processor, bullet, slow cooker, etc are all tucked away. At first I thought it would be a pain to pull stuff out when I wanted to use it, but as long as all the cabinets are kept tidy (so far, so good) I just grab the gadget I need when I need it. It also frees up space for rolling out dough or cooling things on racks. I’ll put it on my to do to get pictures of the kitchen today so I can have them up tomorrow.

I promised Wee One #2 that today would be a crafty day. At the end of the school year, her report card was as perfect as a report card can be without your child being an alien. So we told her she could choose her ‘passing gift’ (who came up with that phenomenon anyway?!) and she chose a book on learning sewing crafts, Made By Me (See all Children's Crafts & Hobbies Books), a sewing basket with the essentials and fabric. She picked out some from Fabric Closet and tulle in 3 different colors from Fabricland. Her favorite thing so far has been embroidering and today she wants to attack a tshirt for the first time, so far we’ve stuck to plain squares of fabric to practice on. Wish us luck with this little project!

I’m baaaaack!!!

I know I said I’d be back in a week four months ago and as you can see there as been a whole overhaul around here, the blog has expanded to better sort and organize all the content and the really exciting news is in the middle of all of this – we bought a house!! There are a lot of reasons we love the house we bought but for now I’ll give you a sneak peak of our favourite parts – the backyard and of course the kitchen. There’s no way we could buy a house without a serious kitchen.

There will be more pictures as we move in and get settled – which isn’t happening until August anyway. The backyard is huge and has an area already set aside for gardening, and as you may have suspected, will be growing once I get my hands on it. The other thing I adore so much about this house is that it has a pantry – an absolute necessity in my dream kitchen.


The changes to this site have been long in the making and I am so happy to finally be finished and able to show it all off. I’m still going to be posting my weeklies – I love doing them! Just now I’ll be linking to the pages instead of putting the recipe or instructions directly in the blog post – this way I can include more than one if I want to.

Tomorrow, we’ll get back to business as usual, with a few little changes. The weekly line up looks like this now:

Mondays – Menu Mondays from Kate Says Stuff

Tuesdays – Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Tuesday Night Supper Club and Hearth ‘n Soul

Work in Progress Wednesdays – from Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl

Baking with Kids Thursdays – documenting the kids’ cooking and baking through Baking with Kids

Cookie Fridays – perhaps the best day of the week, check out the gallery

Super Cute Saturdays – if I have time for this, so do you!

Catchall Sundays – rando day, for things that don’t fit anywhere else

I have still been doing my self-inflicted challenges, so I’ll be posting them as often as I can to catch up. Right now, I have a lot of fun stuff to share with you!

As far as my domestic endevours go, I feel head over heels for Bakerella’s Cupshakes, which essentially is a milkshake crossed with a cupcake. I also made step by step instructions for eclairs, and chocolate fudge. As part of the Baking With Kids challenge, where the kids are baking and cooking their way through Linda Collister’s cookbook, I made a batch of puff pastry for them to use in the giant cheese straws recipe. I also added the 4th cookie of the year, the playfully pink cowgirl cookies to the gallery.

I have gotten my crafty groove back, though so far I’ve only posted about my stack of facecloths. Ahem. I did add two window shopping posts though, one on Charlene’s Supply Closet and one on The Loopy Ewe, two shops I am moderately to severely obsessed with. I’ve also added two interviews (Krissy of Krissyanne Designs and Megan of Radmegan) plus a book review of yet another new obsession – Martha Stewart’s Craft Encyclopedia. I’ve been busy!

There have been some health-concious related kitchen changes around here as well. I may as well just say it now without outing anyone, but two dear friends of mine have gone vegan. Which means two things really. First of course it means I now know way more than I ever wanted to know about being vegan and what rules there are and what different types of vegans there are which then also means I also know a whole lot about all kinds of scary stuff that even my vegan friends are not interested in. What’s that? SUGAR. Wowzers. White sugar is way worse than I thought and people let me tell you, I love me some sweet treats so what to do? I’ve been testing recipes using other kinds of natural sweeteners (because as bad as white sugar is fake sugar is even worse), and they’re working out pretty well. I mention this because while I am still cooking and baking my way through Deceptively Delicious, and while I am aware that adding veggies to pretty much anything is never a bad thing, I hesitate to call these recipes healthy knowing all that I know now. I am going to keep them in the ‘healthy’ category anyway because they are miles healthier than what used to come out of my kitchen. The second thing that happens when good friends go vegan is that I have to learn to cook and bake for them! I can’t have them coming up for the weekend to eat pasta and lettuce, can I?! I have been learning so much – expect some uber healthy additions to the healthy section in the coming weeks.

In the meantime though, here’s what I have added to that section to start with – Deceptively Delicious Stew (which adds pureed borccoli to a yummy stew), Dr Oz’s Green Smoothie (this is crazy healthy), Deceptively Delicious Mac & Cheese (with cauliflower puree and two kinds of cheese), Deceptively Delicious Applesauce Muffins (with applesauce duh and carrot puree), Deceptively Delicious Brownies (with pureed carrots and spinach), and an old school homemade Garlic, Honey & Lemon Cough Syrup recipe. Very old school, my Granny would be proud.

