Milwaukee Pride

Zach and I are really convinced that we are living in one of the best cities in the U.S. Everything about Milwaukee is just so perfect. We love the urban/city feel but all the accessibility and ease of a smaller city. We never pay for parking (which is a huge deal coming from Chicago) and if traffic is really bad it might add another 5-10 minutes on to your drive (which is a huge deal also coming from California!). We live in a neighborhood part of the city on the South Side and yet we are still a short 10 minute drive from the beautiful Lake Michigan beaches. I could seriously talk about how much I love this city for hours. I found a few great blogs/websites that do justice to how cool this city is as well as making some great recommendations for where to visit/eat/drink/shop/play.

Come visit soon!

"A visual resource guide for Milwaukee."

Design Sponge Guide to Milwaukee

Where I've been...

Wow. It has been almost TWO YEARS since my last post! Where have I been? Well, my wonderful hubby and I welcomed our first little one into our life on July 11, 2010 and life has been crazy full with pregnancy, morning sickness, adjusting to a baby, diapers, and all the other things that come with adjusting to becoming parents. It has been a busy two years but we are so happy with our little family.

I've been thinking about this blog a lot lately and I am way overdue to begin regular posting again. I have so many things to update all of you on! This blog will continue to focus on all things antique, vintage and kitchen related but I have become so passionate about being a Mama that I have many things to say about that now too. (Plus, I my little boy has the sweetest nursery full of cute little antiques that I will have to post about.)

It's good to be back.

<3 Alicia

Peacock

Zach and I found this lovely book while antiquing in Petaluma, CA. My sister-in-law loves peacocks and we would have loved to have bought it for her but we couldn't afford it. I just thought is was so pretty that I had to take a picture.

Cupcakes!

It has been WAY too long since I have blogged. I've realized it's one of those things that the longer it goes the harder it is to get back into it. I'm not going to do anything too ambitious today but I've had a few requests for pictures from the fabulous shower I threw so I wanted to follow up on that. The cupcakes were AMAZING. I definitely recommend the recipe deck I mentioned in one of my earlier posts.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. Vintage glass snack plates (my favorite for showers) and vintage silverware in a green painted metal container I found antiquing.

Raspberry Lemonade with fresh raspberries and mint. Served in the snack set glasses.

This may have been my favorite cupcake of the day. Bananna Butterscotch Cupcakes with a Butterscotch frosting.

Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

I printed out photographs of vintage weddings from www.shorpy.com and placed them all around the house. I had Hydrangeas throughout the house that I cut from my mom's yard.

These were little tea sandwiches. Cucumber Dill and Roasted Red Pepper.

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I made 5 different kinds of cupcakes. These two were Spring Bouquet with a slight almond flavor to the pink frosting and Chocolate with Chocolate Buttercream frosting (it was amazing).

Ham and Gouda Croissant sandwiches. The little pink glass jar eventually had some dijon in it for the sammys.

Egg salad sandwiches.

It was a beautiful shower. I could never have pulled it off without help from my fabulous friend Sharon!

a cloche hat...um...Yes Please!

I still need to upload pictures from the amazing shower that I threw for my friend Amanda. I will get to that soon...

In the meantime my husband has shared one of his internet loves with me and I am obsessed. You must check this website out! It is basically a blog of the most beautiful (mostly black and white photographs) from the Library of Congress archives. I am completely addicted to scrolling through these amazing photos. The ones of women, children and African American's are always particularly striking to me (not so much the train pics. ha ha).

So Zach and I live in a house that was built in 1927. We have always loved old things but since moving into our house we have become especially interested in this specific year. As I've been looking through the pictures on Shorpy I have once again been struck by the styles of the 1920's and decided that it would be fun to have something to wear from the era of my house. The item of clothing that keeps standing out to me is the Cloche Hat.

Oh my goodness how CUTE are these! I must have one!!! This will be my latest item to search for in our next antiquing adventures. I will keep you posted. I think the first time I ever saw one was on Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon (fabulous movie by the way. GREAT 20's fashion!)

Inspiration

Two of my friends heard I was throwing a shower and that I was hoping to make lots and lots of cupcakes so they purchased this lovely "deck" of recipes for me to inspire me during my planning. The recipes in here are DELICIOUS and surprisingly easy for baking from scratch. Plus, they come in a cute little deck that is fun to leave out in your kitchen.

I will be posting pictures of the cupcakes I made and the fabulous table from the shower soon.

Oh My Goodness!!!

I am throwing a bridal shower for a good friend of mine tomorrow and as I have been preparing I have realized that I have a serious lack of beautiful cake stands in my life. I envision the table tomorrow filled with adorable milk glass cake stands loaded with homemade cupcakes. Alas, I have only one cake stand, and it is glass. This raised my curiosity about what types of cakes stands even exist out there that would fit in my fabulous vintage kitchen...I am quite happy with what I was able to discover.

If only I could order a few of these in time for tomorrow's shower! *sigh*

I have a feeling that the shower is going to be quite beautiful sans my own personal collection of gorg vintage cake stands. I have a few tricks up my sleeve and I plan to post pictures soon. Stay tuned!

These adorable cake stands are currently for sale on ebay!