High Hair Headband Gang

I'm letting my hair grow out and even though it's only a little past my shoulders I want to play with it style wise. The last time I grew my hair to donate, Pinterest had just started, so all those cute ideas for long hair were not utilized to their full potential. This time I'm going to play around with different hairstyles and just have fun...like with my first attempt at a high bun that I always see on the fashion blogs.

So am I cool enough for the High Hair Headband Gang? 

Learning

I've survived my first week at the bagel shop, though the last two days I was at a different store and let me tell you it was an experience. It was a lot busier and was a challenge as I was still learning how to make sandwiches, all the while trying to figure out where things were in this store. The boss at the end of the was encouraging and said I did a good job for being so busy;  it's nice to know I wasn't as horrible at it as I thought. On another note I got to spend some time over at the bakery Saturday and made a batch of cupcakes, iced a few of their Chocolate Mocha cupcakes, and decorated one of their famous Stairway to Heaven cake. The owner is really nice and passionate about this business, I'm glad to be working there part time before my internship to get to know the business better. 

This is really a new experience for me, not the working part because I've had jobs before, but all of this learning all at once. Classes has helped me out at the bakery, but I'm still learning my way around there and then learning the menu at the bagel shop. I feel like I don't have a lot of time to do some of the things I have planned with all the random hours, and it doesn't help that when I do take a nap it's ends up being 2-3 hours long. It's a big adjustment on my time (I forgot today was Sunday!) and I'm just going to have to get use  to it.  

The Harder You Work

Art by MUTI

Sometimes you work your butt off and you don't feel like you're getting anywhere. Then there is that moment that you realize that those days have only built up to make you lucky. It's seems so surreal and I'm just feeling really lucky after working hard and going to school to do what I've always wanted. I recently got hired at a local bagel shop, which seems to be going very well, then the local bakery has invited me to work part time before I have to do my internship with them. Now the old me would feel completely overwhelmed thinking about holding two jobs, but things have just fallen into place. The bagel shop closes at 3pm and the bakery owner told me she would need me on weekends around 5pm, hopefully there'll be no issues trying to work around my schedule. I'm don't officially have my Baking and Pastry Arts degree until after the internship, however I can't believe I have found such awesome jobs during the summer time. 

I was wanting to do more for the blog since school was over and it's been lacking some, but I'm going to have to wait and see how my schedule interferes with it. I do want to start some new segments, restart old and kind of redesign a few so I can get them done quickly. There is also a side project I want to start again with making some jewelry, mostly just to get rid of my current inventory, we'll see how that goes. I'm probably putting too much on my plate already, however, like the quote says, "The harder you work, the luckier you get," and I'm starting to really see this in action.

New Tattoo (About Time)

I have been wanting another tattoo since I got my first one, but I was always a bit hesitant. Either I couldn't decide on what to get or I didn't have the money, it was just alway something keeping me from getting one. I finally just seized an opportunity and did it, I can't believe how wonderfully amazing it turned out. I'm still in shock and just overwhelmed with how perfectly it turned out.

Today was the last day of school forever, it was my last set of labs and I was excited (and nervous) to be getting closer to doing what I enjoy doing, baking, and I wanted to celebrate this new start. I had a few ideas but I found a Kitchen Aid Mixer tattoo on pinterest that I liked the most. I walked into Blood Sweat and Tears Tattoo not sure if I could get an appointment today, but as soon as I showed the lady the photo she knew who to give to. Little Jenn Small is a great artist and I have seen some of her work. I basically gave her free range besides showing her the picture and saying I'd like the flowers behind it. I said I wanted the mixer blue and she suggested this color and all else fell into place. Even though I was getting tattooed I had a great time talking about incorporating my geekiness into my future wedding, Arrested Development (which I definitely need to watch!) and just chit chatting. I'm just in awe at how wonderful it turned out and so glad I finally got me another tattoo :)

Vintage Finds 5/4

I haven't been thrifting in forever since I don't have room for any furniture and I'm content with my current collections. Though I want to build up on some of my other ones I just don't have the room to display the things like I like so until then I was taking a break. However, I went to the thrift store with my Mom and scored some wedding stuff :)

Our wedding colors are being pulled from different shades of blue, red and yellow. The dessert tier was in perfect condition and the set of cloth napkins would be perfect for making a banner. I want to collect more for banners and to put on top of the dessert bar. 

My Mom had these beautiful goblets and even though I have room for them now I eventually want to use them in my future house. Until then I thought they'd fit perfectly on the tables for the wedding, maybe with succulents in them or a small bouquet. It's a set of 6 so I can use these and maybe throw in a few milk glass vases to mix up with the vintage soda bottles with single or filler flowers.

This is the gem of the finds but I can't take the credit for finding it. As I mentioned before my Mom and her husband run a little antique store, he was doing some picking and found this type writer. He fixed the ribbon and I started working on it some more cleaning it and making it type better. I told him how awesome it was and he said I could have it! It was sweet of him and I now have it running pretty good it just sticks on a few keys. I still need to clean off the keys some more but it's in great condition for being used.

I'm posting most of my wedding stuff via tumblr on Future Mrs. Cooper so feel free to check that out for some great ideas and current updates!

D.I.Y | Antique Cosmetic Jar Candle

So my Mom has this antique shop with her husband and his family called Union Antiques and there was this set of antique cosmetic jars that I adored. I had always thought they'd be beautiful turned into candles for my vanity area. So here is a quick and clean way to turn any small jar into a candle, without the messy wax.

