i art a day.

As promised the last part of my cupcake adventure through Manhattan…

After an inspiring and wallet-lightening trip to Brooklyn for the craft fair, I hopped the subway back to Manhattan and headed towards my next cupcake destination, Babycakes NYC. If you aren’t familiar with Babycakes, it’s known for it’s vegan all-natural organic pastries. Now, I’m not a vegan – or even a vegetarian, but this place has made pretty big waves in the cupcake world and their book looks so cute I had to give it a shot and put my taste buds to the challenge.

I picked out a Chocolate with chocolate frosting, lemon with lemon frosting, and chocolate brownie cupcake, and sat down with a cup of organic iced tea to take a bite of each…

…and was I surprised! The lemon cupcake was absolutely my favorite. I finished it on the spot, even though I was pretty much reaching my cupcake limit for the day. The chocolate brownie cupcake was also super tasty (although lacking a little moisture). I’ve got an ingrained idea of what chocolate cake and frosting usually taste like, and for that reason I wasn’t captivated by the regular chocolate cupcake – although it certainly wasn’t bad. Not to mention both the cupcakes and the Babycakes shop are absolutely adorable. For those of you who love cupcakes – vegan, allergy sensitive, or just curious – this place is definitely worth stopping for.

With my legs starting to really ache, a sunburn starting to appear on my shoulders, and wondering whether or not I’d actually be able to stomach another cupcake it was time to head over to Magnolia bakery in Greenwich. As a young woman in my mid-twenties it should come as no surprise that I’ve seen every episode of Sex & the City – at least 10 times each. As a baker, it was only natural that a pilgrimage to Magnolia make the list.

I waited in the famous line that wraps the corner of the bakery and picked out a vanilla and red velvet cupcake from the self-serve area, then walked across the street to enjoy my final cupcakes on my rump instead of my feet. Wow is that vanilla cupcake sweet! It was so hot and I was so full that I could only manage a bite of each, but it was all I really wanted.

While the emotional nostalgia of this place my have heightened my expectations beyond reach, I was a little disappointed. The red velvet cupcake looked like it had cream cheese frosting on it, but it definitely wasn’t, and the frosting on the vanilla cupcake was nearly pure sugar. To be fair, the actual cake was nice and moist, and the cupcakes were absolutely huge – so I felt like I was getting my money’s worth. Of course, with each bite I was pretty sure I could feel myself turning into Carrie Bradshaw.

With a bag full of a dozen various cupcakes from all across lower Manhattan, I dragged myself back up to Penn Station and caught the bus home to Philadelphia. On the way I munched on a couple more cupcakes, and resolved to return to New York again soon for a French Pastry expedition. Of course, I’m taking recommendations…

It’s been so long since I’ve been to New York and when the opportunity presented itself a couple of weekends ago to check out the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn, I could hardly resist making a day out of it and checking out a couple of bakeries as well. So I made a list (and asked for a LOT of recommendations) and set out to sample some of Manhattan’s most popular bakeries.

I saw and tasted so much that I’ll have to break it up into 2 parts as not to make these posts too epic, so let’s get started! I hopped on the 7:15am bus from Philly up to New York and arrived about 9am in Midtown. In need of some coffee stat and interested to visit a couple of shops before heading over to Brooklyn, I quickly walked up to 9th Ave. and 40th Street to kick off the day at Cupcake Cafe Casa. The draw here was not so much the taste of the cupcakes, but the incredible floral decorations hand piped onto each little cake that blew me away.

Luckily, the cupcakes were just as tasty as they looked (although I recommend letting them come to room temperature before enjoying) as well as a cup of coffee with beans brewed by my favorite Philadelphia roasting company La Colombe. At this particular location they offer regular and large cupcakes, with typical flavors: vanilla & chocolate cake with vanilla, chocolate, or mocha frosting. The Cupcake Cafe Casa wins the award for the most beautiful and comfy cafe.

Finally alert, I strode down 9th Ave, through Chelsea and down to 21st St. to Billy’s Bakery. This green and yellow motif, vintage inspired, bakery & cafe was previously unknown to me, but completely delightful. I ordered a red velvet, carrot, and banana cupcake and sat down to enjoy a couple of bites of each.

