Thank You!

Have I told you all how much I love the fabulous Jill over at Peeptoe Pumps and Pearls?! She is a wonderful friend and she sent me the sweetest surprise over the weekend. Isn't this the best wrapping paper? I wanted to tear into the box, but I diligently removed all of the tape so I could save the paper to use myself...it's just so cute!

Here's what was inside:

Isn't that the truth?!
Thanks so much to my sweet friend for thinking of me.

-----------------------------

I was a very lucky girl to receive not one package, but two! Alison from Decadent Designs sent me a thank you gift for hosting the giveaway last week. I was blown away by her generosity and kindness. I received an adorable red and white apron with an "A" on it and two red and white kitchen towels! Thank you so much Alison!

How sweet life is when you have friends like Jill and Alison!

My New Look!

Hi Lovelies! I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in over a week. I honestly just have felt no desire to do so, but I have been commenting and reading all of your wonderful blogs! I feel like I have so much to tell you, but absolutely no energy. I've been suffering from {self-diagnosed} migraines for the last week and a half and let me tell you, they definitely knock a girl down. I have an appointment with a specialist next week so I am hoping that he's able to provide a solution for me!

In other news, my favorite blog designer Danielle {of The Design Girl fame} updated my blog for the fall season! Isn't it so festive?! The houndstooth background is my favorite part! Danielle has added Fall and Halloween designs to her pre-made template line. These templates are on sale for only $25 through this Friday, October 2!! So if you are thinking about updating your blog or just want a seasonal change, visit The Design Girl today!

I'll be back soon with updates, thank you's, and a fall-inspired giveaway.

Discount Code!

EGM from From Green to Miles - please read post below and contact me with your choice of towel color and personalization!!

I really enjoyed working with Alison on my recent giveaway, and she was so happy to have gained some new followers! Here's the e-mail she sent me:

Thank you all for commenting ... with followers and blog posts, I had a total of 45 entries!!!

If you entered this giveaway, you just won a coupon for 25% off any order you make in the next two weeks. It starts Tuesday, September 22 (tomorrow), and ends at midnight on Tuesday, October 6th!!!

Even if you didn't enter the giveaway, you still are a winner for a coupon of 15% off your orders!!!

Thanks for following, blogging about me and all the love in the sweet comments!!!

xoxo, Alison

Isn't that so generous?! Thank you Alison!

If you didn't win the giveaway, please stop by Decadent Designs and purchase that favorite item of yours today!

Weekend Update + A Winner

We have a winner for the linen hand towels. Congratulations to EGM from From Green to Miles! Please e-mail me {sweetteadiaries @ gmail.com} with your choice of color and personalization and I will get the information to Alison. Thank you to everyone for entering and thanks to Alison for co-hosting this fun giveaway with me.

On Friday night I met Kate for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. You can never go wrong with chicken piccata - delicious! I forgot to show you the housewarming gift I got from her last week. She sent me the cutest labels from myflipflopz. Susie does such great work and I am so excited to use these preppy stickers! She also sent me some cupcake decals! Thanks Kate!

The rest of my weekend was pretty laid back. The boyfriend had an unexpected day off of work Saturday so we slept in {yay!} and then went to see The Informant. I happen to adore Matt Damon and really wanted to see the movie. I had no idea what it was about. It was entertaining, but the last half hour was really drawn out. Sunday consisted of grocery shopping and cupcake baking. My co-workers asked for me to bring cupcakes into work so I thought I would be nice to them :) Ha! We've all been so busy at work that this will be a nice treat for everyone.

Here's to a new week and one week closer to the holidays {is it too early to be excited?}!!

How was everyone's weekend?!

Make a Wish...it's your Birthday!

just a quick shout out...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to my amazing and talented
{{real life}} friend,

Danielle!!

Pathetic Attempt at a Post...Really.

Well friends, we dropped Mommy Dearest off at the airport yesterday. The apartment just isn't the same without her company and YoYo is about to have a nervous breakdown without his Grandma there. He is just beside himself! He was looking for her all last night and would hardly come to bed. How sad!

Work started again today for me! I barely had time to eat my Yoplait before I was summoned to the head honcho's office. I've been working hard all day and am beyond ready for 6 pm to roll around {which will be here in 20 minutes...I'm giddy with excitement}!

After getting paid for the cupcake gig, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the first of my fall Lilly. I went with the Sabine Shirt Dress in Lilly's Pink Guilty Stripe, which I think will be perfect for California's cooler months.


