Friends!! I’ve been waiting for this week for the past six months! EAT MORE DESSERT will be in stores Tuesday! I’m so excited. If your book doesn’t arrive in your mailbox Tuesday, you can head straight to Barnes and Noble or your local bookstore to pick up a copy! Trust me, you’re going to want this book. I can’t stop smiling at it sitting on my kitchen counter. The gorgeous gold foiled font on the cover just shimmers back at me with love. Swoon.
Our fabulous EAT MORE DESSERT blog tour continues this week with some of my favorite bloggers!
Monday we’ll hear from my friend Tori on EdiTORIal! So excited for what T has to say about EAT MORE DESSERT. A friend that shares my love of a good party, and fantastic dessert tables!
Tuesday head over to Craft that Party for fun with my sweet and talented friend Jenny Dixon! Jenny makes the darling wooden peg dolls you often see on my cakes.
On Thursday Stacy of She’s Kinda Crafty will be blogging about EAT MORE DESSERT. If you have time, check out her recent post on chic and cheap Easter baskets. Dying over the personalized bunny crayon box!
And Friday we’ll kick up our heels with Kim at The Celebration Shoppe. While you’re there, check out Kim’s party shop. It’s filled with fantastic party printables for just about any theme imaginable!
Stay tuned for next week’s exciting blogger lineup and even more giveaways!
I’m super excited to announce that the online book tour for my new book EAT MORE DESSERT is starting today! Fun giveaways, reviews & interviews are going to be up on some of my favorite blogs and websites through the month of April!
The tour starts off today with the fabulous blog, Pizzazzerie!
Monday we’ll be hopping on over to visit the wonderful site, Hank and Hunt!
Tuesday, the lovely ladies at Anders Ruff have something in store for us!
And Friday we’ll be having fun at Not Just a Mommy!
Be sure and check out each stop/blog along the way to see what we have in store for you! I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on all week on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter too! Can’t wait!
EAT MORE DESSERT will be hitting shelves before we know it…. April 8th. You can pre-order the book on Amazon HERE.
The Bachelor’s Jason and Molly Mesnick celebrated their daughter Riley’s 1st Birthday last weekend with a mint green, black and white themed soiree! It’s hard to believe sweet Riley is already a year old. It seems like yesterday I was baking up a storm for Molly’s baby shower!
To coordinate Molly’s color scheme into the dessert table, I created an ICE CREAM SHOP themed table for little Riley, complete with a black and white striped fabric awning with a giant 3-scoop ice cream cone cake! I baked cupcakes topped with “scoops” of buttercream, ice cream cone cake pops, sugar cookies shaped as ice cream sundaes, brownies as ice cream sandwiches and waffle cup hot fudge sundaes with melted chocolate! Minted created an adorable personalized banner for the table and cupcake flags that were perfect for the wooden spoons in the hot fudge sundaes. Cookies and cupcakes sat atop my favorite jadite colored cake plates and vintage wooden drawers and boxes held ice cream cone cake pops and rice krispy treat ice cream bars. It turned out super cute!
Sweet Riley was a perfectly mannered lady when Molly presented her with a pink velvet smash cake made up of mint green buttercream ruffles. She politely tasted a lick of buttercream, but moved on to turkey, her favorite snack and word.
The party was a blast. Molly’s friends and family couldn’t be sweeter. Bride-to-be Desiree Hartsock and fiance Chris Siegfield came to wish Riley a Happy Birthday and pose in the cute photo-booth area Molly created. It was great to meet them in person and wish them congrats on their engagement. So excited for their upcoming wedding!
If you’d like to create an Ice Cream Shop dessert table of your own, guess what? All the recipes and table instructions for the Ice Cream Shop table are featured in my new book EAT MORE DESSERT out April 8th! Pre-order your copy now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble today!
Gorgeous photography by Kelly Bowie of KCB Photography
It’s that time of year! Time for school Valentine’s Day parties!
Hudson chose robots, and Ally picked out a milk and cookies valentine from Minted. Minted has the cutest classroom valentine cards, it was hard for Ally and H to choose!
I added a little something extra to their cards, coordinating sugar cookies packaged up in cello bags and tied with ribbon. My kids were so excited to pass them out!
I’m so proud to announce the publication of my first cookbook!
