I love Real Simple. Its that simple.

I have subscribed to Real Simple for as long as I have lived on my own and before that my mom had a subscription to the magazine for as long as I can remember.... and I just love the magazine. I love the photographers, the recipes, the brilliant ideas for double uses with household items, the comic authors that spin the best essays on everyday happenings... I just love it.

So today I was in a "Real Simple" mood and decided to make their Butternut squash soup and set up a lil' mini shoot in the kitchen. Their recipe was... well... simple so I added some toasted almonds, shaved Parmesan, and a sprinkle of baby sage leaves that I have been growing in my window sill...

I would highly recommend the said combination because its was quite tasty (if I do say so myself! ha.). And not only did I have a fabulous lunch but now I also have a new batch of photos to take to class tonight, which is great cause it was getting a little stagnant on the food photo front!

Have you seen this?

just amazing.

Fall Project {3}

This project consists of two stories:

Story 1:

In our house we have a hutch that we were handed down, and when we got it... lets just say it wasn't-our-style. So a while ago we painted it and took out the old stained glass fronts and I mounted some Martha Stewart paper onto some mat-board to put in the front windows and called it good.

Story 2:

I have had this amazing Alexander Henry fabric that has been sitting in my studio begging to used. I thought I would applique the witches onto a table runner and it would be soooo cute.... but then reality set in and I realized applique takes a lil' more time then I think Ive got this October.... so...

I put my hutch and the fabric together and I got a sweet Halloween hutch out of it! I used my 505 spray & fix to glue the fabric onto my existing mat-board and threw them in the windows and now its a Halloween hutch!

The best part about using the 505 is that its temporary so I only sprayed it onto my fabric and it will hold well enough while its in the hutch but then when I'm done I just peel off the fabric and throw it in the wash to remove the washable adhesive! Perfect.

Fall Project {3}... done.

This was soOOooOOoo AWESOME!

OK, being sick has completely sucked the last couple of days but today I had just enough energy to sit in front of my computer long enough to actually watch Jim & Pam get married on the Office and it was SO awesome!

And of course I immediately had to hop over to you-tube to see what "wedding entrance" they were talking about! If you haven't seen it you ABSOLUTELY have to watch this awesome clip:

I think we just might of done this if we had seen anything like it before our wedding! I loved everything about this... its unique(well, it was) it makes you smile, it sets a sweet vibe, and it definitely had to of got the party started right? And the fact that they are bumpin' Chris Brown in that big'ol church? So awesome.

OK, well enough excitement for today. Back to bed to try and finally kick the swine flu.

Fall Project {2}

Well I designed, printed, and finished the Halloween invites! I had originally wanted to use the Martha Stewart cobweb punch I mentioned here but later discovered that punch was actually 2 separate punches that were quite expensive for something I would only use a few times.... sorry Martha. Sooooo I came up with something a little different: I made 2 separate designs in Illustrator, one is the cobweb border and the other is the actual words on the invite:

So I printed the border on the green paper and the words on the orange paper.

And layered on top of each other they were "ok" but they needed a lil' something more. So I sanded the edges and added a few rhinestones and called it good! ;D

Fall Project {2} : DONE.

Oktoberfest.

Well, the Oktoberfest dinner party was a "insgesamt erfolg" (total success) ;D We had a great time and the food was delish! I pulled all the recipes from myrecipes.com and although we hadn't made any of them before they all came out pretty tasty!

We had Soft Pretzels for appetizers with a variety of different mustards. Sweet & Sour Braised Cabbage, Hot German Potato Salad, and Beer Cooked Bratwurst for dinner. And Pumpkin Streusel Pie for desert! Now, about the pie, I had to work Saturday so I left all these recipes with Q to prep and the one thing he had to do that morning was make the pie... and when I came home this is what I found:

Seriously impressive! Who knew the guy could bake?! And he even cut out the little fall leaves to make a cute crust witch just totally blew my mind! It tasted just as amazing as it looks so I would highly recommend this recipe!

Like I mentioned before, everyone who came had to bring a beer that started with the same letter as their last name started with. It was really a fun touch to the party! And of course it was fun to try all the brews that everyone brought! ;D And for those of us whose last names that start with "V" it was the ultimate challenge finding a "V" beer!

I didn't get ANY pictures of the whole table scape but at some point I snapped a quick pic of the steins I used for the centerpiece:

I used the German flag colors (red, black, and yellow) to dress the table and I threw my parents steins on a mirror in the center to make it a little more "Oktoberfest-ish". All in all, it was a fun night with great food and great friends! I think we might have to make this one of our reoccurring parties! Herzlich willkommen oktober!

Today.

Today looks like wind & clouds, statistics homework, and lots of coffee to stay motivated.

Its going to be quite a mellow Sunday. Be back soon with pictures from last nights Oktoberfest Dinner party.