I made cupcakes! I used the ice cream and cake mix recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor book last night – one box of white cake mix, three eggs, two cups of ice cream (melted). This time it worked (you may remember, last time I made it I didn’t look at the recipe first so I didn’t use the eggs and it, um, didn’t work at all). I used the suggested ice cream, Cherry Garcia. I’m a little disappointed, I was expecting more cherry bits. I also forgot to measure two cups of ice cream and just threw the whole pint in there, but they seem fine. Hm, is a pint two cups? [update: yes it is] They are very yummy cupcakes, and look so darn normal I didn’t bother taking a picture. I used tin foil cupcake liners (with the paper liners on the inside) because wuzzled from Glitter mentioned chocolate bits may fall to the bottom and make it messy. I’ll let you know if this is the case for Cherry Garcia as well.

As for tin foil liners. They come tin foil with a paper liner inside. I always used to think it was because tin foil was more expensive to produce and they were padding the stack. But I remembered Martha Stewart has a thing about not letting tin foil touch your food, aluminum and alzheimers and all that. I caught her on Car Talk (I’m an obsessive NPR listener) and she was talking about this, hinting that it was nearly a conspiracy on the part of the aluminum foil makers. I’m most likely exaggerating, but this is how I remember it. I don’t watch a lot of food tv or cooking shows, so I don’t know if this it is an understood thing that one should line aluminum with parchment paper so the food is safe. What do you guys think? Understood? Conspiracy?

I *heart* my mini pencam. I’ve had it three days and it’s definitely the toy I expected it to be. What I didn’t expect was just how small it is. Even this picture didn’t prepare me. It’s about one half the size of a pack of cigarettes. And it takes surprisingly good pictures. They’re big when they come off the camera – 1248 x 960 pixels. It’s perfect for those “I wish I had a camera” moments.

The Onion + Martha Stewart = funny

The Onion’s Stat Shot for the week is “Top Hiccup Cures”, so I feel compelled to dig in my archives and pull out how I cure hiccups which (mostly) works. There are some great cures in the comments too.

A great site I recently ran across – American Homebody. Take a look at the What’s That Bug? section, very helpful. And the recipes look very yummy.

news on smuggling kinder eggs!

wanna see a picture of my favorite kinder toy ever? I love this little thing

hot dog cookies! via ljc via posey girl

Glitter has pointed me to a site I saw a while back but lost the link to – The Frugal Fashionista, the projects have great instructions on turning thrift store finds into things you want to wear. Also check out instructions for Thrifting like a Pro and Fashion Alchemy.

PETA’s listing of animal ingredients and their alternatives – scroll down to get to the list. “Carmine” has always been a favorite of mine, I won’t drink Ocean Spray grapefruit juice anymore because of it. Unfortunately I think carmine can also be listed as “natural coloring”.

Sense & Sensibility offers new hand drafted patterns for historical garments and so much more. There are pictures of garments made with the patterns, sewing tips for the patterns (check out the recommended reading), great links, a wonderful library of vintage images from 1795 to 1959, and message boards. For the best of all take a look at the Diary of a Dress, documenting the building of a gown from concept to wedding pictures; and all of the fabulous documentation and photos in The “Titanic” Project.

[This post is also over at Sew Wrong.]

Squibnocket is starting up a new online knitting magazine!

I love this idea from Daily Candy – throw a prom party. You can pick a prom theme, and have a theme within a theme. They even recommend Plum Party for decorations.

household tips from marlys! how to safely and gently discourage ants from sticking around

some links I’ve been gathering

sewing and costuming
• jenny la fleur
• sense & sensibility
• that sinking feeling
• the costume gallery

  quilting

• denyse schmidt
• nancy crow
• carol taylor

  the rest

• tiny envelope
• sowear

links via erica mulherin, caterina, and anita rowland

crafty bitch has up a resources page for knitters and craft supplies, including a list of NYC yarn shops

Darn! I recently ordered the mini pencan because it was “cuter” than the new pencam mega – but now I find that the mega has macro focus (up close), which I use a lot. Of course, I didn’t read the product description close enough to figure that out the first time around. I’ll get the mega instead, but I adore how teeny the mini pen cam is! It even comes with a lanyard so you can wear it as jewelry. Sigh.

update: the mini has the little macro focus ring as well, see the comments for more than you wanted to know