7 days left til Christmas!

Hey, folks!

Hope everybody is having a wonderful Holiday Season! It has been non-stop for me since September. My life was filled with:

- newborn babies
- art shows
- travelling
- meeting up and spending more time with family and friends
- event producing various parties, contests and events
- designing promotional packages for events and shows
- commissioned art work back to back to back
- getting a new job as a chair person for the programming and events committee of an arts organization

2012 is going to be verrrrryyyy busy. I thought I was busy in 2009-2011 but this marks another new chapter in my life.

I decided to take a hiatus the rest of the year because in a couple of weeks, it's going to go Mach 5.

But a hiatus of art is never really a hiatus for a person who is creative. That is just how I am wired.

As in an earlier post, I am cooking and baking more. I wanted to start making food from scratch and not eat anything that is unnatural for me like trans fat, preservatives and additives.

I also wanted to give gifts to to my friends and being that there is too many of them, I alone can't afford all those people and show them my gratitude.

So I started to give them something either handmade or cooked or baked by me.

I made Cupcakes in a cup, a simple idea of giving cupcakes to a person on the go.

Red Velvet Cupcakes. Okay, so the dye is not all-natural but it sure makes a pretty cake.

My pallete

On the cooling rack

Buttercream frosting made from scratch...and without a mixer! I have strong biceps just by whipping this to a fluffy state!

With all the baking, I was inspired to make my own labels. I don't want to make a typical label stating what the baked good is. Nope. I instead illustrated a character and I will be naming them after friends of mine. Since this is a red velvet cake, this one is called ViVi Lovelace. (By the way,  I love my tablet. Just went straight to the computer and started drawing and "painting.")

All set and ready to go!

I also made an apple and pear butter. I loved the recipe that I found because it is so damn simple: just fruit, brown sugar and cinnamon. That's it. Now I did adapt it a little bit but the trick is getting the right consistancy. 

Rome apples were on special

A bartlet pear.. with a slight blush...

Freshly cut to sugar and cinnamon to 12 hour slow cooking and a whirl through the food processor.

Of course, I had to make an illlustration for it.

I haven't figured out her name yet.. soon though.

Started driving around the city and delivering to friends. I put this one in one of my friend's potted plants because they weren't home. Luckily they got it shortly afterwards =)

Also made three dozen mixed chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I used both white and mixed chocolate chips and they were a hit! My nephew wanted to "save" his last cookie but I told him I was going to come over his house and make a batch for his family.

Tonight, I just finished making 36 cupcakes for my coworkers tomorrow. A coworker and I is hosting a surprise goodbye party for one of our collegues. She is being promoted to another department and throughout the years, she always baked when one of us had a birthday. Well, it's my turn to bake for her and to show her our gratitude.

I made three kinds of cupcakes- cookies and cream, marble cake with chocolate frosting and an angel food cake with chocolate-covered coffee beans bits. (More pictures to come)

I am really good at not eating anything I bake. I'll taste test but I not have a whole cupcake. Until, now...

not bad at all!

But watch out! Don't eat too much sugar or you will get Sugar Punched!

"Sugar Punch"

acrylics on wood

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