What You'll Need:

- Glass or Ceramic jar/container (make sure the glass has a good thickness or it's heat resistant)

- Candle (the individual ones or tea lights) the same or less height and width of the container

- Candle, plate or mug warmer

1. Place candle inside the container, if your jar is short and you have to use tea light candles take off tin that is wrapped around the whole base. It's okay if your candle is a little loose inside the jar, but make sure it isn't too tall, otherwise, wax will spill over. 
2. Set it on the warmer and keep an eye on it; it took about 10 minutes from placing the jar on the warmer while it heated up before it started to melt.
3. Once the sides start to melt you can move it around to see if it will fill in the space. If it does then take it off and let it rest. The whole candle doesn't need to be liquid, it can mess up the wix.
4. After it has hardened again remove any wax that might have spilled or built up on top, then light and use like you would any candle.

This is super easy and you can get the candles for a cheap price at any store. 

Change it up by picking up a scented candle or do a few and give them out as a gift set or party favors :)

Recipe | Ombre Cake

Saturday I got together at my BFF Desiree's house to do some baking.  She wanted to make a "thank you" cake for some friends that helped with a water heater in her and her fiance's new house. I always enjoy baking with her because we bounce ideas off each other to create something great. It was actually her fiance that mentioned different colors, though he was talking about the inside we decided we could do an ombre effect with the icing easier instead. She has the cutest KitchenAid mixer in pink and it is perfect for whipping homemade buttercream frosting; this is something I'm putting on my wedding registery. We found the perfect cake recipe on the back of the flour box and it made a soft and fluffy cake. I always think Swiss buttercream is the easiest to make so I whipped some of that up and added some vanilla extract for flavoring. We wanted to do purple, but had food coloring instead of the coloring gel so we couldn't get as an intense purple as we wanted. However, I loved the lavender color we did get and I think it transitioned nicely. I showed her how to do buttercream beading on top and she did a fantastic job doing the same on the bottom. She had some delicious sprinkles that tasted like crushed up rock candy so we filled the top with those. I had to leave before tasting it all together but from tasting the scraps plus the message she sent me; it was a hit!

This week I'll have plenty of cakes to work on in class. Today is wedding cake day, tomorrow is our practical cake and then Wednesday I'm doing my Tardis specialy cake. Out of all of them I think I'm more nervous about the Tardis cake because there is so little to prep and it has to be done all in one day. Well hope everyone has a good Monday and I'll post pictures of the cakes from class once they're all done!

Just Going to Leave This Here

Recipes | Chopped Challenge

Today in class we did our Chopped Challenge, where we were given  a "Mystery Basket", or really a note card with our ingredients, and we had to create a dessert. We had to include all items and some form of a foam or sabayon and meringue or fruit chip. Luckily we got first grab on Thursday and got to plan over the weekend. This is what me and my team member came up with:

"Mystery Basket" Items

• Canned Peaches
• Figs
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Instant Espresso 
• Cream Cheese

What we created:

• Cream cheese pound cake layers
• Peach sabayon folded in whipped cream between layers
• Fig fruit chips
• Balsamic reduction with brown sugar
• Espresso caviar (not really caviar but any puree or juice with some gelatin, dropped into cold oil to make it look like little caviar dots)
• Topped with quenelle of whipped cream and sugar garnish

I was worried about the balsamic vinegar because it smelled strong but I have heard people roasting strawberries and other sweet fruit with the balsamic, plus adding the brown sugar helped cut the strong vinegar flavor. The cake layers were soaked with the syrup from the canned peaches which helped give the peach sabayon more flavor. The espresso caviar were a little bitter but reminded me of an Americano. Putting everything together tasted awesome because the elements helped each out. The balsamic reduction helped to cut the super sweet cream cheese pound cake, the whipped cream helped with the espresso caviar and the sabayon was just a nice cream accent to the cake. I would totally make this again and I had tons of fun with this challenge.

Have you ever seen the actual Chopped t.v show? What would you all make from these items?

//End of the Week 3/30

Last week flew by so fast and when you only have about two weeks per lab I felt this one would come and go quickly...yeah I was wrong. This week seems like it took so long to get here but I did have some fun and got started doing some wedding stuff, so here are some photos of what happened this week.

 Worked on cheesecake plate design and also made a chocolate mocha pots de creme, but I didn't like the platting design on that as much as I loved this one.

 

On Wednesday we had one of the Teacher Assistants come in and do a liquid nitrogen demo. It was crazy and amazing all at once. He made "dippin' dots" and those little red things are a shattered raspberry bits. He made regular ice cream in the mixer and did a champagne sorbet.

Thursday we had to create our trio plate. I decided I could just do a cheesecake trio and use up the rest of my left over cheese cakes I had. I have to say this was my favorite plate so far and it tasted delicious!

The last few weekends I've been doing a few wedding things. Last week I hung out with my friend Desiree and we picked up some fake flowers for boutineers, scrapbook paper for confetti and items for the dessert table. The other night I worked on wedding invites on photoshop.

Yesterday I had a girls day out with my Mom and Grandma and we got pedicures together, then Dustin and I hung out with our friends the rest of the night. 

I want to work more on wedding stuff but also bake today. I have some bananas and apples that need to be used so I was going to do a banana apple bread with a glaze and put chopped pecans on top. Hopefully it turns out well because I'm suppose to bring it to Easter lunch tomorrow at the Grandparents. 

How was your week? Are you doing anything special on Easter?