Mini Apple Crisp

One of my favorite desserts is apple crisp. The other night I made homemade applesauce, another one of my favorites, and decided to use part of it to make mini apple crisps. I also love anything miniature :)

Here is the recipe created with recipes from all recipes and cooks.com.

applesauce
4 apples peeled, cored, and chopped
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar (feel free to use less)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
combine ingredients in a saucepan and cover
cook for 15 to 20 minutes on medium heat.

crisp topping
1/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
mix together until crumbly

fill two ramekins with homemade applesauce and sprinkle with crisp topping
bake in oven at 375 for about 20 minutes

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo! It's a rainy day today but maybe we will celebrate with margaritas tonight :)

Our Own Mrs. Field's Cookies

This weekend Eric and I made cookies with a recipe he found on cooks.com for Mrs. Field's cookies. They turned out really good, but I think we made enough to start our own bakery :)

Banana Crepes

I like to pretend I'm a photographer, so there's always the possibility of a photo shoot even at breakfast :)

{crepes}

{sauteed bananas}

{banana crepes}

Last Minute Oscar Ideas

popcorn containers from Plum Party, ballot from Oscar.com,
statues from Oscar.org, champagne flutes from Red Envelope
twizzlers from Hersheys.com, my photograph

I really love any reason to celebrate and I love watching award shows! Before the show starts tonight you could print an official ballot from Oscar.com or make a quick trivia game with questions from Oscar.org. Champagne or sparkling cider {my favorite} makes everything a little fancier and of course anything to do with the movies wouldn't be complete without popcorn and twizzlers :)

Valentine's Day Dinner

Yesterday we stayed home and cooked dinner together for Valentine's Day. Eric made grilled chicken and I made a red wine risotto for the first time by myself. When we cook I am usually the sous chef because Eric is a much better cook :)

{our new wedding china}

{our centerpiece}

My Own Recipe Journal

This past weekend my friend {one of my bridesmaids too} came to visit and surprised me with this recipe journal from Williams Sonoma monogrammed with my initials :) I think this would make a great bridal shower or wedding gift too!

Sunday Dinner

{macaroni and cheese}

{applesauce}

We had pork chops too. I used the macaroni and cheese recipe from Martha Stewart Everyday Food {without ham} and the applesauce recipe came from allrecipes. On Christmas my sister saved the day and made this applesauce when we ran out butter to make apple crisp. I love this applesauce and it's so simple to make. I practiced taking pictures with my new camera too :)

Drink Parasols From Our Wedding

I thought I'd share another project from our wedding. I followed these instructions from Martha Stewart to make drink parasols for our wedding. I created them with scrapbook paper, wooden skewers, and Elmer's glue. I also used a pencil and pint glass to trace the circle, and scissors with a decorative edge to cut them out.

It took a little time to make them all but I was so happy to see how they turned out. They were placed in our signature drink, the "Fuzzy Duck" at our wedding. We still have a few left, maybe we'll use them on our anniversary :)

A Few More Brunch Details

I made the just married banner using the template from Martha Stewart and printed it on yellow sheets of cardstock I found at Michaels. Then I cut out ducks to add to the ends and strung it all together with yellow ribbon.

{click to enlarge}

To make the crossword puzzles I used excel and printed the text in blue ink on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of white cardstock. While looking at all the new Martha Stewart stuff at Walmart I found blue pencils. It was so much fun watching our family and friends fill them out. Everyone did such a great job getting all of the answers right. {except my brother who made it his own and filled in the funniest answers}

I'm so happy we had a brunch. It was simple and so relaxed. We had bagels with cream cheese, fruit, pastries, yogurt with granola, juice, coffee, and starfish cookies :)

Starfish Cookies

The day after our wedding we had a brunch for all of our guests. It was very relaxed and it was so nice to see everyone again. The day before we left for Duck I baked starfish cookies to have at our brunch. I just rolled out premade sugar coookie dough, cut them out with a starfish cookie cutter, and sprinkled them with pretty sanding sugar. Then I packaged them all up into small bags I found at Michaels and tied them with blue ribbon. I used the cake stands again to display them at our brunch!

image from my mom

{I'm so happy my mom took so many photographs}

Our Cupcake Stands

These are the cake stands we used for the cupcakes at our wedding. The extra cupcakes that didn't fit on the stands we placed on silver trays {that were at the Saltaire}. We found them at Macy's and were fairly inexpensive. I like them because they are simple, pretty, and we will definitely use them again for holidays, parties, or a Wednesday :)

{I was excited when I saw them on the cover of the new Martha Stewart Weddings too!}

Our Cooking Wine

We decided to make the wine for our wedding. One of the great things about the Saltaire is that we could bring our own alcohol. At the end of March we began our wine making adventure. In June we tasted it and it wasn't quite right so we made a few changes.

