welcome!

What came first? The bunny or the cream egg?

While most people seem to look forward to advent calendars and sleigh rides, our favourite holiday is actually Easter – what’s not to love about neon marshmallow peeps and the annual Cadbury Cream Egg commercials?  Our heart genuinely skips a happy beat when we glance into a store window and catch a glimpse of the first spring clothing stock – all in sunny shades reminiscent of the Easter eggs we used to dye. 

But this year, since we refuse to jump the gun and fill our closet with outfits that we can only admire but not wear (it’s not exactly skirt weather quite yet!), we’ll settle for recreating the feeling of nostalgia with an afternoon of decorating eggs.  Old school-style, using dye that we’ve actually made ourselves.  Wish us luck, this COULD get interesting!

If you have children or are similar to us and can’t shake the fond memories of spilling yellow dye on your favourite shirt while dealing with an egg gone astray, here is a “recipe” list of dye’s you can mix up from ingredients found in the supermarket:

Once you have successfully cooked up dye colours that will transform any boring white egg to a work of art, pour each mixture into a measuring cup and add 2 to 3 teaspoons of white vinegar.  Pour the dye into a bowl or jar that is deep enough to all the egg to be fully submerged.

If you have any spills or problems along the way, or simply get a little (ahem), thirsty, just make extra “Purple” dye and forget the vinegar.  Wait, we drank all the “purple” dye?  Oh well.  Guess our eggs will just have to go “sans pinot noir” this year.

Happy Easter!

A Very Merry Unbirthday to You!

Okay, so your REAL birthday only falls once a year and in the past, you’ve waited diligently until then to indulge in ice cream cake and tear open presents.  But good news!  Your “Unbirthday” actually falls 364 days a year!  Now you can justify making an almost daily pit stop to the nearest cupcake store and registering for “unbirthday” presents at the Pottery Barn!  Okay fine, so unless you have REALLY nice friends, you may not get away with that last suggestion but you might as well try, right?!

Looking to the newly remade Alice in Wonderland for inspiration, we envision a lot of bright colours, various yummy treats, and of course, tea!  Make like the Mad Hatter and send the lucky guests playing card invitations, serve them inside-out food (little tea sandwiches with the bread on the inside works!), and make tea martinis!  To set the scene, scour the local flea markets or estate sales for mismatched teapots, cups, plates, and silverware and place them on a long table covered in garden flowers in various sized vases. 

Once you have blown out the candles on your unbirthday cake, meander over to the garden for an animated game of croquet! 

We can hardly wait until we get to plan our NEXT unbirthday party!  Which incidentally, comes around again…tomorrow!  Lucky us!  Now, what flavour of cake shall we order this time…hmmm…

A “Lovely Day for a Guinness”… Milkshake?

No doubt the local bars are already shopping for bulk food colouring to add to the rather ghoulish looking green beer that is traditionally served on Saint Patricks day.  Personally, we’ll be passing up the opportunity to create a reason to invest in Crest Whitestrips and be ordering a frothy pint of Irish Guinness instead.  Problem is, we’re really not huge beer fans.  Having surpased the years of keg parties in university, we’ve lost our taste for beer. 

If you tend to favour a glass of pinot noir over a Molson, we’ve got a recipe for you that MIGHT help you meet the somewhat mandatory March 17^th beer quota, even if it does mean an extra hour on the treadmill the next day!

Courtesy of a highly celeb populated bar in Hollywood, the “Guinness Milkshake” combines 1 cup of vanilla ice cream, 4 oz of Guinness Stout, and 2 oz of chocolate syrup.  Blend it together and serve in a chilled glass. 

Now sit back and enjoy it while watching a movie starring Colin Farrell.  Milkshakes and Colin Farrell?  Beats a set of green teeth any day!

Kodak Moments – the Good and the VERY Bad!

For the past 17 days, we’ve forgotten that the colours in the rainbow go beyond white and red, the space beside Ceili’s is simply a parking lot, and the line-ups for Japadog don’t usually run for blocks on end.  While the rest of our closet might be happy to come out of hibernation, we have to admit, we will be sad to see the departure lounge at YVR full of our international guests finding their way home. 

While visiting the various houses and pavilions, we were inspired by the different cultures and customs that we learnt about and thought we might do some research on some quirky wedding customs that one could incorporate into their own big day.  Although we always appreciate a good Greek plate smashing, we’re not sure a few others would make the Kodak-moment cut in our own wedding album!

In Scotland, the pre-wedding tradition of “Blackening the Bride” goes way beyond our own traditions of dressing the bride in tacky t-shirts and necklaces bought in a dollar store.  The bride is covered in foul substances (such as eggs, various sauces, feathers etc.) and paraded around the pubs in town.  Note to our friends: they will automatically be deleted from our Facebook Friends list should they EVER do this to us!

At Swedish wedding receptions, if the bride goes to the restroom, all of the other women guests must line up to kiss the groom.  And vice versa for the groom.  If you choose to include this particular tradition into your wedding, you may wish to avoid any guests of the “ex” variety.  Just saying…!

And finally, our particular favourite:  In South India, it is customary for the groom’s side of the family to complain about the food that is traditionally provided by the bride’s family, even if it IS prepared by Mr. Rob Feenie himself! 

However, should you decide to purchase frozen Pigs in a Blanket as an hors’ doeuvre, you may get complaints irrespective of the traditions of your two families.  Sorry!  We’re sure Martha Stewart would agree.