Red Velvet Cake Balls

A cousin of mine graduated from high school this weekend, and I wanted to bring something sweet to the family get-together afterward. I had seen this recipe on Bakerella a week or so before, and thought they'd be perfect for the occasion.


I will give a bit of a warning: these take a while to make. Plan time to bake the cake, wait for it to cool, actually form the balls (I used my hands to mix in the frosting - worked well but made a mess), chill them, then coat them. Also, my entire kitchen was red from the all the coloring in the cake mix.

Sadly I didn't get any pictures of the actual cake in the middle, but they're quite stunning with the white outside/red inside contrast. Click here for some wonderful pictures and the recipe.

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Now playing: Round Table featuring Nino - Let Me Be With You (New Step Mix)
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Photo 5-11-08

It was raining pretty hard the other day; we had tornado sirens going off and everything. After it let up, I went outside and noticed this leaf at the bottom of my front steps.

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Now playing: Jake Shimabukuro - Let's Dance
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Silly Walks

I'm a big fan of Monty Python. And I was in a pretty silly mood.

Above: Yeah, that's me.
Below: Inspiration!

I might this shot again sometime. My leg's not angled, I don't have a cane/umbrella, and the bag's on the wrong side. I was originally going by the picture of him in the hallway during the actual skit, but I think this image looks closer, at least perspective-wise.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun setting up and trying to get the picture to take at the right time. I'll have to remember to stretch a bit more for the next go, though.

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Now playing: Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
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New Site Design!

I've updated the blog a bit, might have to refresh if you don't see any changes.

The picture is of a tree in my front yard, taken around noon. No Photoshop levels/color adjusting required; nature saw fit to provide me with all that.

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Now playing: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - 'Ulili E
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Ebb and Flow Necklace

I first got into beaded jewelry through chainmail jewelry (which I got into through chainmail armor making, but that's a different story). It started with adding beads onto the chain to add color or focal points for the particular piece. After a little while, I started repairing jewelry (including beaded necklaces and bracelets) for my mother and her friends. From there, it was a pretty natural step to start making my own.

This necklace was inspired by a similar design on ArtBeads.com, located here. ArtBeads is an amazing source of jewelry-making supplies. If I'm looking for something particular and can't find it locally, I order it from them. I also find inspiration just by looking through their catalog. They also offer free shipping! Honestly, how can you beat that?

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Now playing: Arctic Monkeys - Balaclava
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Deep Dish Pecan Pie

At work, we designate one day a month to celebrate everyone's birthday that falls during that month. Well, one of the guys in our group had a birthday this past week, but was out of town for the party, so I thought I'd bake something. He had mentioned liking pecans before, and I had been wanting to try this recipe anyway, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to try it.

Now, I'd never made a pecan pie before. Well, I'd never even had pecan pie before. So this was all completely new to me. Although, after being horrified at the ingredient list, I came to the conclusion that anything with that much corn syrup in it would have to taste okay.


The pie filling looked pretty gross. You know when you're at a lake or something, and there's a bunch of sticks floating near the shore, and you suddenly change your mind about wanting to go for a swim? That's what the filling reminded me of. So I covered it with pecan halves. I tried to make it look like pictures of pecan pie that I've seen in the past.

Matt from MattBites is a professional. I mean, literally a professional food photographer. I'm a huge fan of his work. But I still have no idea how he got such a clean cut on his pie. It's really amazing, and makes mine look terrible. However, looks don't affect taste, and this tasted awesome. Of course, I didn't really have anything to compare it to, but the guys at work and my parents all thought it was good. Also, I have no idea if whipped cream is a proper topping for pecan pie, but that and some cinnamon was awfully tasty.



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Now playing: Joss Whedon - Firefly - Main Theme
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New Wallpaper Project!

I've recently been asked by a friend I met in the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI to create a custom wallpaper featuring his game character. I had started to make one for him years ago, but it was lost... somehow. Still not exactly sure where the file went, but we both kind of forgot about it.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this project because I've learned a whole lot since the last time I made a wallpaper, which was a year and a half ago... Man! What have I been doing these past two years?!

Below is my most recent wallpaper. It's from the anime Please Teacher!. I completely redrew the main image in Photoshop because I wanted the lines and colors to be smoother and more even than the raw scan was. Altogether, it took 9 hours to complete, and the background isn't even that great.

Also, here is the link to my profile on AnimePaper, the wallpaper site I post to. If you're a fan of that kind of thing, it's the best site on the internet for anime and game related wallpapers.


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Now playing: Andrew W.K. - Party Hard
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