These were the most incredibly moist, fresh, and deliciously sweet cupcakes I ate all day. I’m completely sold. There’s a bakery on site here so there’s no question where these sweets are coming from and of course it smells great. I can’t wait to have another taste!

With just enough time to squeeze one more bakery in on the way to the L, I walked down to and across 14th St. to Baked by Melissa’s storefront. With no idea really what to expect I was immediately struck by the novelty of these little treats.

While it was $5.50 for 6 of these quarter-sized treats, flavors like the tie-dyed vanilla, cookies and cream, mint chocolate chip, cookie dough, cinnamon, and s’mores cupcakes made them irresistible. Moist and flavorful, these whimsical little cupcakes were the perfect treat for a leisurely morning of people watching in Union Square.

Full on cake and buttercream I stacked the boxes of my left-over cupcakes delicately into my bag and descended into the subway to cross the East River. More treats to come!

At the moment I’m on my flight home from Charleston, SC – heading home after a truly wonderful Christmas with my family. I arrived on Christmas eve with the rest of the fam already on the ground, and headed for my Aunt’s house where the majority of the holiday festivities went down. Of course, the gift part of Christmas day was awesome. One of the MANY amazing gifts I received is this pair of tangeriney sweet pair of slippers:

made by em & sprout

Not to mention, the personalized cake pan from my Aunt T, beautiful original print from my cousins, Planet Earth on dvd (finally!!!) and great books all around! But of course, the gifts were only a fraction of the holiday experience. No trip to Charleston would be complete without indulging in the following meals:

tasty Christmas dinner…

Fried Shrimp (with Key Lime pie not pictured)

Bessinger’s barbeque…

While my friends and the boyf were shivering up north I was enjoying every moment in flip flops and a sweatshirt in the 50ish degree weather of the south. The time spent with my family was so long overdue and so comforting. Love was pouring out of every person I was around, and laughter was in every smile. Holidays like this one make me wish I was a little closer to all of these amazing people! If you’re one of my twitter friends you probably saw that every post of mine for the past two weeks talked about making gifts, which turned out pretty well:

I hope all of your holidays were just as awesome! Are your ready for the New Year? While taking a holiday I had the opportunity to really think about the past year, and the upcoming one and deliberate on my hopes and intentions for 2010. More on that next time =)

It’s been years since I’ve been out of the States and I’ve been having some serious travel cravings. It’s times like this were I look back at all of the photos and mementos that I’ve picked up while travelling and it usually just makes the wanderlust worse. These days I’ve been looking at some of the handmade things I picked up when I was studying in Italy for inspiration.

In Venice I meandered into mask shops where the walls were lined with hand molded and painted masks of every imaginable style, color, and purpose. No wonder why Carnivale is still such a huge celebration there every year. I walked out of the Ca’Macana shop with the beautiful green & gold eye mask above and a sinister blood red long nosed mask as it’s counterpart. Each of the mask makers pride themselves on their traditional craft and sticking to the classic techniques, and the care is so apparent with each mask.

All over Italy the art of paper making and thus bookmaking is still practiced, and is one of the major influences on my desire to make my own sketchbooks today. The day I walked into the Cartoleria Pantheon in Rome I fell in love with the leather handmade sketchbooks and photo albums and fountain tip pens and stage set dioramas and classic journals with Florentine patterned paper covers. Looking back I’m stunned that I only walked out with two sketchbooks, one for myself and one for a friend. To this day (I bought the book four years ago) I haven’t used the sketchbook because I cherish it so much. Luckily they ship anywhere around the world, so I’m working on using my current sketchbook up and then heading over to the beautiful blank pages of a sketchbook that’s waited a long time and travelled quite a ways to be used and loved.

Have any cool handmade souvenirs from your travels? I’d love to see them!

One of the perks of this virtual summer break of mine is the flexibility to pack up and head to the beach on a Monday without the guilt of calling out of work and lying to my boss about a scratchy throat. Last summer I spent a couple of days in Ocean City, Marylandwith several friends, and this week I headed down to OC, New Jersey for a day of warm summer sunshine. Both have a boardwalk, carnival, packed beaches, and tempting treats, but plenty of uniqueness as well.

