Happy Birthday, Etc.

So, finally, four days after the fact I am finally blogging about my birthday! We had a wonderful weekend celebrating and I have lots of pictures to share this post! I will begin with Josh's gift. First of all, it came wrapped in sprinkle paper and a scented gift bag. That's right...it smelled like cupcakes! They're made by American Greetings and this particular one came from Wal-Mart. Also available that I know of are chocolate and ice cream scented. What was in the bag, you ask? Well, it was this gorgeous bottle of perfume! (You should go to the website for it, it's really cool) Nina by Nina Ricci (which also came with a really cute brown and pink plaid duffel bag which is wrapped in the sprinkle paper).Not only does it come in this beautiful soft raspberry-colored glass apple, it has a truly enchanting scent. I smelled it once in one of those samples from a magazine and couldn't forget it. I tore out the page and held onto it until the smell was gone. Now I have an actual bottle and I'm delighted! It begins crisp and spicy with a hint of citrus for balance, then you pick up these sweet, candied apple notes- a comforting vanilla offset with a fresh fruitiness and this gentle floral scent somewhere in the mix. It finally mellows out to a sweet, earthy tone like an orchard after rain. I think if you could stand under a tree, a fairytale tree that grew a myriad of fruits and sugarplums- candies and cookies and cakes and big, aromatic flowers...this is what the air would smell like where you stood. :)This next picture is a grouping of gifts from my mother-in-law who has an incredible knack for finding things that I LOVE! Don't these things look just like me? They're totally things I'd pick out for myself. These are all cupcake themed kitchen items by Susan Winget for Cracker Barrel.
There's a recipe card album with cute pink cupacke recipe cards and a little pink ceramic rolling pin recipe card holder with cupcakes on it for holding a recipe card on your counter while you're cooking. Then, of course, the ice cream cone pot holder and the cupcake dishtowel that are now hanging in my kitchen! This was part of that gift, too- and from the same cupcake Cracker Barrel line...a sweet little glass cupcake nightlight!This, too, is from aforementioned mother-in-law's fabulous birthday goodie bag: a ceramic caramel apple container from Hallmark! This was one of those crazy coincidences that tend to happen to me sometimes. See, the week before my birthday I was in a Hallmark here getting Josh an Anniversary card when I saw these caramel apple things and loved them. But I convinced myself to wait in hopes that after Halloween/Fall, they'd go on sale. Then, lo and behold, I got one for my birthday! Yay! Cute, right?Since I love pictures of food, I took several of the birthday cake....Yes, that's pink ice cream. It went with the cake...and yes, I picked it out. It's Goldenbrook cherry limeade sherbet, actually, and it was delicious. Very light and refreshing.I took a picture of all these cards because they're all the ones I received with cupcakes on them...seems people know me pretty well! :) Now, speaking of cupcakes (and, really, aren't we always?) I have a new tablecloth that's absolutely adorable: And, so, with that, we begin the trasition from birthday to etcetera...here are just some things I wanted to share. First of all- I have a new favorite granola bar. I love granola bars and am always trying new ones. Among my favorite brands are Kashi and Back to Nature, but these bars from Cascadian Farm may have just eclipsed them both. I've only tried these two flavors as of yet, and these two flavors are pretty unsual for me- I'm typically more partial to the fruit and nut varieties. For some reason, the day I bought these I was in a chocolate peanut butter mood. These bars strike a perfect balance of chewiness, chunkiness, saltiness, and sweetness. They even look better-fresher perhaps, than your average snack bar. They're glossy, and not too compact. Plus they're USDA organic, so there's that. The peanut butter chip has 140 calories per bar and the sweet and salty (which reminds me vaguely of a Take 5 bar) has 160...but it's bottom is coated in chocolate...and it's worth it.

I haven't been thrifting much lately (though now I have birthday money burning a hole in my pocket so I may have to plan some flea-marketing for the near future), but I do have a couple of new treasures. One of them is this little basket with the mushrooms on top. It's like a tiny picnic basket; it's top is hinged in the middle and opens on both sides. It'd make a cute purse. I found these endlessly interesting as I'd never seen them before so I thought someone else might be equally intrigued...these, we determined, are acorns from a Burr Oak. Aren't they cool looking?The other thing I really must post about this week is this truly amazing swap surprise I received in the mail yesterday, but I feel it deserves its very own post so that will be next...and it will be great, just wait and see!

Thanks for visiting!

sweetly, happily, and artfully yours,

randi