October 16, 2018 · 5:14 pm
BOO! Two white cakes decorated simply. This was by far the easiest party cake I’ve ever made!
It’s almost time to celebrate Fred taking another turn around the sun (2 years flew by!), so I thought I’d share his adorable little birthday party from last year. We have a lot of friends with birthdays in October, so we decided to celebrate his a little late each year closer to Halloween to free up earlier weekends for other parties. I’m sure someday he’ll insist on having a non-Halloween themed party closer to the actual date of his birth, but until he has an opinion about it, we’re leaning way in! Who doesn’t love a costume party anyway?! Here’s the round-up from his last party and I’m sure I’ll be repeating a lot of it this year because it was so stinking cute! 
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Tagged as 1st birthday, animals, appetizers, birthday party, cheap, costume party, costumes, DIY, easy, family costumes, ghost cake, Halloween, halloween cake, home baker, ideas, kid friendly, lawn games, simple, toddler
October 18, 2017 · 6:10 pm
While I’m more than willing to spend a lot of time and effort decorating my house for Christmas, for some reason I just can’t get it together for Halloween even though I love a good haunted house. Usually we just throw a few pumpkins on the porch and then process them after the holiday for pies and soup, but this year I thought I’d try something a little more fun…as long as it was still easy, cheap and fast! I bought a fairly ugly gigantic spider on Amazon and then basically just made it look a little better with glue and paint. I love the ridiculous scale of it on the house! After we hung it, we realized it needed a little something more, so we grabbed some cobwebs from the drugstore and abracadabra, our house is home to pretty creepy monster spider! Continue reading →
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Tagged as altered, black widow, cheap, DIY, fast, front door, giant spider, Halloween, house decorations, house spider, idea, semi handmade, simple, spider
October 5, 2017 · 1:41 pm
A train car at Travel Town Museum!
It wasn’t difficult to pick the theme or location for G’s 4th birthday party this year because he is SOOOO into trains right now! He has to be holding some sort of toy train, train photo, train sticker or train book at all times and at the dinner table, they are allowed to sit and “watch” us eat from a short distance. He even sleeps with them the way most children would sleep with a beloved stuffed animal. It’s amazing. Continue reading →
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Tagged as activities, cheap, cheap party decorations, DIY, easy, favors, Griffith Park, how to, kid's birthday party, simple, train cake, train party, trains, Traveltown party
June 9, 2016 · 6:13 pm
To say that George loves all things kitchen related would be a ridiculous understatement. He doesn’t just like “playing” kitchen…he likes using the real stuff, carefully stirring at the stove, watching every single step and trying it out himself. He even sort of non-verbally lures new guests or friends to lift him onto the counter near the mixer so he can touch it for a while (since he knows Jeff and I won’t). Obsessed would be a better word to use.
Since George is still mostly non-verbal, we had to guess what theme would be best for his birthday and “cooking” popped into my head as a fun thing for all kids to do! Here’s how we pulled it off: Continue reading →
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Tagged as baking, boy, cooking, DIY, easy, handmade, ideas, kids, party, party favors, party planning, photography, planning, simple, theme, toddler, unisex
February 12, 2016 · 2:02 pm
I adore a simple, crunchy, lightly sweet slice and bake butter cookie. They are lovely rolled in colored sugar, chopped nuts or coconut. For a quick Valentine’s Day treat, I rolled my cookie dough log in homemade colored sugar and shaped it into a heart when it was partially chilled. Once it was completely firm, I just sliced it, revealing darling heart cookies with a red sugar edge. Super simple and a gorgeous little gift! Recipe after the jump. Continue reading →
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Tagged as baking, butter cookies, cheap, cookies, dessert, gift, Heart, Last minute Valentine, photos, quick, recipe, red, simple, slice and bake, sugar, Valentine's Day, valentines
February 8, 2016 · 12:00 pm