Around noon the boyf and I packed into the car and drove the hour and a half down to “the shore” (for those outside of the shore area – it’s a vague term referring to any number of beaches primarily along the New Jersey, Delaware, and some Maryland coastlines) to meet up with a friend at his family’s beach condo. Luckily, since it wasn’t a Friday evening or Saturday morning, the drive was relatively painless. After parking and picking up a new $10 pair of flip flops we were out on the beach, which was extremely crowded but absolutely comfortable. The water, chilly at first warmed up and felt great to float around in. For lunch we munched on boardwalk hot dogs and the largest funnel cake overflowing with chocolate chips. I brought a chair and book intending to pass the time submerged in the world of Julie Powell’s French cooking adventure, but ended up laying on a beach towel drifting in and out of a nap while the warm sun wrapped around me like a blanket and the cool breeze comforted my skin.

After what could have been hours or seconds we packed up and spent some quality time at the wizards & dragons putt-putt course, playing an epic round of mini golf on a cleverly designed course and listening to highlights of the Lord of the Ringssoundtracks. There were families and gaggles of shore girls pedalling around on beach cruisers looking so sweet and carefree that I was almost ready to trade in my road bike for the curved lines of an off-white Schwinn with a front basket full of flowers and sunscreen and vintage brown leather seat.

To top it all off Matt whipped up some banana schnapps/Irish cream/vanilla milkshakes that tasted like banana pudding, followed by pizza and watching the moon come up. Is there really any better way to spend a Monday in the summertime?

In an effort to digitize some of my past travels and get some photos together for scrapbooking I’ve come across some great souvenirs from trips. In the summer of 1995 my parents and I went to China, and on the way picked up a ton of really cool things, including these paper cut beauties:

Cool, right? More from travel to come!

Update about the weekend on Tuesday? – why not.  On Saturday I stopped through New York on the way up to Connecticut and was able to spend a little time wandering around the city, mostly in Greenwich and the West Village. A couple of highlights:

1. The window displays at Macy’s for the 2009 Flower Show were really beautiful. Paper flowers strung up as garland and flowing as mannequin hair bouquets were colorful and exciting in the warm afternoon. The displays were made by Eloise Corr Danch out of Brooklyn (whose lovely work can be seen on her website) and were supposed to come down this weekend:

I’d love to get my hands on one of those coiffes – I’d absolutely wear it in public. Walking down Bleecker Street I also passed by, and stopped into a shop that almost knocked me off of my feet. Murray’s Cheese Shop. It took just about everything I had not to throw down my credit card and pick up 5 pounds of delicious cheeses.

For those of you in Philly – it’s like a paired down and ultra cheesed Di Bruno Brothers.

One of my favorite parts of walking around NY, or even speeding across town in a cab is the way glances of some of my favorite buildings are caught through other buildings and then disappear again behind others. Too often they appear and vanish before photos can be taken, but they’re still some of my favorite memories.

It amused me to realize today on the walk to the bus that from the corner of 42nd and 5th av. one can see the Chrysler building down 42nd and the Empire State building down 5th. It’s one of my new favorite corners, especially being so close to the library and Bryant Park <3

Most of the week will be spent making a TON of books and crafts for the upcoming craft show this weekend! Wish me luck!

Good afternoon (or whatever time it is wherever you are when you’re reading this)! Sorry the posts have been slow this past week, but you know – snow/work/life happens. It comes and goes in phases. In my absence I’ve been plenty busy. I finally got my order from moo.com of new i art a day business cards (well, moo cards) and postcards! The postcards were posted to the i art a day etsy shop on Monday, and I’m so giddy about them:

6 Postcard Prints of Buenos Aires

Looking through all of the Buenos Aires photos again reminded me of the incredibly lavish Faena Hotel + Universe I visited while I was there, and of course I started drooling over their website and dreaming of warmer and more economically stable days. So help me god, I will spend a week at this place even if it sends me into debt for the rest of my life. I love how the entire place is soaked in red and dark woods, eliciting the passion and sensuality of the city. A couple of photos from their website for eye candy:

I know, RIGHT!? {guh} After looking at those again I hardly remember what else I was going to blog about. I give up. I’m going to Argentina.

Charleston, SC – Summer 2008