A Little LOST Love

I love Lost. I mean, I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE Lost. Some friends and I had a pretty spectacular Hawaiian themed Lost finale viewing party this weekend complete with Dharma beer and Mr. Cluck’s fried chicken… “Have a cluckety-cluck-cluck day!”. One of our party activities was to make tshirts using iron on transfers and puff paints. Needless to say, we became a pretty creative bunch, pretty fast!

Geo's "Polar Beer, Maaaaaaaaaaalt Liqour" design

My friend, Pharon, modeling her "Mr. Eko in a Dharma Logo" design

A friend sent me a link to these spectacular gems. Each poster, designed by Ty Mattson, is available on abc.com for $45.95 each. Not only are these retro style posters a great way to immortalize my favorite show on my wall, I’m thinking that they may make an awesome tshirt as well! :)

Finale party pics…just for fun…

good v. evil, balloon form

Dharma beer, a product of the Hanso Foundation

wall of candidates

Dharma Initiative cupcakes

Funky French

I am in my twenties. When I think of twenty-something apartments and homes, I certainly don’t think of Louis XVI Chairs. Ornate Louis chairs seem to scream grandmother dining rooms instead of young bachelorette pad. However, I’ve been seeing (and LOVING) revamped Louis XVI inspired chairs with funky print fabric and brightly painted frames a lot lately.

If you are feeling crafty, you could definitely whip up one of these bad boys yourself. Try typing “French Chair” or “Louis XVI Furniture” into Craigslist or Ebay. You might be able to find an interesting piece at a local thrift store as well. Any piece with a French style wood frame will work well. All you need then is a fun fabric (no sewing required…just use a staple gun!), and some bright or metallic paint. Make sure that you prime the frame prior to painting to avoid chipping (lord only knows what may have been adhered on the frame in the past so don’t skip the primer…you want YOUR paint to stick). Nail head trim can add a little “bling” if you desire that look.

These sassy statement pieces can punch up any living room…belonging to young and old.

{all images from the web}

Caramel Cupcakes

As previously mentioned, I don’t bake. I respect bakers immensely. I am way too impatient for the exact timing and precise measurements that baking entails. I do however LOVE the decorating part of baking (probably the designer in me). I usually buy the break-n-bake or cake mix in a box varieties since it get me through the baking phase and into the decorating phase much quicker…and have less room for error.

A few months ago, my bookclub read Kathryn Stockett’s The Help about African-American maids working in Mississippi in 1962. I worshiped this book and highly recommend (make sure you block out a day or two before starting it as you most definitely won’t be able to put it down!). The book is packed full of baked Southern delicacies. I started thinking that if these women can whip up a pie every afternoon while holding a child on their hip, polishing the silver, cleaning an entire house, and roasting whatever type of meat is going to be served for “supper”, then I can certainly make a simple cake or something.


I chose Martha Stewart’s Caramel Cake recipe and called off my entire afternoon. I opted to make cupcakes instead because I simply thought that they would look cuter on the cake stand. It took a LONG time and I had to remake the caramel syrup* three times, but boy, were they good!

{snapshots of baking}

{on cake stand with spring flowers}

* I tried the caramel syrup in Martha’s recipe twice and it kept coming out way too watery. Finally, I busted out an old cookbook and found a new way that worked much better: Start with one cup of sugar in the pan and cook over burner until it becomes a golden liquid. Add 1/2c of boiling water. It turns out much thicker than MS’s.