The Lovely Bones...

Normally I don't blog much about movies I've seen, but this one warranted it. I saw The Lovely Bones based on Alice Sebold's beautiful novel. The novel was one of my favorite books. It invoked many feelings in me and I found myself in the book sharing the feelings of Susie's family. I felt hatred, sadness, anger, outrage, pain, longing and so many other feelings as the family, along with susie, worked toward finding the "skeevy" neighbour who heinously drained her body of it's joyful life.

The movie was quite another affair. Peter Jackson took the helm, and left the story without much of the deep feeling I describe about the novel. He has a brilliant mind in terms of otherworldly realms and fantastic story lines, however that mind was not made for THIS story. He spent too much time on his version of "the in between" where Susie has transitioned to soon after her murder. Granted, this visualization brought by Jackson is surreal and quite breathtaking, even perhaps a bit thought prevoking but leans towards confusing. It caused irreparable damage to the subtle nuances the story has. With him in charge the human element is nearly drained from the story line. The only thing that gave this film any weight at all was the beautiful selection of actors chosen to create this cast. They were almost perfect in my mind. For me Stanley Tucci was non existent and all I could see and feel was the creep factor his brilliance loaned to his character ( murderer, George Harvey).

My final comment is that while George Harvey may have slowly and painfully sucked the joie de vivre out of Susie Salmon, Peter Jackson did brought the same tragic fate to the story and subsequently this moive.

More DYI Party Projects

I have to admit that when I first decided to do everything myself (in terms of decor etc) I had no idea how much work would be involved. That being said I have really loved working on Ruari party. It's filled a lot of spare time, and occupied a brain that needs distraction. Having had a blow of bad news in my life recently it's nice to havethe party to look forward to and the planning to keep me from dwelling on the bad.

So far the invites are made and mailed, you can see them here. Over the past week I made 2 birthday banners, a party hat prototype, wrapped the cuterly and added homemade/coordinating napkin rings and a few other things I haven't taken photos of yet. All while either watching But for now here are a few of the finished items.

Yumm-O!

Just thought I would share some of the goodies we've had recently. They are all treats that work through the holidays. I must say the cakes pop are my favorite, they are hard to eat because they are so beautiful!


First up is my Mini Cherry Cheesecakes. They are so good I almost hate making them. Seriously they can even fully cool before they are gone!

 Ingredients:

12 Vanilla wafers
2 Packages (8oz) Cream Cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup cherry pie filling

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 1 wafer in bottom of each of 12 paper-lined medium muffin pan cups; set aside.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing just until blended after each addition. Spoon evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.

Bake for 30 minutes. Turn off oven; open oven door slightly. Let stand in oven 30 minutes. Remove from oven; cool completely. Top with pie filling. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving. Store leftover cheesecakes in refrigerator.

 

 

Next up are these super cute and scrumptious Pumpkin Pie Bites. I found them over at Bakerella. Click here for the recipe.





 

 

Last, I share my cake pops with you. These are made the "old school" way. By crumbling the cake and mixing in the icing. No cake pop moulds here folks!

 

What you'll need:

 

• A cake mix of your favorite flavour
• A tub of your favorite frosting
• Chocolate melting wafers
• A big piece of Styrofoam at least 2" thick
   

Here's what you do:

 

• Bake a boxed cake, following the instructions. Then crumble it all up nice and fine, this takes a while, but be patient, it's so worth it!
• Soften a can of frosting a little bit.You don't want it liquidy, just nice and soft.
• Using a spatula or wooden spoon mix the frosting into the cake crumbs.
• When it's finished it will be the texture of a gooey, dense brownie.
• Roll it into 1" balls. Insert your candy sticks most of the way through.
• Refrigerate
• While the balls are cooling melt your chocolate wafers (any colour you like)
• Once melted  you can pull out your cake pops and dip them into the melted chocolate.

Get creative! The ideas are endless!

 



 

 

 

Typical woman?

When I returned to blogging I decided it was high time for a fresh look. I changed it up completely. Out with the old blah black and blue layout I designed last year and in with something new and funky. I don't really have it in me to sit down to Photoshop and recreate another design (at least not right now) so in the mean time I am gonna have to go "shopping" for a premade theme. In the coming days it might be a new look every time you arrive while I work on finding a new, though temporary look.

Creating a Ladybug party

With Ruari's 2nd birthday quickly approaching, I am well into the chaotic party planning. I've made lists (and sub lists) and know exactly what needs to be done before the big day. Now I am throwing myself into the actual act of getting things done. First on the list has been to come up with the PERFECT invitation. Now granted I have seen a few cute ones on the Internet I was hell bent on making them myself. So I did a search for some ideas and found a few that I took ideas from. I can not claim this as my own design, however I did make them myself with a few customizations.

I have also been working on some of the decorations. Little hand painted ladybugs. These little cuties were made out of styrofoam balls, paint, googly eye, and pipe cleaner. Simple as that. HOWEVER simple in theory doesn't always mean simple in practice. I spent 2 hours and only finished 6. I still have about a dozen to go. The idea is to use them to sit on the tables, though that may not be the final use for them. Not too shabby for items made solely from items found at my local Dollar Store, eh? I still have a ton to do and create and I'll post more as I get it done. For now check out the photos of the invites and decorations:

Hello my fairweather friend...

I have some time on my hands and it's been a really long year. Out with the old (2009) and in with the new (2010)I have some exciting things coming up in the next little while, one of which is the celebration of the birth of my kids. My youngest will be 2 in Feb, followed by my son who will enter his teen years in March (yikes!). Where has the time gone?

I have spent the better part of this year getting familliar with the medical world. Nothing like a life threatening illness to make you appreciate the little things in life. I promise to write about this painful part of my life, but not now. Too much fun going on to dwell on the bad stuff.

I am in full party planning mode for my Daughters party. The theme this year is ladybugs... I am planning to do most of it myself and by hand. So I'll post my pics and ideas along the way.

Oh, and it's nice to be back to blogging again...