IN FULL BLOOM

It's finally spring! :D

Spring has blessed me with a bit of a creative streak, restlessness, and the need for change so I've been busy redecorating my room to welcome the new season. 'Tis the season for pastels, nudes, creams, and white and I can't be more excited for the end result :)

My room lacks a bit of life, so I thought I'd buy some greenery. I currently have some fake roses in the couple vases that I brought back from college. In college, fake flowers were perfect because they required no maintenance and I never had to worry about killing them. I have nothing against fake flowers even now, but they lack the freshness and radiance that actual flowers possess. Although fresh flowers can be quite pricey (especially this time of year), I wanted to treat myself to some. I decided to go with Baby's Breath, a flower I've grown fond of since one of my friends made me a Baby's Breath bouquet for my last birthday. How awesome is it that its full name is Million Star Gypsophila (or Gypsophila Million Star)?? It's a pretty rockstar name for a flower if you ask me.

These flowers consist of sprays of little white flowers which look like

1.) Baby's breath. Yep, surprise surprise. These flowers literally look like a baby sneezed directly into a pile of baby powder, letting forth a billowing cloud of white.

2.) Stars! From far away, one bunch looks like a cluster of white stars. It didn't really occur to me until I saw the label on the plastic wrapping with its full name on it, and I had this little ha I see what you did there moment. A several sprigs of these in a vase would look really nice against a black background; it'd have a mini Milky Way effect~

Smell-wise...they're not the best. If you take a whiff up close, the smell starts out a bit sweet (kind of like honey) and then gets abruptly sharp. I have a sensitive nose so I tend to avoid flowers with overbearing odors, but the Baby's Breath doesn't really bother me unless I keep taking whiffs up close. The scent is really subtle from as little as a foot away so it's not unpleasant.

I'm also very much in love with the containers I put the flowers in. They're milk-white on the outside, and baby blue+pink on the inside. I bought them from Michaels with the intent of making them makeup brush containers but when I got home to put my brushes in they sank beneath the brim because they weren't long enough. I need to find a way to pad the bottom so I can elevate my brushes but for now I can't be bothered. I'm content with the vase look~

What do you think of the flower+vase combo? Do you like the look?

Cheers, 

xx Cece

BIRTHDAY SHENANIGANS

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted--

There are many reasons for my lag. All personal, but we'll delve into that later :)

It was my mom's birthday a few days ago, so I woke up around 5 am to decorate our dining area and to bake a cake. I wanted to make her a Victoria Sponge and expected the result to look a little something like this:

...

Haha, joke. The cake that I made didn't have enough volume for me to create the layered cake effect. It came out of the oven looking sadly deflated.

As you can see, my result was NOTHING like the perfection seen in the first two images. I used a buttercream topping instead of whipped cream because my mom hates whipped cream. I made the buttercream from scratch and it was delicious...except I spread the icing on too thick. So clearly I overestimated my baking skills, but at least the taste was still there :D Better luck next time, haha *monkey covers eyes emoji* 

I enjoyed decorating a lot more than I did the cake-baking. I wanted to create a space that was very English cottage/shabby chic, so I bought a few things from Michaels to make that happen.

These are the items that I bought.

Shabby chic chalkboard sign - $19.99

Chalk - $1.99

Valentine Pennant Set - $2.99

Glass Test Tubes (2) - $1.99

Our house's interior has a very antique feel because my dad likes to collect antiques and little knick-knacks from swap meets, garage sales, thrift stores and the like. He's always bringing home the randomest things, and it's a good thing I share his interest in oddities because we end up fan-girling together. I wanted to play that up a bit and add a touch of "femme" with the chalkboard sign. I also thought it would be cute if my family and I left little notes to each other :)

I decided to add a bit of my own flair to the gift that I bought her. The bottle with "pills" you see above was something I bought a while back in a shop called Morning Glory. The reason I used quotations is because they're not actual pills - they're little rolls of paper in disguise. The capsules are easy to pop open, and once you do you see a slip of paper rolled up and secured with a metal band. I filled one of the test tubes with these pills, with each pill containing a handwritten note of love or encouragement. So the idea is that whenever my mom would feel lonely or tired, she could bust out her handy dandy test tube full of love letters just for her. Medicine for her heart *again, the monkey covers eyes emoji*

I don't think Morning Glory exists anymore, but if you search "secret letter pills" or "pill messages", these pills are available online :) These are super cute as gifts for literally everyone - family, friends, and significant others. Careful how you use them though, because they can be quite conspicuous and people can mistake them for actual pills. Yeah, I've gotten many a weird glance for slipping these pills to people.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I liked writing it :D

Ciao for now~
xx Cece