Cherry On Top

Went shopping yesterday and saw this cute display at LV. Desserts and fancy purses? Yes please!

I think this looks like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup :)

Lovely Macarons

Here are some of my favorite photos of the macarons I made. I love taking pictures of sweets just as much as I love eating them. This way I can still enjoy them long after they're gone :) Btw, I found these amazing boxes for the macarons. I'm so happy about it! Hope you enjoy these photos. Happy Friday!

I really love these three colors together...maybe it's because they were the theme colors for my engagement party too.

Had a Laduree ribbon and couldn't resist!

I love this box so much! I especially love the little round window. It lets you have a peek of what's inside :)

Mountains of Macarons

I made over 200 macarons for Lunar New Year! I love the mountains of colorful shells waiting to be filled. It's nice when I can make a few different flavors at the same time. They just look so pretty together. The flavors were raspberry, jasmine, and lemon. I can't wait to share the rest of the photos on Friday! Have a good night everyone :)

Bursting with Success

Happy Lunar New Year! I had so much fun celebrating the Year of the Dragon this past weekend. Nothing beats spending time with the family and having delicious food. I also learned a new fun tidbit from James' mom about these steamed cupcakes. These cupcakes or "faat gou" are always present during New Year celebrations because they represent prosperity and success. The more the cake spreads and blossoms on top, the more prosperous you'll be :) I really love that! Now I know to pick the biggest blooming one lol. Wishing you all a year full of happiness, good health, and great fortune!

When Cats Fly

I've always been fascinated by graffiti and we saw many cool ones when we were in Paris. I happened to see two from the same artist while wandering around different parts of the city. This cat is so cute with his wide grin. I instantly feel carefree and happy when I look at him. I found out that he is known as Monsieur Chat or Mister Cat. Apparently he has made his way all around the world! (You can read more about it here.) Well Mr. Cat...I'll be keeping an eye out for you from now on :)

 

Old vs. New

I love how Old Kyoto is nestled among the trees and hidden away from the modern city in this photo.

If I can travel to one place right now, it'll be Kyoto, Japan. It's such a magical place with breathtaking views,  beautiful traditions, delicious food, lovely handmade crafts, cute snacks and so much more. Now it's even easier for me to fly there! American Airlines have officially announced its partnership with Japan Airlines and will offer Boston its first nonstop service to Tokyo Narita starting on April 22nd. This will cut a few hours off of a very long flight for us Bostonians. I'm so excited! Kyoto...I'll see you soon :)

The Little Things

You must visit Suzuki's if you are near Rockland, ME. They have very fresh and delicious sushi.

Came across this photo today and it made me smile. It was so sweet to end a fantastic meal with this "thank you" from our server. Just a simple cute smiley face put me in such a good mood :)

Fit for a Queen

This necklace I made for my mom is definitely one of my favorite pieces.

I love to learn how to make all sorts of things and as a result, have always dabbled in many different arts and crafts. There are just so many wonderful things to learn out there and so little time! I started making jewelry a few years ago and started a small business call Pink Leaf. I only do custom work right now and my friend recently asked me to make her a pair of earrings. I can't wait to start working on it this weekend. Happy Friday everyone!

Happy Walk

I can finally share these pictures from James' birthday last month now that all the holiday posts are done. We took a lovely walk in the Public Garden that day before heading to dinner. The happiest part was when I spotted this little guy popping his head out of a hole in the tree. He was so cute! He just stared straight at me as I was taking his picture :) Hope you like these photos as much as I do!

Can you see him? James couldn't believe that I spotted him because he was so high up in the tree lol.

We love taking walks together and the Public Garden is one of our favorite spot ♥

(left) This guy was so cute and chubby; (right) Its been so warm lately that all the trees were starting to bud.

He found a peanut and was happily eating it.

I love the vibrant red color.

(left) Reminds me of a soft serve ice cream hehe; (right) More pretty berries

The spikey round things are so cool! Too bad I couldn't zoom any closer...they were so high up.