Maybe you were like me and thought the Ikea Ribba picture ledges would make adorable bookshelves in your child’s room or nursery…? Well, they are really cute, but two and half years later, when your child has A LOT of books, I promise that they will constantly fall off into a huge mess on the floor. Frankly, I started to go crazy picking them up all day long! I decided to modify our Ribbas with some white mesh to make book pockets that keep them from falling off the shelves. I love this project because it was really simple and can be a temporary fix that doesn’t mar the ledges! Instructions and materials after the jump. Continue reading →
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Tagged as books, bookshelves, command strips, DIY, hack, home improvement, ideas, Ikea, interior, kids, mesh, net, nursery, picture ledge, pouch, Ribba, simple, tips, velcro
January 19, 2016 · 12:00 pm
There’s just something about homemade tomato soup in the winter (yes, even in LA) that warms me to my toes. I was never a fan of the canned stuff growing up, but real tomato soup is the perfect accompaniment to almost anything. When my friend served us this family recipe one night last year, I was blown away by how perfect it was and I’ve been making it two to three times a month since that dinner! Her recipe is a little creamy, a little tangy and a little spicy. It also freezes well which has been a lifesaver during busy months. I recommend pairing it with a grilled pimento cheese sandwich or sweet corn muffins! Continue reading →
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Tagged as cheap, creamy, dinner, easy, family, food, freezer friendly, homemade, photos, recipe, simple, soup, spicy, tomato soup, winter
January 7, 2016 · 2:45 am
Longing for something simple and creamy, we ordered “rice pudding” for dessert from our favorite Mediterranean restaurant one evening. What we got was anything but simple and I immediately became obsessed. After lots of recipe research, my best guess is that it is actually called Malabi, an Israeli milk and rice flour pudding. The texture is smooth, creamy and soft. It holds its shape easily like a flan, but the rice flour and rose-water gives it a light, delicately floral flavor. The restaurant drizzled their version with a rose water syrup and sprinkles it with coconut and pistachios, but the flavors and toppings vary from recipe to recipe. Once I found my favorite version of the pudding itself, I made it a few times to perfect my version. It is extremely quick and simple to make…and our toddler adores it, so it’s a great recipe to introduce new and exotic flavors to a child who might be a little skeptical. Continue reading →
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Tagged as coconut, dessert, food, gluten free, honey, kid friendly, malabi, milk pudding, orange blossom water, recipe, rice flour, rice pudding, rose water, simple
December 23, 2015 · 12:42 pm
I can’t count how many times someone asked me where they can find a good ugly Christmas sweater this year. Um… Hello?! Get a hot glue gun and make one or better yet, make something just as tacky that’s actually original! Take for instance this crown I made for my Christmas party…equal parts delightful and hideous. I cut antler shapes out of heavy chipboard and coated them liberally in 24k gold glass glitter (and then prayed it didn’t blind me half way through the party). I hot glued them with some jingle bells, shiny balls, and plastic glitter pine needles (all from Michael’s) to sparkly gold elastic. When I put it on the first the time, there were gaps between the stuff where the elastic stretched…so I just hot glued more stuff to the other stuff to fill it in! Boom. Done. But for Pete’s sake, if you do go with a store-bought ugly sweater, don’t buy the sexy fitted one…it really defeats the point and kills the whole funny thing.
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Tagged as antlers, bells, Christmas, craft, crown, DIY, easy, funny, glitter, gold, handmade, headband, hot glue, party, pastel, reindeer, silver, simple, tacky
December 9, 2015 · 12:00 pm
I’ve never used my mom’s ceramic cookie stamps and I’ve been dying to for years. I decided to make sugar cookies for my son’s therapy school teachers and thought the stamps would be perfect for banging out a large quantity of simple but gorgeous cookies. At the last second, I thought it might be pretty to dry brush some gel food coloring over the larger designs and they turned out great! These only took about 2 hours total to make, so they are perfect for a last-minute gift or for making in large quantities. Continue reading →
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Tagged as cheap, Christmas, cookies, easy, food, gel food color, gift, large batch, painted cookies, photography, recipe, simple, stamps, sugar cookies
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