Bridal Accessories with a Wild Side

Let's face it, almost every one of us has a wild side, but very few are willing let everyone know about it, especially when it comes to a wedding theme. One of my very good friends recently got married and her theme was Zebra print and Pink. For a wedding you ask? Yes, and I will tell you, thanks to a lot of talented and creative people this color scheme looked amazing and was a surprising mix of fun and classy. Since I was lucky enough to attend the wedding, it was very cool to see everything come together.

When my friend told me about her theme choice, I knew she would need some custom designed invitations and luckily I had a friend who specializes in such matters. Kaleidoscope Design Studio is a graphic design company that specializes in custom design work for all of your needs from business to weddings. For this wedding, she created the most beautiful zebra and pink inspired bridal invitations, place cards, water bottle labels, and thank you notes! If you need Custom Bridal Invitations done, check this site out, she does amazing work!

Here is where I got involved. First up, since this friend is also a co-worker we threw a surprise shower for her at work. I of course was tasked with making the cake. For this I decided to do cupcakes. This friend is a huge fan of cakeballs but with the amount of people at this shower I couldn't make that happen. Instead I opted for basic vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. To add a little fun I found black and white polka dot cupcake wrappers and I tinted the buttercream hot pink. To add an additional level of flair I used kitchen scissors to cut mini marshmallows and I dipped the sticky side in pink sugar crystals. I took of picture of them using the Hipstamatic App on my iphone and I love how the colors look so that it the picture I am sharing below.

I was so honored when the bride asked me to design the hair flowers for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Zebra print and pink seemed like a big challenge until I arrived at the fabric store and found a beautiful zebra print satin fabric. The rest was easy. For the bridesmaids, I opted for a pointy 5 petal flower using the zebra fabric as the petals. I accented the center of the flower with a hot pink rhinestone button. For the flower girls I went with my standard black satin hair flower with rounded petals. To incorporate the zebra print for them, I covered fabric buttons with the zebra satin and used them as the center. The bride and bridal party loved them. Since I was a guest at the wedding I also had the chance to see my hair accessories in action which was very cool. One of the bridesmaids was kind of enough to pose so you could see how this bridal party used the flowers. I listed the zebra flower in my etsy shop, you can find it by clicking here.



Today I have another formal hair flower design I want to experiment with. This idea was inspired by my brother's upcoming wedding where I have also been asked to create the hair flowers for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Since my daughter and I are included in that mix, be prepared for many pictures of those in action! This is not the best picture but I am going to add a twist to the red flower on this pattern.

I enjoy everything about making things for Purplelicious but designing custom flowers for weddings is my favorite. I like being able to think outside of the box, work with different fabrics, and experiment with various color combinations. Hopefully more of these custom orders will find their way to me in the future!

Caramel Apple Cupcakes!

I realize that this blog has been a little heavy on baking experiments as opposed to sewing experiments, but don't worry. I have a few new accessory ideas that I would LOVE to tell you about, if I ever stop baking and work on one of those ideas. Ok, in keeping with the cupcake theme I decided to try a cupcake baking experiment. I feel like it is time to branch out from basic chocolate and vanilla, but really I had a tray of apple slices that I forgot to put out for my daughter's birthday party that were going to go bad. I could have easily used them to make a Jewish Apple Cake which are delicious and simple but I wanted a challenge. After all the easy route is never all that fun. I immediately thought cupcakes, through the power of google and the keywords "apple cupcake" I came across something that read, Caramel Apple cupcakes. Whoa, this got my wheels churning and I wanted an apple cupcake with a caramel buttercream. Sounds easy enough! I searched through a couple of different recipes until I found two that I liked. Each component belonged to a different recipe but I like piecing different things together. It keeps things fun.

Here is the Apple Cupcake Recipe. I must admit that I have rarely made a cake from scratch, I almost always use mixes. (I guess my secret is out now). As I was making this batter I was starting to get concerned. I have made enough cake mixes to know what cake batter looks like and that was not what was in my mixing bowl. This batter almost comes out like a cookie batter. When it was done I re-read the recipe several times to make sure I didn't miss a step. My tips if you are working with this recipe: Slowly add your apples, too many will cause the "batter" to come apart which causes them to crumble in the wrapper after they are baked. Also it might not hurt to spray the liners with a little cooking spray. (I learned this trick one time I tried to make brownie bites in cupcake wrappers). Despite the less than perfect baked cake result they tasted amazing!


