I'm a Regular Martha Stewart

I kicked butt today. I was little Suzie Homemaker.

I made carrot cake cupcakes for Ben for a belated birthday treat. Ben is a huge fan of carrot cake (and especially the cream cheese frosting) and he requested it in cupcake form this year. I was a little skeptical but I think they turned out great. I usually destroy any cake or cupcake while applying the frosting but I was tried a new technique this time. I actually put all the frosting into a Ziploc bag and cut one of the bottom corners off...sort of a home made pastry bag. Then I was able to just pipe the frosting on to the top of the cupcakes. Clearly my technique is not, yet, perfected...but it served its purpose.

While the cupcakes were baking and cooling, I did a little decoupage. I totally hate the name...it sounds so fancy and pretentious when it's the furthest thing from it. I started with a plain old unfinished wood magazine holder from Ikea. I coated it with decoupage medium (basically fancy glue) and wrapped a piece of green paper around it. I chose a something similar to tissue paper but woven with paper fibers to give it more texture or interest. After it dried, I slathered on two more coats of the decoupage glue and voila! I think it looks far more interesting and a whole lot less Ikea.

It was so easy. After I finish the second one this week, I'm going to hunt around the house for other things I can improve with a little decoupage. I've got a couple of boxes from Ikea made out of the same type of cheap, unfinished wood. I think I'm going to look for some cute kid's print papers to cover then and give them to Carter to store his millions of Lego pieces.
OK, so I know that you are already impressed but that's not all I did today.
I spent some time in our garden weeding and pruning back a rose bush. I made spaghetti sauce from scratch. And, I can't forget the fruit salad that I made to take to a friend's house for brunch this morning.
I was a regular Martha Stewart today...cooking, baking, gardening, crafting...just no insider trading or jail time.
I do have to admit, I didn't get everything done on my "to do" list today. I didn't get around to coloring my hair. Fortunately my husband isn't even looking at me, he's so distracted by his carrot cake cupcakes. Now I just need to find time to color my hair before all 24 cupcakes are gone.