Cupcakes + scrapbooking = heaven!

If you're a reader of both my blogs (LaVonne, this is directed at you! :-) ), you might battle with your self-discipline when you see the photos of cupcakes I regularly post on Extreme Cupcaker. And you might, if you have the time, come over to Mandy Scraps for some fat-free, calorie-free relief. Unfortuantely, LaVonne, there's no escape anymore. The cupcake crawl scrapbook is in progress. (Insert evil laugh here)

I know, I know. I'm awful! :-)

After completing several small projects during my staycation last week, I finally decided to start the crawl book. I'm going in chronological order, starting with the first bakery we went to that sweet morning, Crumbs Bake Shop. I ended up with three double-page layouts for Crumbs because I had a lot of pictures from that one, and I had a hard time eliminating. On the first two pages, I coordinated colors to the color scheme of the shop itself -- pale yellow and pale blue. I love scrapping bakeries because they're so whimsical and colorful.

The assortment of cupcakes at Crumbs was photogenic, to say the least. There were so many I wanted to try but couldn't, and that's what these pages were dedicated to -- the ones that got away. :-) It's hard to see from this shot, but some of the featured cupcakes are the grasshopper, cookie dough and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

The final spread for Crumbs is a pocket page to hold the copy of the menu I picked up and wanted to keep as a souvenir of the store's offerings. I added photos of the cupcakes we actually tried -- the ones that made it into the piece I wrote for the SJ-R. The picture on the right side -- taken in mouthwatering detail by Sara, who is a photographic genius -- is the cookies and cream cupcake we split. The much smaller picture on the left page is the other one we tried -- the milkshake. Sara favored that one, while I was partial to the cookies and cream. (It worked out for the best because we knew who would claim the leftovers -- we needed to save room, after all, so we each took just a few bites from both cupcakes.) The frosting, to me, was the best part of the cookies and cream. It was a scrumptious, generous slather of buttercream. The milkshake was a marble cake with "marble" frosting, meaning a mix of chocolate and vanilla. It was good, but it didn't speak to my tastebuds in quite the same way as the cookies and cream.

I like using the pocket pages. They come in different sizes, patterns and colors, and I can see myself using them quite a bit. Sara was the one who gave me the idea to try a homemade pocket in my 2008 New York album, and it worked out fine, but I still like having the pre-designed pockets.

I'm having so much fun with this album so far. Now that Crumbs is finished, I'm organizing paper, photos and embellishements for the next section, which will be Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique. I need to come up with an intro page for the whole thing, but I tend to leave those for last, when I've established the overall feel of the book. I hope to get rolling on Sugar Bliss this week, and when I finish it, I'll post photos.

Thanks for reading!