Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

This is one of my all time favorite cakes. 

I got the recipe in high school from one of my close friends mother. It's the simplest recipe and was one of my favorite things to have whenever I went to their house. 

And you know I didn't take any pictures of the process. 

Oops. 

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake Recipe

1 package yellow or chocolate cake mix (any ole box cake mix)

1 small package vanilla or chocolate pudding mix (choose the opposite of your cake mix)

3/4 cup milk 

8 oz sour cream 

3 eggs 

8 oz chocolate chips 

Mix ingredients together adding chocolate chips last. Pour batter into greased and floured bunt pan. Bake at 350 degrees or 55 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar when cool.

I made the cake for a co-workers birthday. But I was nice and allowed my pregnant sister to have a piece the nigh before. :) It's even more amazing warm.

I was impatient, shocking I know, and put the powdered sugar on too soon so it did this weird melting thing. 

My breakfast at work the day after. 

It is all around delish.

 I can't make this cake too often because I will eat at least half of it on my own. 

But its an extremely easy recipe that doesn't take as long as a fully made by scratch cake. 

Enjoy!! 

Quote of The Day

This quote made me smile and laugh. It's also very true. 

Chocolate does understand. 

Don't you agree? 

Shellac Manicure Review

Okay, I'm really behind on my update. I got busy, maybe lazy. 

I've had the shellac off for 2 weeks now. 

To remind you here is Day 1 of my shellac manicure.

I had some chips that we talked about here. I ended up doing some touch ups for my friends reception and then just waited until more chips came. I ended up just peeling most of the shellac off after a rather long morning meeting at work. I noticed it and then couldn't let it go. I don't think that's exactly how you're supposed to do it. I had a 2 nails that I used acetone on to get the polish off. 

My nails had a dry look to them after taking the polish off but the didn't peel or crack. They actually felt stiffer than normal which I liked. All around I probably won't do shellac a lot but if I specifically wanted to get my nails done for multiple events close to each other I would consider doing it again.

I realized the day after I took my shellac off that the strengthening and conditioning polish I did own was over 2 years old and figured that should be updated. I asked around and had quite a few people recommend the Essie brand for nail strengthening. 

It's a light pink color that dries clear. I like it. It dries quickly and has a nice shine. It was always really smooth to put on. 

I got some nail polish from my friend for my birthday. I call it grown up glitter polish. I put it on my toes yesterday afternoon and then had to do my fingers as well.

It's just that fun.

Isn't it fun?!?! It's Spoiled by Wet N Wild. I know it was purchased at CVS but I personally haven't seen it anywhere else yet.

I has blue and silver flecks in it. My friend got herself a bottle as well but in champagne colors. 

I may have to see if they have a pink. 

Don't you agree it's glitter for adults? 

Seriously people. My nails haven't had this much color and fun on them since who knows when! 

I like it. 

Paint Sample Garland

I love all the things you can do with paint sample cards. I think it's so creative and a great way to incorporate lots of color. I've used paint samples before here. 

I got the idea for making garland with paint samples through Pinterest, of course. Go here for the link.

Since it was for a baby shower I didn't want to do hear cut-outs but knew that you get so many other cut outs in the scrap booking section at Michaels. 

Of course I didn't take a picture of they cut out tool I bought. But they were out of all the in-between sizes in regular circles so I got one with scalloped edges. Then to fit with our pink and yellow theme we chose 2 pinks and 2 yellows in paint samples at Home Depot. I didn't get the long skinny strips with multiple colors. I got one color cards.

These aren't all the colors I chose since of course I forgot to take a picture until after I was done doing the cut outs. But that's how I like to do my tutorials apparently.

Here are the paint samples after I had done all my cut outs. I got 6 circles per card roughly. 

And the cut out circles themselves. I didn't count how many cards I had or how many circles I got I tried to get about the same amount of cards and cut outs of all colors.

The yellow cut outs. You can see in this picture that the back of the card had different pictures on the back. Our original plan was to hang the garland from the ceiling so we decided to put the circles back to back so it was the same color on both sides.

To make the garland you get some yarn and hot glue the circles onto the yarn. Then for our garland we turned it over and put circles on the opposite side as well. You follow me? 

We just eyed the length of yarn we wanted and chose to do a pattern of colors for our garland. 

We had our baby shower in our church foyer and once there decided against hanging the garland from the ceiling. We hung up some white tablecloths over the double doors into the auditorium and then the garland over it. It made a nice backdrop for the gift table.

I really loved the look of this garland and want to make more for other parties that may come. It was nice pops of color and texture but so simple to make. And I mean really, who doesn't love the look of polka dots! 

The back drop with the pom poms. 

The entire table and back drop. 

I still have the garland and have no clue what I'm going to do with it. Anyone have a little girls room they want to hang it in? It doesn't exactly go with my decorations at the moment. 

Cupcake Liner Pom Pom

I love hanging lanterns but I don't always know where to find them. I did luck out and find some small lanterns at the dollar aisle in Michaels but I wanted something with some more texture to hang up as well. I was browsing through Pinterest and found this great tutorial. I just changed a couple things to make it easier for what I had on hand. 

I didn't want to spend money on styrofoam balls so after a brilliant idea from my sister we decided to improvise. We got a bunch of newspaper and crumpled it together to make our own balls. Then to keep it together I also put masking tape around parts. 

It didn't have to be perfect and since it was newspaper I knew I would be able to put stick pins through it. 

Keeping with the pink and yellow theme I found packages of pink and yellow cupcake liners at Michaels for $2. (I got some great deals for this project!)

These are great colors together!

Since I was using newspaper I only used pins to hold the liners in place not pins and hot glue. If I pulled too hard or packed the liners too close I tore some out but overall it worked fine. 

You pin on the liners and just go around your entire ball. Once you get them mostly filled up you will be able to tell if you like your liners tight or looser. I didn't really pinch the bottom of my liners when I pinned them on. As I had less room I did but I didn't do it every time.

Aren't they fun? I made 2 yellow and 2 pink with some liners left over. 

To hang them we took some light pink yarn we already had and pinned it in.

 I think they are lots of fun and still wish I had a niece to hang these in her room. If you want them to last a long time or if they would be in reach of children I would use styrofoam balls and hot glue. 

Pretty colors. I think I may have to incorporate them into my room somehow. 

Baby Shower Fun #2

A couple weeks ago we had our second baby shower of this year. This time for a little girl! 

It was so fun to plan girly decorations. 

Too bad I don't have a niece to spoil and decorate for. 

Well maybe thats not a bad things since I would constantly be spending money on her. 

In this post I'm just going to give you an overview of the decorations but I'll post some "tutorials" tomorrow. 

The colors were pink and yellow. We tried to keep it light and fun.

The tutorials I'm gonna share are for the pom poms and garland.

There were lots of sweets and yummy treats. 

And we added daisies to everything. 

Daisies are wonderful flowers. 

And now since this post has taken me ten years to write due to slow photo uploading and just being distracted I'm going to attempt to be productive the rest of night.