Did anyone watch One Tree Hill last night? I'm a loyal follower of this show, and was worried about how it would turn out without Lucas and Peyton. I was pleasantly surprised with last night's episode and then I realized it was because I can hardly stand Peyton to begin with so I'm really quite glad she is gone! As for Lucas, he was definitely eye candy, but could be somewhat of a downer as well. I'm excited to see where they go this season - I am liking the new characters so far. Gossip Girl was good too, but not nearly scandalous or dramatic enough. I'm glad Vanessa and Nate are over. I think that Scott is creepy...anyone else feel that way? He certainly looks like Rufus though. I'm excited for next week's episode - can't wait to see Blair and Georgina as roommates!

So tonight is the premiere of Biggest Loser...just the motivation I need to get back on track. One week of vacation/mom time will quickly lead to a couple of extra pounds showing up on the scale.

Have a great night lovelies!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for the monogrammed hand towels.

Happy Giveaway!

Good morning lovelies! Thank you for all of your kind words about my cupcakes! It was such a huge undertaking, and {I won't lie} I was worried about getting it all done. But I am so grateful that my mom was able to come out to help and that I was able to help make the couple's day special. I love that I am able to write about my life and so many of you leave wonderful comments for me. If you can't tell, I'm feeling gush-y :) A big thanks to all of you for being a part of my life!!

So last week I was contacted by Alison from Decadent Designs {she's a friend of blog-world favorite Laurie, aka Preppy Paper Girl} and we decided to host a giveaway together! Alison has many great products on her website, but I chose the Linen Hand Towels as the giveaway item! These come in various colors and can be monogrammed or personalized to your liking. Aren't these fabulous?! I'm sure many of you can find a great place for these in your home.

Here's the rules:

1. Visit Alison's website {Decadent Designs} and look at her many various products.

2. Come back here and leave a comment on this post with your favorite item.

3. You have to be a follower of my blog. This will count as an additional entry.

4. Sign up to follow Alison's blog. If you do so, this will also count as an additional entry.

The giveaway will run until this Friday {the 18th}. I hope you all enter and remember, leave only ONE comment with the number of entries you are eligible for!

Today is my Mom's last day here so we are going to get her packed up and go for a quick lunch before I have to take her to the airport. Have a great day!

i'm still alive...

...but so exhausted!

I only got a few pictures of the cupcakes once they were set up on site, but here they are! I'm so relieved that it's all over. The couple was so pleased with the cupcakes and the display so that made me happy! The selection was: blue velvet with vanilla cream cheese frosting, chocolate devil's food with peanut butter buttercream frosting, chocolate devil's food with mint chocolate chip frosting, banana with honey cinnamon frosting, and strawberry with fresh strawberry buttercream frosting. All the regular size cupcakes had beautiful wrappers around them (that I found here).

A big thanks to my mom and the boyfriend for keeping me sane the last 48 hours!

Yesterday was also my Mom's birthday! After finishing up the cupcake display, we all headed to Paradise Cove Beach Cafe in Malibu. This is one of our favorite restaurants! It's right on the beach and the view is just gorgeous. It was wonderful to relax and just breathe. Of course we had to tell the server that there was a birthday, and they brought Mom the biggest slice of chocolate cake we'd ever seen!!

{Mom and the boyfriend on the beach}

{Me and my Mom - we're not ready!}

Today we are off to eat lunch and get massages! After all, we deserve it :)

Have a great weekend my lovelies!!

Pics of my New Place!

I know you all have been waiting on pins and needles to see pictures of my new apartment {please note the sarcasm in this sentence...}!! Without further ado, I present to you my humble little {emphasis on little} abode!

{breakfast area - flowers brighten everything up!}

{looking into the kitchen from the breakfast area}

{desk area}

{looking into the kitchen from the living room}

{living room}

{fireplace!}

{view from the couch - I was watching The Closer!}

So there you have it - admittedly bland and undecorated, but the last thing I want is to have a cluttered living area {like our last apartment}.

I hope you enjoyed the tour - I will show you the bedroom and bathroom another day!

Girl Time

I finally have some time to sit down and tell you all about my fabulous Friday night!

It all started out with dinner and fun with the girls at Villa Blanca! I was so excited about this blog meet up and it definitely did not disappoint!! I had of course already met Danielle and Kate, but also joining us was Jill {Peeptoe Pumps and Pearls} and Jess {The Shiny Penny}. Dinner was wonderful - Villa Blanca is B-E-A-U-tiful and the food was delicious!

