Category Archives: art

Paris: The Details

Even though I’ve la-la-LOVED each and every Paris post I’ve done so far: {sights}, {Eiffel tower}, {food}, this one may be my favorite.  Here are all the little details I caught on our trip, the things you may not notice at first but inevitably add up to make Paris the spectacular city that it is.

I bring you Paris: The Deets.

We spotted these guys ALL over the city; they’re from the Invader project and so fun to keep an eye out for!

MINNIE!!  My frenchie BFF.

This frenchie {with his spiked collar and “I don’t give a ****” glare} is cooler than you’ll ever be.

Tune in for Paris: By Night next!

Rainbow Sprinkle Cake

On Friday night I made the mistake of uttering this doom-filled sentence:

I haven’t had a good cry in awhile. 

(If that’s not straight out of Sh*t Girls Say, I don’t know what is.)

I may as well have shouted to the universe, MAKE SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN TO ME!  BE MEAN!  MAKE ME CRY!

Seriously, as soon as I said those words aloud, I knew I was in for it.

As a aside: I do have a theory; I believe that if I don’t have a good cry every couple of months or so, my tear ducts get filled and I accidentally start sobbing over every day events and YouTube videos like this one.*

Fast forward to Super Bowl Sunday, when I’m frosting The Rainbow Sprinkle Cake and prancing around the kitchen proclaiming “This is the best day ever!”

Doo-dee-doo-dee-doo! Sprinkles, happiness, rainbows, butterflies!  Nothin’s gonna get me down!

And then…smashBANGboomCRAAAAASH.

Just as I was gearing up to take this picture, skipping around the apartment in a rainbow-sprinkle haze…

I smacked my super-fancy too-expensive camera off of the counter and straight onto the wood floor.

Yeah…I bet you can guess what happened next.  Roughly four seconds of holding it together, hoping against hope that my camera just MIGHT turn on and then…

Waterworks.

First I called my sister and was like “My…my…my..c-c-c-CAAAAAAMERA. I dropped it. WAaaaaaaaahhhhh.”

Then I called Mike, increasingly hysterical, “I DROPPPPPPED MY CAMERAAAAA. WAAAAHHH!” (similar to the “I’m going to lose my TOOOOOOOOES” incident of Halloween ’11)

Finally, I called my mom, who was kind enough to ask, “Do you think it will be fixed in time for Paris?” to which I responded: “WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I sobbed it out for a couple more minutes until my roomie Sarah said, “Just think of what a great story this will be for your blog!”

Way to see the silver lining, Sar.

Luckily Little Miss Sunshine pulled me out of my tragic [totally non-dramatic] sobfest and I was taking thousands of [back-up camera] photos of this BEAUTIFUL rainbow sprinkle cake in no time.

Best day ever,  90% resumed.

Now my precious baby is in the capable hands of Best Buy’s oh-so-helpful Geek Squad and I’m crossing my fingers and toes that it will be fixed before Paris (which, btdubs, we leave for in ONE MONTH).

The moral of the story is that even if tragedy strikes, a rainbow sprinkle cake will 90% fix your problems and make 100% of everyone around you happy.  The end.

Rainbow Sprinkle Cake

serves: like, a lot of people

Ingredients

  • 2 boxes white cake mix
  • 6 eggs**
  • 2/3 cup oil**
  • 2 cups water**
  • Food coloring
  • 3 cans vanilla frosting
  • 1 cup rainbow sprinkles
**This the amount of eggs, oil, and water that Pillsbury’s boxed cake mix called for.  If you use a different brand of cake mix, follow the amount of eggs, oil, and water printed on the box.
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 8-inch round cake pan (if you have multiple 8-inch cake pans, grease as many as you have).
  2. Prepare cake batter according to the box’s instructions.  Separate batter evenly into 6 bowls (I measured that I had 9 cups of cake batter, which meant 1 1/2 cups of batter per bowl).  Use food coloring to dye each bowl a different color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
  3. Pour one color into prepared cake pan; bake for 11 minutes or until the top is slightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes; remove cake from pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.  Repeat for each of the colors.
  4. When the cakes have cooled completely, start with purple on the bottom (or whichever color you’d like) and spread a thin layer of frosting over the top.  Repeat with each color, ending with the red layer on top.  Apply a thin layer of frosting to the entire cake (top and sides) as a “crumb coat”.  Stick it in the fridge or a cool place for 15-20 minutes, until frosting is no longer sticky to the touch.
  5. Spread remaining frosting onto top and sides.  Coat entire cake with sprinkles.  Cut, admire, and enjoy!

*Lie.  I just watched the video again and sobbed my eyes out again, despite the tear duct-emptying “good cry” of yesterday.

Chihuly

As promised, here are some pictures I took at the Chihuly exhibit at the MFA – if you live in Boston and haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, I highly suggest you do! And just a tip: go on a Friday night. It’s empty!

Happiness

A few reasons that I’m smiling on this lovely Sunday morning:

1. I still can’t get over this seriously amazing sandwich/work of art that one of the kids brought for lunch on Friday. As a former sandwich artist (whattup Subway!), I know just how much talent this must have required. Behold:

2a&b. I made two fantastic purchases in Harvard Square yesterday.

2a: This awesome print of monuments in Paris. It’s actually wrapping paper, but I plan to frame it!

2b: A Charley Harper coloring book!!!!!! Call me a child, call me a preschool teacher, but I am beyond excited to start coloring in my “own” Charley Harper (*favorite artist alert*) masterpieces. Next stop: CVS for a 64-pack of crayons with a sharpener in the back (do they still make those??).

3. T-minus 3 days until I move into my new adorable apartment with Domenica and Fina. There will be baking, and lots of it 🙂

Hope everyone is having a sunny and funny weekend!

The perfect Valentine’s gift

Remember this post where I discovered my love of the artist Charley Harper? Well, my very thoughtful boyfriend gave me a Charley Harper print of “Neck and Neck” for an anniversary/Valentine gift. My first piece of real art! We are so adult. For a slightly better picture and more of Harper’s work, go here. And while we’re at it, here’s the February print from the calendar!