Now onto the buttercream. Here is the recipe I used for the Caramel Buttercream. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into here until I was about halfway into making the caramel. The recipe says to make the caramel using the microwave, this made me nervous for some reason so instead I made it on the stovetop. I cooked the ingredients over low heat. This took a while, but I was patient and I just kept stirring. I put a lot of love into this caramel. Then I realized I should have been using a candy thermometer. The recipe says its done when it is thick and bubbly which seems easy enough to decipher but it isn't. My concern was that I was going to cook it too long and end up with hard caramel that wouldn't mix into the buttercream. Fortunately I lucked out with this. As it cooled it was still smooth. If you make this I would suggest using a candy thermometer JUST to make sure you don't cook it too much. Also this recipe makes a LOT of caramel, you can probably cut the recipe in half unless you like having a lot of caramel around the house. The buttercream is very easy to make and the caramel mixes right in. I added the 1/4 cup and tasted it, I felt like it needed more caramel, I kept adding a little at a time until I felt like the flavor was there.

Here is what they look like cut in half. They are very rich and have a very buttery apple taste. The buttercream is a good compliment to the cake. At one point it tasted like apple pie a la mode. I brought them into work and they were devoured in less than 10 minutes, that makes me think they were pretty good. If you decide to make them if you have any other tips feel free to share! Enjoy the caramel apple deliciousness!

7th Birthday Cupcake Fun!

I am fairly proud of myself for getting out of having big birthday parties for my daughter. It's not that I am against them, while in daycare she just didn't have a circle of friends close enough to her. Now that she is in 1st grade, I am out of excuses and we already did the trip to American Girl Place in New York. I started to research birthday party ideas in the area but we have already been on a birthday party circuit and everything has already been done before. If you know me, I don't like to do the things that everyone else does. I came across a place that did cupcake decorating parties and a light bulb went off when I looked at the price per kid. Granted I have never taught a group of 1st graders how to do anything but I do know how to decorate a cupcake and do crafts. Isabella's 7th Birthday party was decided.

I immediately went to Etsy for the invitations. I found this adorable shop called TrinityStStudio. Her shop is filled with so many creative invitations. She also does coordinating items like stickers and thank you cards. Which reminds me, I need to order those. This is the design I ordered,Cupcake Trio Birthday Party Invitation I just LOVE the colors and they became the theme colors for the party.

My next stop was to Oriental Trading company, I ordered cupcake necklace kits, princess crown kits, and cupcake boxes. Everything was starting to come together. Then I was reminded that I needed to make birthday treats for school. I happened to be looking at my new Cake Pops by Bakerella book and my daughter saw the Cupcake Bite balls and declared that was what she wanted. Its her birthday so I said why not. They were SUPER easy to make and came out so cute, they tasted good too.

With the birthday party looming I was starting to have some doubts about what I had gotten myself into. In talking to some of the mom's at cheerleading that morning they were in so many words, saying, "Yeah good luck with that". I knew that preparation was key when having 14 1st graders at your house. I also decided that if all hell broke lose I had Just Dance on the Wii! I had spent so much time baking cupcakes, prepping necklace kits, and setting tables that I had given ZERO thought to how I was going to decorate the Giant Cupcake for the birthday cake...the biggest detail! The giant cupcake pan is a good time. The possibilities are endless with how to decorate it. I would have loved to use fondant but I know the kids don't like it all that much. I went with buttercream, sprinkles, twizzlers, and a few starbursts. I decorated it, like a cupcake. Genius right? I basically piped stars in strips on the base and then stuck the twizzlers in between the rows. Then used my giant star tip and swirled the icing around the top. The individual cupcakes had little alphabet toppers that said Isabella. I made them by softening and rolling out a few strawberry starbursts and cut them out with my letter fondant cutters.

Next time I would probably make the letters bigger and use the cherry starbursts, the letters got a little lost in the icing. I also used WAY too much of the blue coloring for the bottom, the colors were supposed to match the theme on the invitation. Like always, I am my own worst critic. The cake was a hit and so was the party. It seemed like the girls had a good time and I was able to complete two crafts and teach them how to decorate cupcakes. I did have to play my Just Dance card, with about 10 minutes left, the soda and sugar kicked in and I had lost their attention!

Here is where I run into problems with Bella's birthday, with every successful birthday idea, next year has to be bigger and better. I guess that is less of a problem and more of a challenge. Fortunately, I am always up for a good challenge! Happy Birthday to my favorite person in this universe, Isabella!