Flower arrangement by our table

Kate and Jill

The five of us after dinner!

Jill and I wanted to see a celebrity, but no such luck! I am pretty sure it's my fault {I must bring the no-celeb sighting bad luck curse with me} because I've been here two years and have yet to see anyone worth mentioning. How is that even possible?! Even though we didn't have a celebrity sighting, we did get to enjoy the goodness of Crumbs!

Jill was excited with all the choices!

Jill and I outside of Crumbs

I have to say that Jill is absolutely fantastic. She is every bit as sweet as she seems on her blog. Her southern charm was a welcome relief to my Southern-deprived soul! I loved meeting her and I'm looking forward to the next time we get to hang out. And Jess is great too - she is so funny and outgoing. All in all, we all had such a wonderful evening! I just love how blogging has allowed me to meet so many fabulous people!

I have the best boyfriend :)

The boyfriend had the weekend off {YAY!} so we spent Saturday in Santa Monica! I was so excited to finally visit Cabana, a local retailer of the lovely Lilly Pulitzer. The store was having a great sale on most of their summer merchandise and boyfriend insisted on purchasing me a late summer treat! This dress is so lovely in person. I detest orange normally, but the shade marries perfectly with the light pink! I am one lucky girl, no?!

Hope you all had a happy three day weekend with family and friends!!

Thursday Update!

Typically, Thursdays are my favorite day of the week, but for the next 8 weeks I will be sitting in Strategic Staffing from 6:30 until 10 pm. Not my idea of fun! Ha!

Do any of you watch Toddlers and Tiaras?! I never thought I would be hooked on a show like this, but I love it {most of the time}. I really do think that pageants can give young girls self-esteem and confidence so I can see why parents may want their kids to do them. But there are some parents that are featured on the show that go so overboard and it makes you feel bad for the kids, especially when you can see it on their faces that they know their parents aren't satisfied. I think it was this earlier this season when twin sisters were featured and the mother clearly favored one over the other {I was crying for the poor girl that the mom didn't like, it was so sad} and I really didn't like seeing that. But last night's episode was so cute with the "Sparkle Sisters" and they were so sweet to each other and seemed genuinely happy to be doing pageants together. And their mom was so cute as well and proud of all of them. Any of you watch this series?!

Yesterday I returned home from work to find a BIG box from my Prep for Fall Swap partner, Megs. I had so much fun and Megs was a great swap partner. Look at all the wonderful stuff she sent me - stationery, kitchen towels, soap, a loofah, hot tea, a candle, and the cutest flower ring. And it all came in the best green basket that will look great in front of my fireplace holding the dog's toys.

Thanks again Megs for being a great swap partner and also Hopsy for hosting such a fun swap!

I'm looking forward to the Labor Day holiday! I am mostly excited for Tuesday though because my MOM is coming to visit!! I haven't seen any of my family since my brother's wedding in early May, so this visit is long overdue. I wish my Daddy-o could come too, but someone has to keep an eye on the four {fur}babies they have. Mom's visit has two purposes though: 1) to visit her favorite daughter {duh!} and 2) to help me make 100 regular size and 200 miniature cupcakes for a wedding I'm catering. I don't think I've mentioned on my blog yet that I'm doing this job, but I am excited and nervous for it. Mom and I will be in the kitchen for the first part of her visit, but we'll reward ourselves with a yummy dinner and a trip to the day spa over the weekend!

Well, this is turning into quite the long post! I better stop now before I lose all of you :)

Outlet Shopping!

I love to go shopping at Camarillo Premium Outlets because the place has some great shops! A Last Call Neiman Marcus just opened up and I am dying to check it out. Also, I may be the last person to know this, but I just discovered that both Gap and Banana Republic have an "outlet" page on their website (click here for Gap, and here for BR). You can't actually shop from the page, but you can find out all the outlet sales and sign up for e-mails. If you sign up for the outlet e-mails, then you will recieve a 15% off coupon to use on your next purchase at the outlet. This would be a great weekend to take advantage of it since there will be already low prices for the Labor Day holiday!

Chelsea Premium Outlets are located all across the country {my personal fave is in Dawsonville off of GA 400} and they have a great website! It's so easy to locate the center nearest to you (click here for the map) and see the exact sales that the stores will be having. That way you don't waste your time in stores with mediocre sales!!

I'm sure many of you are heading out to the stores this weekend and Monday!! It's always so fun to find a good deal!!

Oh and HAPPY September!
Can you believe it's already here?!