“Total eye candy.”
Bake it Pretty has a fantastic assortment of cupcake papers, vintage toppers and birthday candles, and a huge variety of sprinkles, sugars and “jimmies”.  I’m really like the photography, too. It’s professional looking and I can imagine that all of the tiny-scale photo shoots were a really fun time. It makes the store fun to browse.  The best part about this online shop, though, is the prices.  I’ve been noticing a lot of these specialty baking stores popping up around the interwebs (the designer cupcake papers are getting huge!) and decided to do some comparison shopping.  Trust me, if you want something special, buy it here.

This quirky cake topper was my favorite cake out of the bunch, so I bought it.  I’m excited to have it peddling around the top of my birthday cake!  Woo hoo!

Visit her on etsy or at bakeitpretty.com

{p.s. If you call after you’ve placed your order in a bit of a panic because you’re spacey and forgot to change your address with PayPal, so your package is going to be sent to the WRONG address, she’s REALLY nice about changing it for you. Ahem.}

I have a pair of “it’s pouring” rubber rain boots, and I love them.

But I need a pair of “it’s wet but not pouring and I can’t wear bright orange boots with this outfit” boots. Choices have been narrowed down to TWO!

These “Toematillo” boots from my favorite company, Simple Shoes. Love their politics, love their products. I’m worried they’ll be a bit warm for spring, though.

The other possibility are these:

I love that you can fold them down, and they’ll be good in the early spring. But will they be too flimsy?

I can’t vouch for their quality, but they are cute and cheerful and cheap enough to buy two! Happy umbrellas at Old Navy, just $9.50 each. These two are my favorites. Buy them here.

This is my perfect fancy holiday party outfit, which I pulled together for the express purpose of shopping without actually plugging in my Amex, ala the verbose-but-precisely named blog Things that I love that I can’t afford, by Stu!.

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A vintage burgundy silk dress from J.Crew. I love the length, the color and the shape.

These perfect shoes from the UK company Toast. They’re not flats, but I could walk blocks and blocks in these because the heels are low and they have straps to keep them from sliding.  I won’t have to do that thing where I wear gross shoes to a party and quickly switch before I walk in.  Don’t judge me!  All the New York girls do this!

Funky raw but elegant earrings from Lauren Wolfe. They’re so beautiful.

A Holly Golightly-worthy swing coat in classic black, from Neiman Marcus.

1. Keep steadfast in your hunt for the perfect purse. It will be worth it in the end.

2. If you don’t read the paper, cancel your subscription.

3. Irish car bombs are fun! But only once.

4. Meeting people in real life from flickr is fun and not creepy! (Happy anniversary, G!)

5. You have to let bread rise twice, or it won’t be as pretty. If you can’t wait, though, it’ll still taste good having risen only once. Also, if you need it to keep for several days, undercook it a little bit. When you’re ready for a slice, cut off your slightly doughy portion and finish it in the toaster over. Fresh bread for days! Make sure you keep it wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, though, or it will mold.

6. Tow truck drivers really do say “ten four!”

7. Seriously, don’t buy hard to register cars, like, say, vintage Volkswagons you can’t drive. Really. Really. Just don’t.

8. I build pretty snazzy shelves!

9. It’s fun to get up the day after Thanksgiving if you have fun guys to hang out with. And totally worth it if you want to score a Wii.

10. Speaking of Wii’s, you really do need to respect that they are “physical activity”.

11. I don’t need an expensive bed.

12. I don’t need two Thanksgiving dinners.

13. Photography is not too hard to learn. You should get a book, though, to help.

14. To clean vomited calamari out of your car: 1. Make your husband do it. 2. Be smug in the fact that you have something with which to mock certain friends with for a good long while.

15. There are a lot of REALLY amazing people in Puerto Rico who will help you should you find a dirty hurt dog and want to adopt them.

16. Dogs > diamonds.

17. 50mm lenses are AWESOME!

18. The iPhone is NOT over-hyped. It is awesome.

19. The only marriage anyone should ever have an opinion on is their own.

20. Rainbow Christmas > White Christmas.

21. Bringing your own shopping bags to the grocery store isn’t too hard once you get into the habit, and so much nicer than lugging gross, bad-for-the-earth plastic bags that cut into your hands.

22. When you are too sick to decorate your Christmas tree, it is wonderful to have friends come over and do it for you.

23. When you are part of a family, you can make up silly phrases, words, and songs and then use them on a regular basis. (In our family, some of them are, “Happy Dog Face”, “Happy Dog Foot”, “Uncertain Foot”, “Kind Words”, “Furminating”, “Snearaly”, “Sweetie Ears” and “Puppy Pile”. Also, the “Mountain Laurel Song” and the Song for Chubby Dogs.)

24. Rob and I have nearly the same political views. I honestly didn’t check before I married him, but I’m glad that worked out.

25. Bring your camera everywhere.

26. You can’t split a White Castle Crave Case three ways without risking a horrible stomach ache.

27. I learned a lot about the real estate and geography of western Brooklyn. In fact, I’m pretty much an expert on western Brooklyn neighborhoods.

28. Keep your eye on Tino. He’ll escape.

29. Ask tons of “stupid” questions if you’re confused about your health insurance. It will save you hundreds of dollars.

30. Dogs get colds! Who knew?!

31. Peeps are fun!

32. The dogs like goldfish, and so do I.

33. My husband makes breakfast in bed for me on my birthday. SCORE!

34. Good photography comes from the heart and soul and eyes. It does not come from the camera.

35. If you’re feeling blue, throw a dinner party with true friends who don’t care that you threw it together last minute. It will be good for your soul.

36. Margarine is the devil.

37. It’s ok to make $350,000 impulse purchases for sentimental reasons. Wait, hang on, this one I’m not sure about yet.

38. Ehhhhhh, you can cut your own hair. Well, I can.

39. If you have no dishwasher, you need to just buckle down and handwash on a regular basis, otherwise you will be stuck with Mount Dishmore.

40. Podcamp people are cool.

41. Living in Brooklyn suits me.

I take a sweatshirt everywhere. Everywhere. Even in 90 degree heat when I know I’m going to be wandering around New York City all day, off and on the 115 degree subway, I bring a sweatshirt. Most of the time I end up never putting it on and have to carry it all over the city getting stopped by strangers who point out that I’ve been dragging it on the sidewalk for the past five blocks. You’d think I’d learn to take a minute before I leave to gauge the weather and determine if a sweatshirt is necessary, but I don’t. Either way, though, I figure, “Of course it’s necessary because I might spend five minutes in a store that has the air conditioning on, and I might get slightly cold.” And that would be totally unacceptable.

One would figure, then, that when going to Canada in mid-September I’d be sure to have plenty of sweatshirts packed, but no. I don’t know what sort of head-up-my-ass thought process I had going on while I was packing, but I managed to get all the way to the United States border before I realized, hey! I don’t have anything warmer than a long sleeved tee shirt with me.

oops.

An afternoon of shopping didn’t really yield anything more than a men’s brown zip up hoodie from H&M which I bought but don’t really like. There’s nothing in the stores that appeals to me, and I’m pretty bummed out about it. For the ladies, they seem to have an over-abundance of wrap sweaters which make me look like I’m wearing my dad’s bath robe, and cropped sweaters that don’t do anything for people who want to be warm. I doubt I’ll be doing much serious fall shopping this year; the over all trend seems to be “ugly”.

But for now, I’m warm in Canada.