Another cute squirrel ready for a photo :)

Fill Me Up

Jasmine macarons I made for my Christmas cookie boxes

My new favorite way to fill French macarons! The small star tip pipes out the perfect amount of filling and I love seeing the pretty swirled-edge peaking out when the shells are sandwiched together :)

Happy 1st Birthday!

My little blog turns 1 year old tomorrow! I can't believe I've been blogging for a year already. When I first started this blog, I just wanted to share my photos with others. Since then it has become so much more than that. This blog has become my creative outlet where I can explore and share my love for photography, baking, traveling, writing, and anything else that I'm hooked on. Having this blog pushes me to be more productive and creative with my spare time. I find myself setting time aside to try new recipes or crafts and that makes me really happy.

One thing that surprised me about blogging is all of the friends that I've made from all over the world. It's really incredible. A few months after I started, I discovered the Stats page and it blew my mind. I could never imagine that all of these people were reading my blog! I was perfectly happy when I thought that it was just my close friends and family reading it. I couldn't stop smiling after that discovery. It's hard to believe that I have readers from Australia, France, England, Japan, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and so many other wonderful countries. I remember telling James one day that I have a reader from Latvia. That got me really excited because I didn't even know where Latvia was! (I promptly looked it up afterward lol) It's so fun to get to know someone who's half a world away and find out how similar we are :) I would love to get to know more of my readers so please join and leave comments!

This blog brings me so much happiness and I'm really looking forward to the year ahead. I'm inspired by so many amazing bloggers out there and I hope that I can inspire my readers too. I have a few fun projects planned and will start hosting giveaways..so stay tuned! Thank you so much for reading my blog and I hope to celebrate many more blog birthdays with you all! ♥

Now onto the cake! I wanted to bake something fun to celebrate and a confetti cake (also called funfetti cake) fits the bill. It has been on my list of things to bake for a while so I was happy to finally make it. I halved this white cake recipe and folded 2 tablespoons of rainbow sprinkles (the longer ones like these) into the batter. I baked it in a 10-inch pan so that I can cut smaller rounds out of the cake to make a mini layer cake.

I used a small bowl (it's around 4.5 inch in diameter) as a template and cut around it with a small sharp knife. The scraps are good to snack on while you're frosting the cake :)

I frosted the cake with half a batch of Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I love how cute this cake is. I think I'm going to make little cakes like this more often.

Sweet Duplicates

Did you figure out that I made meringue mushrooms from Monday's post? They're so cute and look incredibly real, don't they? I love how this photo turned out! I'm glad I had dried moss and acorn tops in my craft supplies (random, right? lol) to properly set up what I had envisioned for this shot :)

The light dusting of cocoa powder makes them look like they're covered in dirt :)

I used this Martha Stewart's recipe. The recipe was suppose to make around 3 dozen mushrooms but I got close to sixty! Maybe it was because I piped my mushrooms on the smaller side. You can definitely halve the recipe to make fewer mushrooms.

I did simplify the recipe a little bit by using only melted bittersweet chocolate. First, I carved the holes in the center of all the caps. Next I used a small offset spatula to cover the bottom of a cap with melted chocolate. I then dipped the smaller end of a stem into the bowl of melted chocolate and insert it into the hole of the cap that I just worked with. I repeated this step until all the mushrooms are formed. (Btw, I learned this method from Flour Bakery. One year during a slow holiday shift, I helped the bakers attach all the stems to the caps. I remember how fun it was and the memory made me smile while I was making these mushrooms :)

I let the chocolate set and stored them upside down in an airtight container so that the stems can't break off easily.

They're typically used to decorate a Bûche de Noël but I used them to garnish my crêpe cake. They make such a lovely presentation and they're so fun to eat too. Like biting into a sugar cloud :)

New Terrain

Happy New Year! Hope you had a wonderful celebration. I still have so many photos to share from the holidays. Can you guess what these are? Looks like a landscape from a different planet doesn't it? :) Come back on Wednesday to discover what they are!