EAT MORE DESSERT is overflowing with simple-to-make and fun-to-eat treats for any celebration, big or small. With themes ranging from baby showers, weddings, holidays and birthday parties, you’ll find ideas and recipes to celebrate any and every occasion. I’ve shared my core group of desserts including my famous sugar cookies to the secret inside my ever-so-moist cupcakes. In addition to over 100 dessert recipes, the book is filled with tips and tricks for creating the perfect dessert table, from choosing a fantastic theme to styling your sweets.
EAT MORE DESSERT is published by Page Street Publishing and distributed by Macmillan (one of the 4 biggest publishers in the world!).
PRE ORDER THE BOOK at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Indie Bound, and wherever books are sold.
PRE-ORDER THE BOOK:
Buy my book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Indie Bound, and wherever books are sold.
My daughter Ally decided she’d like to have a kitten themed party to celebrate her 8th birthday. Honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of her idea. I rattled off at least ten other themes, but since it was her birthday, we went with kittens.
Not really knowing where to start, I searched eBay for a little inspiration. I found an adorable scrap of vintage kitten fabric, and some old kitten art. I added them to my cart (gotta love Buy it Now) and showed Ally. She loved it. We had a start. She asked if we could have turquoise (her new favorite color) and pink for her colors. Done. I picked up some inexpensive frames at Michaels and spray painted them pink, turquoise, and red, to frame the kitten art. I also may have sacrificed (aka spray painted) a few of my vintage cake plates to coordinate the dessert table.
Our farm has a cool detached garage with the most amazing loft above. I knew when we bought the 1937 property, the old loft would be put to good use. It was the perfect place to host her kitten party. Unfortunately that meant hauling most of my party furniture and props out, but it was worth it. With just bare barn wood walls and floor, it was a blank canvas, and in my opinion, the best place to start. I strung globe lights and fabric buntings across the entire ceiling. I made more yarn balls than I’d ever seen in my life and tucked them into every nook and cranny of the loft. I found a couple inexpensive rugs online and rolled them out across the wood floor. They weren’t a perfect match, but they warmed up the room and pulled the space together.
For the dessert table, I hung my re-vamped kitten art on a backdrop made of barn wood. Color coordinated cake plates held yarn ball cake pops, kitty shaped sugar cookies, mini pies, colorful cakes, and personalized sugar cookies that matched Ally’s invitation. I scored a vintage porcelain kitten on etsy.com that ironically was dated JANUARY, and made a perfect cake topper. The party was shaping up to be a pretty cute theme.
The morning of the party arrived and I could literally see my breath while setting out the desserts. I panicked. We couldn’t have guests over to freeze. My husband called every store he could think of to find a commercial space heater but of course everyone was sold out. So, what does he come home with? A gigantic propane heater that had flames coming out. Seriously. For a children’s party. And he placed it dead center in the middle of the loft. I bit my tongue and thanked him for finding me heat, and said a quick prayer that no one’s coat would catch on fire.
Ally was thrilled to invite her little friends from school over. The girls giggled as they decorated kitty cat sugar cookies, played with kittens, and crafted super kitty capes from Kiwi Crate. My friend Joanne from OH GOODIE DESIGNS made the most adorable personalized party hats, horns, and kitty confetti for the girls. And Jesus heard my prayer because no one caught on fire.
Photos by Molly Vaden Photography
Mason jar drinking glasses w/lids, fairy lights in mason jars by Lights for All Occasions
December 2013 marked our third annual Santa’s Secret Workshop event, put on by my friends Scout Masterson and Bill Horn of Marque Communications. Each December, the celebrity event benefits L.A. Family Housing, whose mission is to help families transition out of homelessness and poverty through a continuum of housing enriched with supportive services. Celebs gathered to kick off the holiday season with Santa Claus photos, crafting, and Jenny Cookies cookie decorating!
Celebrity guests in attendance included Tori Spelling, Busy Philipps, Sarah Michelle Gellar, DeAnna Pappas Denise Richards, Malin Akerman, Tiffani Thiessen, Sasha Alexander, Melissa Joan Hart, Phaedra Parks and many more.
We chose a glittered gold theme for our dessert table, complete with gold cookies, cake pops, cake, and cupcakes! In addition to all the treats guests enjoyed at the event, we sent them home with even more sweets, glittered cupcake favors.
