Entertaining & nesting
with do-it-yourself details.

Cruising in the Weekend Rally
Oct 13 / Life /

Thanks to the power of scheduled posts, right now I should be on a cruise to the Bahamas, ready to watch my friends get married on the beach. But I still wanted to wrap-up my short work week with a look at the best stuff on the web.

Stuff I did when I wasn’t here:

Yeah, I write about my iPhone a lot.

And now for some of my favorite stuff on the web:

Best of Food: Baked Apple Doughnuts

Apples and caramel, with no deep fryer involved. What more can a girl ask for?

 

Best of Parties: Lawn Games

What a perfect way to enjoy the fall!

 

Best of DIY: IKEA POANG Chair Recover

I love when people take overdone IKEA furniture and make it unique.

 

Best of Style: Neon Accent Wall

I love this unexpected pop of color in an otherwise calm and breezy home.

 

Best of Travel: Brew with a View; Murren, Switzerland

I think having a frosty beer at a table overlooking the Swiss Alps would be the highlight of my life.

(Top image: Daniele Muscetta/Flickr)

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Candy Corn Mini Layer Cakes
Oct 11 / Food / / /

Layer cakes are just more festive. Period. I mean, I love cupcakes as much as the next girl, but I’m always impressed when a layer cake shows up to the party. That means business. That cake is barging in and saying, “That’s right, people. This casual shindig just got upgraded to level: fancy.”

Luckily, you don’t have to make a full layer cake to get the same experience. The only thing that says “fun” more than a layer cake is a tray full of tiny food. So what happens when we combine the two? Magic.

I made these here mini layer cakes in the spirit of my favorite Halloween staple: Candy Corn. Three colors. Three layers. All delicious.

Here’s how it goes: After you’ve made your batter, split it into three equal amounts, then dye one batch bright yellow, one batch orange and leave the last batch alone.

Pour the batters each into their own 8″ cake round, then bake as directed. Once the cakes are done and cool, use a round cookie cutter to cut small circles out of each large cake. You should be able to get 4 or 5 circles from each cake round. (You have my permission to eat the extras.)

Once you have all your cake rounds together, it’s time to stack. Frost the top of a yellow cake circle (use whatever frosting you’d like!), then gently stack an orange layer on top. Then, frost the top of the orange one and lay the white layer on top. Pipe a swirl of frosting on top and add a few candy corns for extra flair. Voila!

If you have leftover discs, or if you’re late to the party and it’s after Halloween, you can totally stack these in an orange-yellow-white order and call it “ombre.” I won’t tell.

You could use any light-colored cake, but here’s the recipe for my favorite white cake to get you started:

(more…)

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Spider Mason Jar Votives
Oct 10 / DIY / Parties / /

I love re-purposing things, especially when it comes to holidays. Your holiday decor has a short shelf life, so you might as well use it in every way you can. Here’s a great example of re-purposing from my own Halloween tablescape.

Last year, I was given some spider cupcake holders from Crate & Barrel. They’re insanely cute cupcake holders and made it into a dessert buffet I put together last Halloween, but I wanted to be able to use them even more.

After baking my fair share of mason jar cupcakes, I realized that 4-ounce mason jars are about the same size and shape of standard cupcakes. They fit perfectly inside these spider cupcake holders, and with a tea light dropped inside, make for some creepy crawly votives to decorate a Halloween table.

Unfortunately, Crate & Barrel doesn’t carry these cupcake holders anymore, but I found the exact same set of Black Metal Spider Cupcake Holders on Amazon ($9.99 for a set of 4).

Of course, you can expand this mason jar + cupcake holder idea to any cupcake holder for any occasion. I think it would be great and just a little bit Southern (you know I love that!), to arrange mason jars with tea lights onto a large cupcake display or tower. The sky’s the limit!

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Glittered Pumpkin Place Cards
Oct 8 / DIY / Parties / / / /

I love painting pumpkins and have developed a recent addition to glitter paint. You had to know where this was going. Armed with a paintbrush and a bottle of Martha Stewart Craft Glitter paint in Sterling, I went to town on a few small, white gourds from the local farmer’s market.

Using the “Dipped” Diagonal technique I showcased in this Painted Pumpkins post, I wrapped the pumpkins each once around with blue painter’s tape, then coated the bottom of each pumpkin with paint. The first two layers were coated with metallic silver acrylic paint to provide a solid base for the glitter, then I slathered on a few more coats of Martha’s paint. The result is a half-disco-ball-half-pumpkin that looks right at home on a glam-o-ween table.

You can stop there and use your fabulous pumpkins on your mantle or centerpiece, if you’d like, but I had plans to turn these glittered mini-pumpkins into Halloween dinner place cards. All you need to turn mini-pumpkins into place cards is a craft knife or box cutter.

Use the box cutter to make a small, thin cut down the top of the pumpkin’s stem. Then, slide a place card or small menu into the slit so it stays in place. Easy, right? And so great and glittery.

I do have a word of warning, though: As the great comedian Demitri Martin warns: “Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.” If it gets anywhere, it’s gonna stay there forever. To protect your plates and guard your guests from ingesting glitter with their dinner, use small drink coasters as a base for your painted pumpkins. I used these inexpensive PANNA coasters from IKEA, which are $1.99 for a pack of six and come in five different colors.

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Getting Glittery in the Weekend Rally
Oct 6 / Life /

I feel like an angler fish every time I walk by the Martha Stewart paint aisle at Michaels. I don’t know about you, but at my local store, there’s a little row of half-spheres fastened to the wall, each painted with a different finish of Martha’s craft paint. One of them is painted with glitter paint in “Antique Silver” and I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s just so… glittery. I’m telling you. Angler fish.

I finally dove in and bought some of the paint recently (for a Halloween project I’m going to post next week) and I love it. LOVE. IT. I want to paint everything in the house in silver glitter. Bacon the dog is not amused.

Stuff I did when I wasn’t here:

And now for some of my favorite stuff on the web:

Best of Food: Caramel Apple Grilled Cheese

I think the combination of Apples and Brie cheese is what makes me crave this salty-sweet-snacky sandwich.

 

Best of Parties: Hot Chocolate Party

I can’t think of anything that says “welcome” better than a spread like this.

 

Best of DIY: Chalkboard Notebook

Chalkboard Paint + Cheap Composition Book = Adorable Note-Taking

 

Best of Style: Neutral Nails with Glitter

It’s already got me thinking about New Year’s Eve!

 

Best of Travel: Colorful Copenhagen

So jealous of the obnoxiously pink hotel room Amanda (of Kevin & Amanda) crashed in in Copenhagen.

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Featured on… Bon Appétit
Oct 5 / Food / Life /

I’m so excited and tremendously honored to have been featured on Bon Appétit’s wesbite! A little while ago, I was contacted by somebody on the iconic magazine’s editorial staff asking to feature my recipe for Chicken and Waffles Cupcakes in a roundup of inventive waffle recipes.

If you have a second, check it out right here. (I promise the Cheddar Waffle BLT, Chocolate Cheesecake Waffle Pie and S’Mores Waffle Sandwich will make it well worth your while.)

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Design Jeanie

About Me

Hello, I'm Taryn. I'm a funny southern girl with big hair and great ideas. I'm also a devoted girlfriend, baker, crafter, regular at the post office, and mom to a furbaby named Bacon. {READ MORE}

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