Welcome Back Love

Hi friends!  I've missed you.  Big apologies for my long absence.  As I indicated here I was attending a work conference and I don't really like blogging on my ipad which was all I had with me.  Please join me as we travel back in time.  We have so much to catch up on!  I briefly mentioned this past weekend in my last post but I wanted to share some projects I worked on as it was a very projecty weekend.  My dear friend Rachel recently had a baby and I wanted to make (bake?) a diaper cake for her.  I found very simple instructions here on pinterest (where else?).  I really wasn't sure how many dipes I'd need so I bought the biggest box I could find of size one, 128 tiny diapers.  It ended up being more than enough which is good to know for future reference.  Here's the finished product:

I put pieces of cardboard underneath the lower two layers for stability.

I was very pleased with how it turned out.  For a cake topper I wrapped up a little dress I got her.  I think a slightly smaller package on top would have looked better but live and learn.  I like the pink satin ribbons around each layer.  I stopped by yesterday to drop it off and meet the little princess.  She is a darling just like her big brother and sister.  I continued toiling on operation pocket square.  I actually brought it along to Milwaukee with me because evenings in a hotel room when traveling are actually one of the few times I have copious spare time.  I made a lot of progress and finally finished tracing out all the shapes.  Now I need to finish filling them in. 

Very glad I bought wide markers for shading in!

My mother helped me with another project over the weekend.  And by helped I mean, did it for me.  When I was in Chicago the weekend before I bough a really lovely piece of paper from Paper Source.  I didn't want to use it just for wrapping paper so I decided to frame it.  Luckily I had a  poster frame that was just the right size so my mom used it to frame the paper.  Here is how it turned out: 

Hanging on my baby blue wall right by my heart-print curtains.

Last night for dinner I tried a new recipe and it turned out deliciously!  Cook's Illustrated Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup.  As with other recipes from that source, the one I post here is pulled from another website as their recipes aren't publicly available.  I highly recommend getting a subscription as Cook's Illustrated recipes are always extremely delicious.  The only small change I made was instead of using heavy cream I used fat free half and half because that's what we had on hand.  It still had a great rich flavor.  Tonight I'm making Cook's Illustrated Herb-Crusted Salmon.  I just got the magazine with the recipe last week so I couldn't find a free version online right now.    I can't believe it's already Thursday.  The week goes fast when you're out of the office for three days.  This weekend I want to finish the pocket square and do a massive closet purge project.  Can't wait!  What fun do you have planned this weekend?  Have you ever baked a diaper cake?  How did it turn out?