"The Best Day Ever"

The 4th of July definitely ranks pretty high on my list of favorite holidays. For me I feel like it marks the official start of summer. I know technically Memorial Day is but I am also a huge fan of fireworks, so maybe it is the presence of fireworks that seems to make it more of a kickoff to summer!

My holiday weekend didn't start off so great as I clumsily injured my pinky toe while working in my yard. Thankfully, it is starting to feel better. This injury reminded me of a few other 4th of July injuries that required trips to the ER, I am glad this did not warrant that. But in case you were wondering, your pinky toe may be small, but when injured it HURTS!

Today my plan was to stay off of my foot and do lots of craft show prep since I have two back to back shows coming up starting next weekend, as well as a 100 custom embroidered keychain order. Just as I was about to settle in and star the sewing madness, my 6 year old reminded me that I promised her a trip to the movies. After carefully weighing some other times this weekend to go I decided to just let the sewing wait another way and spend some time with my little one! We went to see Toy Story 3. It was so completely adorable and like everyone else I cried at the end. I saw it in 3D and found nothing 3D about it, so if you go save a few bucks and see it on the normal screen. At the end of the movie, Bella gave me a hug and said, thanks mom for taking me to see this today. Ok, well that made it all worth it!

We happened to catch a 7pm movie so we were home around 9pm. We kept hearing the sounds of fireworks, I was feverishly online trying to find out where they were coming from when I made a spontaneous decision to just get in the car and find them. Mind you while I am in my pajamas, we dash out of the house and just start driving. We stumbled upon a location where we could view the fireworks that were actually in the next town over. To my surprise there were other cars in this spot too, I wondered if they were on the same mission as us. Bella was loving it and I of course loved watching the fireworks. It was a clear night so the stars were out, I overheard her wishing on a star and my heart melted. The apple doesn't fall to far with this one!

My Little Fireworks Hunter (bad camera phone pic) Since we were already out and about I decided we might as well finish off the night with some ice cream from our favorite local place. I didn't tell Bella where we were going I just started driving. She was very excited to discover we were getting ice cream. I broke my major rule of being out in public in my pajamas to get us our ice cream but some things are worth breaking rules for! My Ice Cream of Choice: Chocolate and Vanilla Twist Custard with Chocolate Jimmies! In the car on the way home Bella told me that this was "The Best Day Ever" and I would have to agree. I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in my to do list that I forget that sometimes I just have to put the list down and enjoy some simple and spontaneous times with my kid. The reward of doing that always seems to outweigh that of crossing things off the to do list. Take some time to enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend too! Have a safe and happy 4th of July everyone!

A New Kind of Bridal Fabric Flower

One of things that I love about having this business is the chance to do custom orders. Some are definitely more challenging than others, but something positive always comes out of it. Be it a new accessory to add to the shop, a chance to learn a new technique, or an opportunity to think outside of the box even more.

Back in February I received an email about my white satin bride hair flowers. A customer wanted me to make something similar to accent her daughters wedding gown. It seems that they did not order the dress with the flowers on it but ordered some extra fabric in the hopes of finding someone who could make the flowers for them. Wow! They sent me a picture of the gown and I made two sample flowers in the hopes that one of them would work. This is a picture I took with my phone (which explains the poor quality), it shows the flowers on the dress I was trying to duplicate.



The other flower was adapted slightly from my other hair flowers, see the Purplelicious Bride Hair Flower Blog to check out the flowers. The one I created based on some of my original designs is the one they ended up going with.

I have to say it is a complete honor to be asked to make anything for a bride. To know that your creation is going to be a part of her day is an amazing feeling. I was a little bit nervous about actually making these flowers for a gown! For some reason that seemed like a bigger deal than make a hair flower. It was also really fun working with the fabric that was used to make the dress, I could just feel the quality of it. Below is a picture of the finished flowers. The bride's mom found rhinestone centers to use that matched the bride's earrings, so they got sent as is.



But I thought it might be fun to see what this flower would look like with one of my rhinestone buttons, don't be surprised if you see this show up in a certain Etsy shop sometime soon!



I have been having a lot of fun making fabric flowers and have a bunch of ideas for some new designs. But like usual, I've got plenty of ideas but not enough time to make them all happen. With a big craft show coming up I might find the time and will be sure to share whatever I come up with!

"The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" Cupcakes

It is just terrible that I have not posted a blog since January. I would promise to try to get better at it but I don't want to let you down. I do have some cool projects I am working on that I want to share with you so there may be hope for me yet!

