Happy New Year!!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

xoxoxo,

Julie

Merry Christmas!!

xoxoxo,

Julie

Let them eat cake!

I am counting the days til the

Marie Antoinette Workshop and Soiree !

I'm a bit of a Marie newbie, but I though I'd try to put

a little somthing together to celebrate the event.

Here's what I came up with...

Marie Button

Marie Jersey T

Marie Ringer T

These an other items are available at CupcakeDD's Goodies .

Hope ya like 'em!

xoxo,
Julie

♥ Christmas Came Early!!♥

I spent a wonderful evening with my boyfriend and
favorite cupcake, John Mayer , last night!
Adele opened for him and she was GREAT!
If you haven't heard her yet, definitely check her out!
♥ JM was amazing as usual!! ♥

It was really great to hear some of the "old stuff".
Once again, I was sad to see the night end!

And as if I needed another reason to L♥VE him, check it out...

Artist: John M. Name: "Frosty At Dusk With Pipe"
Medium: Devils food cake, icing, marshmallow, fondant, confectioners sugar

...♥he likes to bake♥ !!

Grins & Giggles!
xoxo,
Julie

scrappyjessi's cookie exchange

The beautiful scrappyjessi is hosting a cookie swap. After you check out one of my favorite cookie recipes, go over to her place and check out what ALL of the other gals are cookin' up!

Spritz Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sifted flour
Sprinkles for garnish

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a mixer with a paddle attachment, add the sugar and the butter. Mix until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and almond extracts and mix to incorporate. Sift together the baking powder and the flour. Add the flour mixture. Mix until combined. Using a cookie press, press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheets. Top with the sprinkles of your choice. Bake for 5 to 8 minutes, or until firm, but not yet browning.

Enjoy!!

xoxo,

Julie

Arizona, Shopping, Fever, Turkey & Lollishops

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

We headed to Mesa, Arizona for our holiday week, just the four of us. Matthew came down with a cold the day we left.

We had a couple of good days of relaxing, shopping and eating at our favorite restaurants (RigaTony's & Blue Adobe topping the list).

I was able to sneak away on Sunday and hit the Antique Plaza on Main Street. I was on a mission to find some vintage Christmas - didn't have much luck but I did find a few things.

By Tuesday, I was sure that I had gotten Matthew's cold!
We had decided to have Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday so we could have leftovers on Thursday before heading home on Friday. By Wednesday, I was one sick turkey! The cold turned out to be the flu! Fever and all, I made dinner with all the fixin's. Too bad I was too pooped to eat it!
Thanksgiving day, Brendan woke up with the sniffles and Dave had the chills. We pretty much spent the entire day under blankets surrounded by cold medicine and klennex!

We managed to pull ourselves together and headed home on Friday.
I never even got out of my pj's on Saturday.
I did get to work on my Lollishop though!! Woo-hoo!!
The Cupcake Cupboard is now open for business!!

I'll be hosting a give-away to celebrate our opening, so stay tuned!

xoxo,
Julie

Happy Halloween!!

I think that one of my favorite things about

Halloween was going to the store to pick out

a costume. I LOVED all of those masks peeking out

of the windows of the cardboard boxes and the

plastic smell of the costume!!

At 4, most little girls want to be a princess

or a ballerina - NOT ME!!!

A costume fitting for a "little monster"!

At least mom made sure that my hair bows

matched the costume!!

Have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!! Be safe!!

xoxoxo,
Julie

Woo-hoo!!!!

Got my tickets!!
xoxoxoxo

4 times in 19 months - not bad baby!!

Random Bits

Made some stuff, got some stuff... thought I'd share!

Skeleton Rose Half-Pint Pincushion
Wanted to make something that would appeal to you
hardcore rockstar crafters!

Vintage-inspired Paper House Ornament

This is just a prototype!

Pink Christmas!

Workin' on some Christmas ornaments using vintage
aluminum Christmas light reflectors and tinsel!

Home for the Holidays Swap
Look at all of the Christmas goodness that artbyheather

sent me!! Tons of treasures!!!

Lil' Old Me
My Dad sent me a cd of old family photos that he had scanned.
It had old, old, old photos of great-grandparents, old,
old photos of grandma as a little girl,
old photos of dad as a baby, and not so old photos of ME as a tot!
I posted more of them on flickr.

That's all for now!! Have a GREAT weekend!!!

Grins & Giggles,

Julie xoxoxo

Happy Birthday!!!!

Happy Birthday.... to you.

Happy Birthday.... to you.

Happy Birthday.... my favorite cupcake,

cutie boyfriend, John Mayer!

Happy Birthday.... to you!

Hottie Cupcake made just for you!

ENJOY!!! xoxoxoxo

Road-Trip Flashbacks

In honor of John Mayer's birthday this week, I decided to post some of my favorite pictures from our road-trip this summer. Enjoy!!

