Things We Like Thursdays -- Food Jewelry

I don't normally do "cutesy."  This is a general statement covering everything from movies to fashion to home decor.

Except for one little exception--I'm a total sucker for realistic mini food jewelry.  There's just something about wearing tiny bits of squee-worthy yumminess about your person that does it for me. Yes, cutesy out the wazoo.

I totally own these:

Seriously, if it wasn't for the earring hooks attached you'd so want a bite of that cake.

The genius behind these earrings is mmagda who sells, at ridiculously awesome prices on Etsy, a ton of different confectionary jewelry treats.  mmagda even does custom work.  Sadly, the rainbow cake earrings are no longer for sale, but these others are on my wishlist (click caption to go directly to Etsy listing):  

Chocolate Cupcake Bracelet

Sandwich Pendant

Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Ring

Waffle Bobby Pins

Cuteness overload!! (And no, I don't know mmagda and they don't know I am writing this. I'm just being a total fanboy.)

Things We Like Thursdays -- What's New Cupcake?

I harbor deep, unrealized fantasies of learning to decorate cakes, cookies, and cupcakes like a pro.  But honestly, the quest scares me a little bit.  There's fondant and gumpaste, gel coloring, rollers, and a whole slew of specialty language and tools to learn before I can even begin.

Or so I thought.

What if creating gorgeous, fun, whimsical cupcakes was easy?  What if anyone could do it with stuff they picked up at their local 7-11?  Well, seems Karen Tack and Alan Richardson have unlocked the secret code to do exactly that and shared it in their two cookbooks Hello, Cupcake! and What's New, Cupcake?.

Easter Flower cupcakes from Hello Cupcake's blog

Autumn Leaves and Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes

Recipes located here

What I love about these books is that the recipes use everyday items like M&Ms, Tootsie rolls, jelly beans and Circus Peanuts to make gorgeous cupcakes.  And the recipes are all accessible.  Instead of being intimidated I find myself inspired that I, too, can do this.  I don't like all of the recipes (a lot of dreaded CCC's. If you're a Cake Wrecks reader you know what I mean) but what I find most important about the books is they give you confidence, flexible ideas and techniques with examples that you can then leverage, like any technique, to make pretty much whatever your imagination fancies.

Things We Like Thursdays

This week Jo and I are starting "Things We Like Thursdays" to randomly rant or showoff anything fun, nifty, cool of entertaining we found this week.  Whether it be a new blog, a beautiful looking recipe, extra-yummy restaurant, a squee-worthy puppy licking a kitten in a room full of stuffed animals and rainbows, or anything else that crosses our beady little minds, Jo and I will be sharing our obsession of the week with you.

To kick off the inaugural edition of "Things We Like Thursdays" I present to you one of my top ten completely-unnecessary-but-OMG-I-want-it kitchen items: Geeky Ice trays.

That's right--the Overlords at ThinkGeek have brought us the coolest (argh, really?) nostalgia-inspiring drink accessory since the resurgence of 50's style milkshake blenders in the form of Space Invader Ice Cube trays. Imagine geeking out your favorite drink with these little dudes then rhapsodizing for hours with your friends about the gazillions of hours you spent crouching progressively lower (as if that ever helped) to avoid the alien descent.  Oh...was that just me?  Come on, you know you just like totally had an 80's flashback. Fer shure.