When it was time to bottle it for our wedding it still wasn't the best drinking wine. Eric had an idea and tried some of the wine to make chicken scampi and our cooking wine was created! We bottled the wine, labeled it with a cute story, and gave it to our wedding guests :)

{we bought the wine to serve at our wedding from Trader Joe's}

Our Signature Drink

The signature drink at our wedding was a Fuzzy Duck inspired by our location {Duck, North Carolina} and cleverly named by my mom :)

our recipe
1 1/2 ounces of rum
1/2 ounce of peach schnapps
3 ounces of pineapple juice
fill with ice

Our Menu Cards

Our menu cards were very simple. We just printed dark brown text on white cardstock and placed an embossed seal {the same ones we used for our CD favors} at the top of each card. At our wedding we had a buffet so I thought it was a nice idea to have them at each place setting :)

Our Rehearsal Dinner

Our rehearsal dinner was so much fun! We had a southern barbeque with white sangria, and cupcakes from Mike's Pastry in Boston. Before our rehearsal started Eric's mom gave everyone crackers she handmade. They were tied with aqua blue ribbon for the girls and brown ribbon for the boys and filled with paper hats, fortunes, and little toys. At every holiday Eric's family has these crackers and there are many photographs with his family wearing paper hats :) I thought it was so nice that we had them for our rehearsal dinner too!

The night before Eric's parents made the white sangria with help from his grandmother. Some members of our families helped chop some fruit too. The cupcakes from Mike's Pastry are Eric's favorite and were a big surprise to both of us. Eric and I lived in Boston for over ten years together. It was nice to have something from the place where we first met and spent so much time together. It was such a nice night!

My "Showerette" Tea Party Details

my bride accessories

my bachelorette accessories

the "showerette" favors

So much time was put into all the little details. All of the guests wore hats and gloves, some their own; others were borrowed from my sister's boyfriend's grandmother. The day she found out about my "showerette" she brought my sister hat boxes filled with hats for us to use :) At the beginning of my "showerette" I was given fun bride and bachelorette accessories to wear including two great hats that I got to keep!

The guests were given gift bags filled with fun favors including candy cigarettes and lipstick, costume jewelry, earl grey tea, fabric napkins, handkerchiefs, teapot cookie cutters, tea time lip balm, and vintage looking letter openers. My mom and sister also created the Saltaire Gazette that was in everyone's gift bags that included gossip all about our upcoming wedding and the "showerette."

We had a fancy tea party and drank earl grey tea {my favorite} out of china tea cups. We also had crudite, mini quiches, petite sandwiches, brownies, cookies, scones, and a beautifully decorated cake. It really was one of best times I've had and I can't say enough about my mom and sister for all they did to make it perfect :)

Our Wedding Welcome Buckets

,Wednesday night I assembled most of the welcome buckets and delivered part of them with Eric's help to the front desk of the hotel we were staying at that night around midnight. I couldn't sleep and was excited to get things done :)

I waited till we arrived in Duck to put them all together because the supplies took up less space in my car than the completed welcome buckets. Thursday morning after we checked into the Saltaire I assembled the remaining buckets and delivered the last of them Friday morning.

Here is what we included in our welcome buckets:
an outer banks visitor guide
bottles of water
m&m's personalized with our names and wedding date {a gift from my mom}
salt water taffy
starfish goldfish
welcome note from us (we included weather information and tried to make light of the anticipated tropical storm, "If the tropical storm affects the weather on Saturday the wedding will take place inside. If rain is good luck on your wedding day then a tropical storm must be really good luck and two tropical storms well you can't really get any luckier than that :)"

Wedding Brunch

We are going to have a simple brunch for our guests the day after the wedding. We were surprised that with the exception of a few guests everyone responded yes to our brunch. It's going to be so nice to see people once more before they leave to go home. Especially since for most of our family and friends it's a destination wedding.

My fiance and I have a bunch of these yellow and blue seashell napkins. They inspired the decorations for the brunch and I was happy to discover we had enough for all of our guests. I washed and ironed all of the napkins. (looking back now the ironing seems a little crazy:) Then I rolled and tied each one with some inexpensive pretty ribbon I found at Michael's.

I created a crossword puzzle too for our guests with all sorts of questions about us. Things like where was the first place we went to dinner and what school did we attend together. Now I just need to print them :)

Our Rehearsal Dinner Invitation

In the mail today we received the invitation to our rehearsal BBQ that my fiance's parents are going to host the evening before our wedding. My fiance's mom made the invitation and it's perfect for the southern BBQ we are going to have for our rehearsal dinner :)