More ... Sprinkles!

1 trip to Hobby Lobby + 1 50% off scrapbooking sale = 2 3-packs of Tombow refills for $13. Not bad! Best of all was being able to scrap again on Monday night. I polished off the final More layout, which included a trio of shots Sara took of me trying the Bacon Bacon Bacon cupcake, which I ended up hating. I kind of look like I'm enjoying it in the final photo, but I think it was taken before my brain had had a chance to catch up to my tastebuds. When I saw that More specialized in eclectic flavor combinations, I knew I was going to have to try one for the SJ-R story. Bacon Bacon Bacon was the odd choice of the day, so that's what I went with. You can read more about it on my cupcake blog, http://extremecupcaker.blogspot.com/2011/08/bacon-and-cupcakes.html, but the gist of the story is that the cupcake was top-to-bottom bacon. Bacon in the frosting. Bacon in the cake. Bacon in the brittle garnish. I love bacon, but it needs to stay in its proper place next to the pancakes and eggs.

Upon wrapping up More, I moved on to the first of what will be three double-page Sprinkles Cupcakes layouts. I was looking forward to this one because of all the whimsy and dynamic color that define Sprinkles. On the left-hand side of the first layout, I used a round sheet with a scalloped ring and colorful sprinkles that I took to be cake- and cupcake-related when I picked it up at one of the scrapbooking stores. I used it to frame one of my favorite pictures from the crawl, an overhead shot of the salted caramel cupcake I bought at Sprinkles to take home for a later snack. I didn't sample it for the SJ-R story, instead splitting a cinnamon sugar cupcake wtih Sara for the evaluation. Two photos of that cupcake are included on the right-hand page, along with the vanilla coconut Sara bought as her to-go selection and another photo of some of the cupcakes in the Sprinkles display. I used Ranger brand Liquid Pearls in White Opal to add some oomph to the cream-colored background paper and to evoke the look of frosting.

If I can resist the temptation to eat cupcakes as I'm scrapping them, I'll return to my scrapping room soon and finish out the Sprinkles layouts. It's a good thing glue on my hands makes eating unappealing!

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!

Tribute to Typo

Over the weekend, I finished the framed memorial to the SJ-R's "adopted" feral cat, Typo, which we hope we'll be able to display somewhere inside the newspaper building. Typo was a special cat, loved by many staffers, and I hope the memorial reflects her spirit and the joy she brought us over the years. I used senior news editor Daron Walker's photo of Typo from the early 2000s for the dominant image, and the smaller photos were sent to me by other employees, some of whom (or maybe all) had taken the shots on their cell phones. Typo, may you recieve all the ear scratches your heart desires in heaven!