And the winner is.....

Carol at Sassafrass & Lulu!!!

Congratulations Carol!!

Thank you to everyone else for playing!

Come again, I'll be having another giveaway soon!!

Grins & Giggles,

Julie xoxoxo

Autumn Giveaway

Inspired by all of those wonderful blog-giveaways
(that I never win!),

I decided to put together one of my own!!

Here's what you'll win:

- "Style at Home" a great home decor book!
- Vintage Doll
- Pumpkin Spice "Stash" Tea
- Pumpkin Spice Candle
- HaLLowEeN CuPcAKe ALteRed ArT CoLlaGe
(by me!)

All ya gotta do is post a comment by October 12th.
If you subscribe to my blog, you'll get a second entry!
I'll pick a winner on the 13th!
Make sure you include a link to your blog
or your email address so I can notify you if you win!

Thanks for stoppin' by!!!

Julie xoxo

PS. Creative Flutter is havin' a giveaway too!!

Half-Pint

So, I've been workin' on a few things for my Lollishop.
I've made these pincushions using half-pint jars.

Inside the jar, I stuffed in a sewing kit and extra buttons.
I'm kinda addicted to 'em now! Hope y'all like 'em
(and buy 'em) or my house will end up being FULL of 'em!!

Holiday Swap

Only a few more days left to sign up for this one...


Come and join the fun!!

Checkin' In!

I thought maybe it's time I check in and update my blog.
I know it's been a while and thank you to the handful of you who do actually read my blog.

Here it is in a nutshell:

I went on my road trip with my pal Ellyn and we took along my favorite cupcake, John Mayer.

Anytime anyone would ask about John,

we'd take thier picture with him.

All but two of the pictures actually came out!

Then I got home and started crafting again
(mostly Halloween stuff).

Then school FINALLY started!
Brendan is in Fourth Grade now and
Matthew is a big-shot Junior Higher in 7th grade!

Now, I'm back to crafting again.
Hopefully, I can come up with some good stuff for my Lollishops shop.
I'll let ya know!

Thanks for stoppin' by!!
Julie xoxo

Put On Your Party Hat!

Hey Gals! Still siftin' through all of my roadtrip pictures. Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish up all of the swaps I have due next week AND get a few things done for my Etsy shop.

Here's my latest creation:

The Queen of Halloween Cupcake

I'm also hosting ANOTHER swap.

Put On Your Party Hat Swap

Sign-up deadline: August 30th
Send deadline: September 30th
Use your vintage ephemera to make a party hat for your partner.
Then include more VE so they can keep the party going!
Once the swap is over, we can have a flickr party and post pictures of ourselves wearing our hats!

Come on over and join the fun!!!

I'm Home!!

I'm back from my roadtrip and boy am I tired!! We saw lots of corn fields and sunflower fields, averaged 10 -11 hours a day in the car and hit 10 states in 5 days (some more than once!)! I'll post pictures and stories soon. We also had a special guest join us for the trip (hint: my favorite cupcake). More to come....

Four Corners

Check it out!! My big butt can touch four states at one time!!
Time to start that diet!! :)

On The Road Again!

On Tuesday, I'm flyin' to Chicago to meet my bestest friend Ellyn for a roadtrip. She's movin back to California, so we decided to make it a bit of a Thelma & Louise trip.

Here's where we're headed:


View Larger Map

We won't have much time for "shopping" since we're making the trip in 5 days, but if anyone knows of any good spots or roadside attractions along our route, PLEASE let me know!

My Night with JM!

Well, my favorite cupcake did NOT disappoint!
Even with his new buzz haircut,
he still delivered on an amazing two hour concert!
I was sad to see it end!!

He even sang a new song that he had previewed
a little snip of a few months ago!
It was awesome to hear it in it's entirety! Take a listen!

Countdown!

I'm counting down the hours to my date with John Mayer!

It's been over 7 months since I last saw him

(he was minus that Aniston chick then)!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a GREAT evening with

good friends and my favorite cupcake, JM!

Circus Dayz

Sheeze! I feel like I'n not getting ANYTHING done this summer!!
If I didn't have swap deadlines, I probably wouldn't finish anything!
Here are some ATC's I did for a swap called "Under the Big Top":

On to other things!
A total sweetie pie, Nancy , gave me this Brillante Weblog award! Thanks Nancy!!!


Now, I can really only think of one blog to pass this award on to (everyone else has already gotten one!). And the winner is....

Heather aka Merry Moon !

Here's some rules:

- Put the logo on your blog
- Add a link to the person who awarded you
- Nominate at least 1 other blog
- Add links to the blog(s) on yours
- Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

Enjoy, Heather!! You deserve it!!!!!