A couple of weeks ago, I picked my daughter up from school and she was beaming with excitement. It was finally her turn to be student of the week. She was actually the last one in her class to have a turn but I was told later by the teachers that being the last kid is a good thing. It means they are patient enough to wait for their turn.

The first project was Bella's all about me page. For this I took out all of my scrapbooking supplies. This is where I am grateful for my craft supply hoarding tendencies. You never know when you are going to need fun paper and letter stickers! We also used some crayons and Bella really enjoyed making a rainbow design for all of the borders. My favorite part about this is when asked if she had one wish what she would wish for, she put Sun and Hugs. That's my girl!

For the rest of the week we needed to send in various things that are Bella's favorites. The "main event" of the week was when I got to go into her class and read them a story. This also entails bringing some sort of snack for the class too. All along Bella knew she wanted me to make cupcakes but we were a little undecided about what book I was going to read. Being the last kid, a lot of her books were already read to the class with the exception of the Pigeon books, by Mo Willems. Those books are pretty much our favorites around here. I like the pigeon because he has so much attitude and it is really fun to bring that out when you are reading them. You can read more about them here: http://www.pigeonpresents.com/

So being the overachiever that I am I decided to make cupcakes that matched the books. Being the last student of the week I felt it was a go big or go home situation. After a consultation with my fellow baker brain stormer, my sister, she sent me a picture of a hot dog made out of candy. It was decided. I would read the 4 pigeon books to the kids, finish with "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" and give out the cupcakes!

Here is how I made the "hot dogs". Again I will add that I did not come up with this idea, it was based on a picture I found on flickr. Basically you need circus peanuts, tootsie rolls, icing tinted yellow, and green sour patch kids. It is a pretty easy process. Cut the circus peanut in half, but not all of the way and then work the tootsie roll in. Pipe a little yellow icing to look like mustard, then add cut up green sour patch kids for the "relish". Here is a picture of the "hot dogs" all lined up and ready to be cupcake toppers.

For the cupcakes I made a batch of vanilla and a batch of chocolate. With 26 kids in the class, there is no way around making 48 cupcakes! I just swirled some homemade vanilla butter cream on them and topped each cupcake with a "hot dog". Here is the final product.

I had such a blast reading to the kids. I was a little nervous at first, I am not sure why. But I could tell for Bella it was so amazing to have her mom come in and sit in her teacher's chair and read to her class, even though I embarrassed her when I really got into acting out the pigeon! Here are some photos of us reading to the class. They were scanned so I apologize for the quality. The kids got a kick out of the cupcakes and so did the teachers. Even though right after this I had to rush into work and had 30 minutes to prepare for an impromptu meeting, it was completely worth taking the time out of the day to be there for Bella and also a great excuse to make another creative cupcake!

Happy New Decade!

The fact that we were about to start a new decade did not even dawn on me until I was on my return trip from Orlando after Christmas and I was reading a People Magazine. I know, you are probably thinking, "What does she live under a rock?". Well I actually do. If by rock you mean a full time job, combined with single parenthood, combined with running a small business. It was Christmas, I was busy. December was pretty crazy for Purplelicious, it marked the most successful holiday sales season to date! Awesome!

In addition to making fabulous holiday gifts for everyone I got to work on some new stuff too! For starters I got to work on my first sorority keychain order! I hope these Alpha Sigma Alpha ladies love their sorority wristlet keychains! I personally love the fabric and thread color combination!


I also designed a new fabric flower pin. I made this one using Christmas Fabrics but have a few non holiday ones cut out. I am excited that I have found another thing I can do with my fabric scraps! FUN!

I spent Christmas in Florida with my family. While I was there I embarked on a new creative journey I like to call Lego Building. I don't think I even remember the last time I put a Lego kit together or even built with Legos. But on Christmas morning when my nephew/godson asked me to help him, I could not resist him or the challenge. And challenge it was, I honestly did not move from the kitchen table all day. I now have a love/hate relationship with Legos but managed to put 5 pieces together for him. I am resting up so I am ready to tackle more kits for him when I visit them again! Thankfully my little one has not taken a liking to them, I think I will try and keep it that way!


I guess I am supposed to set some goals for the new year/new decade but I am procrastinating like usual. I do know that I have a lot of new accessory ideas and am trying to think a little more outside of the box. I know that to keep a business growing innovation is key. Wow, look at that, I am already goal setting! Before I get out of hand and end up with an "impossible to achieve" list I will quit while I am ahead and wish everyone a Happy New Year (a couple weeks late!) I look forward to sharing more Purplelicious stories with you through this blog and making many fabulous accessories for you in 2010!