In anticipation of Easter this weekend, I have two easy DIY ideas for bringing a hoppy little addition to your Easter desserts, bunny cupcake toppers! The first is super simple (the only challenge is not eating all of your supplies before your guests arrive!) — I topped cupcakes with a good amount of frosting and nested bunny shaped peeps on top of the cupcake. Try butter cream or cream cheese because they’re a bit thicker and hold up the peeps. My second DIY bunny topper is so cute with a little pom-pom tail! I drew bunny shapes, similar to the shape of peeps, on blush colored scrapbooking paper and cut them out. With a little bit of tape, I attached them to tooth picks and added pink pom-poms for tails with a dot of glue. You could even make a handful of these and string them together for an Easter garland too! Happy crafting!
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I haven’t quite celebrated St Patrick’s Day the same way since college – Lucky Charm cupcakes are a long way from my days of kegs and eggs and shamrock stickers on my cheeks. But one thing hasn’t changed, my penchant for playing with my food! Making these ‘lucky’ rainbow St Patrick’s Day cupcakes was a treat for my color-coordination obsessed tendencies, it felt like a nice therapy session sorting through the marshmallows and dropping them into like-colored piles.
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I’m long overdue in recapping the baby shower I helped throw for my darling cousin Jana a few weeks ago. She had a dream team of friends and relatives that jumped in to help throw her a shower, so I volunteered to tackle what I do best — decorations. When I was visiting her a few months back she showed me an amazing DIY mobile she was going to hang over the baby’s crib, a festive little thing full of pink and mint tassels and pom-poms — the perfect inspiration piece for the baby shower. 
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Valentine’s Day is just a few days away! I always seem to come up with homemade present ideas a day or two before the actual holiday comes around, leaving me a short window to actually grab supplies and make it come to life. That’s why I’m excited to share this Valentine’s Day DIY concept today — it’s inexpensive, simple to make and a great idea to have in your back-pocket for last-minute gifts because all of the materials can be found at your local grocery store!
I repurposed a cardboard egg carton and gave it a quick layer of craft paint in a pink tone. Then I popped a dozen mini-cupcakes from the grocery store bakery section into the egg carton once it dried, and glued a hand-lettered message to the inside of the container that says “Happy Valentine’s Day, Cupcake!” It’s a great way to gift sweet treats without having to bake them yourself — repackaging the items makes them feel special.
To help celebrate Valentine’s Day, Rich Products is helping me give away a $50 gift card so you can treat your Valentine (or yourself!) to something special. To enter, follow the instructions below: 
Giveaway Details:
- To enter to win leave a comment below to share how you’d use your $50 gift card to treat your Valentine (or yourself!).
- For an extra entry, LIKE the Domestikatedlife Facebook page and leave another comment below.
- For an extra entry follow @domestikateblog on Instagram and leave another comment below.
- For an extra entry, share a post with your own gifting ideas using the hashtag #givebakery and include a comment below with your post.
- This giveaway will end at 5:00 PM EST on Friday, February 13th and is open to US residents only.
Please note: This post was sponsored by Rich Products Corporation, all opinions, ideas, and DIYs are my own.
Ready for this little sweet-treat mash-up? I was scheming up something to bring to a birthday party this weekend and saw The Faux Martha’s recipe for apple cider baked donuts. I wanted to try the recipe out so I decided to make a batch of mini-donuts and pop them on top of classic vanilla cupcakes (I used a box mix for those, no judging!). In case you were curious if topping cupcakes with donuts was a good idea, let me tell you: it was a great idea. And a few leftover donuts for breakfast the day after weren’t too bad either. 
Last week we had our latest Boston Bloggers event at the Sweet bakery. Sweet had a handful of bloggers over for a whole night of cupcake tasting. So, yes, in case you were wondering, it was awesome. We heard from Sweet’s lovely founder and learned all about how the bakery got started, and how it’s evolved over the years. And then we dug-in and taste-tested lots of their classic flavors (like, oh boy, some of the most delicious carrot cake and cream cheese frosting I’ve ever had!), and a few of their new and seasonal flavors — like Guinness butter-cream for St Patty’s day (yum). I think one of the biggest surprises was tasting their gluten-free cupcakes, I had no idea I was eating a gluten-free cupcake until someone told me — they were some of my favorites from the whole event! Thanks to Sweet for hosting us, and letting me fulfill my fantasy of an all-you-can-eat cupcake feast!