Aaaaad just like I said I would, I dove right into making a ‘pretty’ section. I’ve become more of a girly girl than ever in the last year so it’s been fun to write about it! I added two window shopping pieces, Body Shop and Mod Cloth, plus a 101 on Lotions, my Make Up Bag Must Haves and my first hair tutorial ever – my Puffy Bun, which literally takes 5 minutes – no more than 10 even with all three wee ones running underfoot at once.

Phew. I hope my little hanful of loyal readers are happy with the changes. Let me know what you think guys!!

It’s Window Shopping Wednesday again! I love writing these posts because essentially, it’s just a really detailed version of my wish list! Because I link directly to the items I’m talking about, you’ll often find them sold out when you click on them. All of these shops are full of fun, so you’ll find other amazing gear, also sometimes shops will re-list what’s already sold so poke around.

Today’s collection of found gear is all stuff I’d *love* to have for Easter, though it’s pretty obvious even to me that I can’t possibly use it all. 😛

I came across Cupcake Social a few months ago when looking for snazzy cupcake liners. I found these really sweet mini tulip ones and thought of Easter right away. Doesn’t even matter how you decorate the cupcake with liners like these! Of course the cupcake toppers, both of the plastic and royal icing varieties are must haves and these ones are all so cute. I love the vintage feel of the plastic ones, and the other ones really help pull together a finished cupcake treat! And seriously, how pretty is the blue sanding sugar against the pink frosting in that last pic from this shop? Very, would be the correct answer.

The Easter selection over at Hey Yo Yo is a wonderfully retro, blindingly neon assortment of all the weird Easter stuff my Grandmother had when I was little. I vividly remember that bunny head cake topper (or one amazingly close to it) and the sugar buttons. She had tiny little sugar treasures like that in all sort of shapes and sizes. These ones are the brightest I’ve ever seen and for sure I’ll be ordering some for my kids this year. My Grandmother is going to love seeing them. The toppers are sweet and ideal for the kids Easter party at home (so I can keep them and use them again!), and those carnival ducks may end up on the windowsill in my kitchen permanently. They are darling. I just said darling. Apparently, I’m even more stuck in the 50s than I thought. 😉

I also need to note now that because this is an Easter Window Shopping post, I’m not going to go on and on about all the other amazing gear in this shop. Hello vending machine capsules, kissing dolls, and paper straws!

I have been a little ok totally obsessed with Bake it Pretty since I found it sometime last year. The four items here are a great example of why I love them so (not to mention all their wonderful packaging supplies)! These cookie cutters are perfect for sugar cookies for wee one #2’s kindergarten class! Either decorated with seriously detailed icing or just sanding sugar. I’m thinking white and pink for the bunny (gotta have the pink ears of course) and bright yellow for the chick. Gah! So cute!

The kits are such a great idea. The ‘Happy Easter Treats Kit’ has wee gift tags and themed twine. The ‘Easter Fun Kit’ has two different kinds of cupcake liners (24 total) and two different toppers (24 total). This is fantastic if life hits you with too many things at once but you still want to make something sweet!

Muffin Top Bake Shop, the name is enough to fall in love with it, right? These little hopping bunnies are almost retro, and if you use them at home they’re totally reusable! I love how small they are and their wee ears. The edible glitter is always a good idea and this shop has nine colours – including black!

We’ll see in the next month or so how much of this I end up ordering and using. I am excited to try out some of this gear with some recipes I’ve wanted to try for a while as well.

I have a serious love for all things 50s – the wacky kitchen appliances, the slang and of course – the clothes! Don’t worry, this isn’t a fashion post – I’m doing a 50s themed Window Shopping Wednesday today! There are so many fun 50s themed shops online to get lost in! Today, I’m going to gush about; Kooties Closet, Sugar Pie Chic, Lady Jane Designs, Bumbershoot Supplies, and Our Retro Toybox.

Kooties Corner, some seriously sweet stuff. Store sections include; gift tags, address labels, retro graphic jewelry, pocket mirrors and other vintage goodies! Four things that immediately had me drooling; vintage car gift tags, 50s graphic pin, address labels, and my personal favorite – the mini atomic notebook! So rad!

Sugar Pie Chic is home to some very, very cool vintage inspired aprons and also some pretty embroidered pen and ink birds. I’m a sucker for cute dish cloths, and these aprons are delicious!

It’s not just cute retro kitchen gear that gets me excited! This tote bag and the best hair bow of all time, from Lady Jane Designs make me pretty happy too! Just look at the bow – look at it!! I am in love.

Then there’s the gear needed to make fun retro creations! This is often my favorite kinds of shopping! First up, four goodies from Bumbershoot Supplies!

Here is another Etsy shop that totally blew me over recently, Our Retro Toybox has way too much fun finds to list them all here. I could write an entire post about this place. This flour canister is at the top of my Christmas list and I *really* hope my husband machine buys it for me. Endlessly happy with this on my counter. 😀

This shop has a lot of nice vintage kitchen gear, but it also has sweet toys you may remember playing with as a child (hello original Sesame Street!), old book and more! Here, the best orange juice pitcher I’ve ever seen and a hilariously girly dictionary!

Aside from the amazing aprons and fun craft supplies, there are some other crafters out there who have made some pretty cute gear! Here are some of my favorite finds from last night while looking through aprons and patterns.