Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies w/ Strawberries

I experimented with adding fresh strawberries to my favorite super-duper, easy chocolate peanut butter cookie recipe.

The strawberries were too wet, which made it difficult to mix them into the dough (probably why people don't typically use fresh fruit in their cookies!), but they were delicious nonetheless!

I tried to get artsy with some food photography shots and then ate a bunch of the subjects.

Life's a Beach Cake

Cake's such a fun medium - there's always the challenge of how to use decorations that are all edible, and what other forms of art are even half as delicious to eat?





The original idea of using jello inside the cake as water was from Kraft's
JELL-O "Dive-on-In" Cake.

For the beach theme, I used canned frosting instead of Cool Whip and graham cracker crumbs for the sand. (The canned frosting was denser to adhere the crumbs to the cake. The crumbs were from crushed Teddy Grahams, who sadly, did not make it to the beach.)

Chewy fruit rings were used as inner tubes, and I cut some up for lounge chairs and beach balls.

Life's a beach - live it up!

Snoopy Valentine's Cake

What do you give someone who loves Snoopy and chocolate cake?

Chocolate fudge cake and homemade strawberry whipped cream frosting with a big Snoopy holding a heart (look under his arm). Frosting recipe below.





The cake was from a mix, so nothing impressive there, but the frosting was delicious and I would absolutely make it again. Usually, I pick out all the buttercream frosting, but the whipped cream frosting was finger-lickin' good and so simple!

Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting

1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated white sugar
1/2 cup (120 ml) lightly sweetened strawberry puree (I used preserves)

In a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, vanilla extract, and sugar and stir to combine. Cover and chill the bowl and wire whisk in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

When chilled, beat the mixture until soft peaks form. Then add the sweetened strawberry puree a little at a time, and beat just until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Taste and fold in more sugar or puree, if required.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/WhippedCreamFrosting.html

Big Sister, Little Sister Shirts

My friend and her husband who have a 3-year old daughter, adopted a 1-year old girl from China. As a gift to celebrate this momentous occasion, I embroidered two matching shirts with Jie Jie (Big Sister) and Mei Mei (Little Sister) in Chinese characters.

One of the two adorable matching pink shirts I was able to find in the right sizes at Target.

Pink holographic thread for a sparkly effect from Joann's.

Stencil for "Mei" (Little Sister)

Stencil for "Jie" (Big Sister)

Placed "Mei" stencil over shirt and filled in

"Mei" stenciled in

Ditto for "Jie"

"Jie" stenciled in

Outline character and start filling in

Finished "Jie" character

Finished "Mei" character

Completed "Jie" shirt

Completed "Mei" shirt

What the Crap!?! Fine Jello Floral Creations

Looking for a one-of-a-kind gift for that special lady in your life?

Here at What the Crap!?! Fine Jello Floral Creations, we specialize in unique, custom flower arrangements suspended in Jello that are sure to bring a smile to her face.

What woman could resist a beautiful bouquet that jiggles when it wiggles?

So the next time you want to send her a thoughtful and memorable gift, show her you care with a What the Crap!?! Creation.

Hand-Assembled Photo Albums

Have I mentioned I love photo books? I really do. =)

I have a special spot for hand assembling photo albums. Kolo makes beautiful paper, cloth, and leather albums and they are my absolute favorites.

With the photos I took at one of my dearest friends' wedding, I created two books, one for the bride and groom and one for the bride's parents.

(The final products were photographed on my versatile backdrop.)

The wedding ceremony had taken place in front of a red wall, which made for a striking background in the photos.

I loved the contrast of the bright red on the black pages and how the cream pages matched the bride's wedding dress.

I found the perfect black brocade fabric with red embroidery that matched both album covers and sewed drawstring bags to carry and store the books.

Two Photos for One Picture

Right after the sun set on New Year's Eve, I glanced out the window and spotted a single bird perched at the top of a tree with a sliver of moon in the background.

Because darkness had already set in, I needed the fastest shutter speed possible, which meant that my aperture (which controls the amount of light allowed through the shutter) had to be as large as possible (meaning the smallest possible Av number - it's inverse).

As mentioned in the blurry background post, a low Av number is used to achieve a blurry background effect. The further away the background is from the subject, the blurrier it will be. In this case, the moon was quite a distance behind the bird and therefore quite blurry.



Since I actually wanted the moon to be in focus in my final image, I took a second shot, this time focusing on the moon, ignoring the fact that the bird and tree would come out blurry.



Armed with my two separate images and Photoshop, I copied the in-focus moon from the second shot and pasted it on top of the blurry moon in my first shot with the in-focus bird. I adjusted the levels and changed the hue of the image to a lovely evening blue. The image is named "Awaiting the New Year".