A few weeks ago, someone asked me how long I had been blogging. I had to think about it for a second, part of me thought “gosh, forever?” — I can barely remember a time when this site wasn’t part of my daily routine. At the same time, there are days when I open up a new blog post and I feel like it’s the first time I’ve ever started writing. So when I got home after that conversation I looked up my very first blog post and realized it was actually 5 years ago on that very day that I had started writing. Five years! That’s half a decade! I’ve been thinking about this ol’ blog quite a bit after that realization, and like any good blogger, thought I’d share a few of those thoughts with my readers. In those past 5 years I’ve written over 1,000 posts, and those posts all grouped together have given me more than I could have ever bargained for.
One of the very best parts of this blog has been the people I’ve met along the way. I’ve gotten to be part of a rich community of creatives online; people I’ve only known through blog comments and tweets have become friends in real life that I meet up with when traveling to other cities. I’ve been so lucky to have developed relationships with tons of sweet, supportive local bloggers through the Boston Bloggers group that I run with Alison, and feel like I’m always exploring my city and doing fun new things with these inspiring women. In fact, I’ve become such good friends with some of them that I don’t even call them my “blogger friends” any more! 
This site has also brought me amazing opportunities. If you told me 5 years ago, when I closed my eyes, terrified to hit publish on that very first post, that I would end up working with brands and bloggers I idolize, and would have my work featured in magazines and some of my favorite online publications, I would have laughed (and knowing me, probably rolled my eyes). I’ve also learned so much about social media from working in the blogging community and I honestly don’t think I’d be where I am in my career today if this blog hadn’t existed. And gosh this blog has brought me a lot of adventures too; from getting to visit Martha Stewart headquarters, to little weekend inspiration excursions, I’ve consistently used this site as an excuse to explore and have fun.
More than anything, this blog has been an amazing journey of finding my passions and getting to look back at how they’ve evolved. When I first started posting I was toying around with the idea of going back to school for interior design, I was design-crazy and remember reading blogs like Apartment Therapy and Making it Lovely and obsessing over fixing up my first post-college apartment. As my interests evolved, this blog evolved alongside with them. I love looking back at old posts now and seeing the trends and style and ideas I was drawn to at a particular moment in time. Five years, 3 apartments, 3 jobs, a wedding, and 1,000 posts later I feel like it’s a reflection of me more than ever before. 
So! Thank you for reading along with me, whether it’s just been the last few weeks, or since the beginning (in the beginning it was pretty much just my family and my girlfriends– so an extra special thanks to you!). It’s been a lovely ride — and here’s to another 5 more years!
Now, I’m done with my mushy, emotional blubbering and onto the important stuff — check back tomorrow for a fun giveaway to keep the celebration going!)
Sources: Sparklers | Matches | Confetti Wands
I’ve been off-line for a few days doing something very important: celebrating my birthday! I’m a very lucky girl and came home to freshly baked funfetti cupcakes by my fiancé and opened some amazing presents (hello, how gorgeous is that pink zebra wrapper paper?) My favorite gift? A new instax mini camera! It was a hit at the bar; I snapped some instant photos and handed them out to friends as ‘party favors.’ Here’s hoping the rest of year 28 is as fun as this weekend was!
It’s one of my favorite nights of the year: the Academy Awards! I am settling in for the night with some champagne, popcorn,and movie theater candy to get my celebrity viewing on. I even got some ‘red carpet’ red velvet cupcakes for the occasion. Watching the coverage of all of the ball gowns strutting into the theater is like my version of the Super Bowl, I’ll be sure to post all of my best-dressed picks tomorrow! Are you excited for the Oscars tonight?
PS: My blog is up for a Homie award on Apartment Therapy for Best Home Design Blog! Won’t you go and cast your vote for DomestiKatedLife?
This weekend I had so much fun hosting a bridal shower for one of my girlfriends. Girly does not even begin to describe it. We had pink lemonade, a cake made out of pink donuts, pink cupcakes with glittery sprinkles, pink rock candy, and lots of sparkly pink and silver garland draped around the room. I had such a fun time preparing for it, and even more fun catching up with the ladies over cocktails and party games.
Some of the images were taken by one of the lovely bridesmaids, Sylive. Check out her work here.
