hello.

i love cupcakes! as a kid, we called them fairy cakes. i’ve recently found my favourite recipe from martha stewart for these chocolate cupcakes. i can’t recommend the recipe enough. it’s easy and delicious – without fail. the only issue i’ve had with both batches i’ve made is finding the perfect chocolate icing/frosting to go with it.  so, if you have a good suggestion for a really great chocolate icing, please let me know.

this weekend i plan on baking some of this delish looking banana bread from felicia. i find baking quite relaxing to be honest. very therapeutic – especially when i am |this| close to ending a relationship with a client.  agh. sometimes, it’s just not worth it.

i’m used to working on weekends. saturday and sunday don’t mean anything different to me other than the stores being a little busier. i am so used to spending my saturday nights working on projects and catching up on emails. well, no more. i realise i’ve allowed work to overtake everything else in my life and that’s not a good thing. not at all. as a designer, being creative is a vital part of what i do and when you are going non-stop, that creativity dries up. i need time to recharge the batteries. so, i’m taking back my weekends. it’s the time to read, bake, veg, go for long walks, take out the camera, draw, nap and not worry about work. i know it’ll take me awhile to adjust to the changes, but i’m looking forward to just enjoying my weekend, and working hard during the week.

with this in mind, and after reading this great article from Lauren on battling information overload, i’m also going to cut down on my feeds, twitter addiction and other habits that tend to be a great source of procrastination for me.

i’ve been on the search for a really good chocolate chip cookie and i have finally found it thanks to nigella lawson. these are chocolate chocolate chip cookies and are quite delish! if you are ever in need of a really indulgent cookie, this is it!

125g. dark chocolate (i used milk choc)
150g. flour
30g. cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
125g. soft butter
75g. light brown sugar
50g. white sugar
1 egg, cold from the fridge
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 bags of chocolate chips

• preheat oven to 170ºC.
• melt the chocolate. i melted it on the stove over a pan of boiling water. microwave may be quicker.
• cream the butter and sugars.
• add the melted chocolate, the vanilla and the egg.
• combine dry ingredients in a bowl and stir.
• add the ingredients to the mix, and then the chips.

this amount makes 12 large cookies. scoop a good spoonful amount per cookie,and don’t flatten the cookie (they’ll flatten themselves).

they’ll take about 15-18 minutes to cook.

then, enjoy!

(recipe from nigella)

sometimes i really love how diverse my work is. this week i’ve worked on finishing, and launching, a site for a PR firm, designs for a rather involved demo site for a major CMS company, the creation of a small fun site for an author, a few promotional e-cards for some new books coming out, a new site design for a celebrity hair stylist, and already brainstorming ideas for some new projects. although we mostly do websites for authors and publishers, we really do have a diverse client range. it means i always have something different and new to work with, which in turn means boredom is not a factor.

i’m already excited about two projects i am starting today. hopefully the clients will be pleased with what i deliver next week.

due to some db issues on a previous host i’ve decided to move this site over to my own server. the db issues means i can’t pull over the previous posts (i’ve just copied over a few manually), without pulling over some crappy spam, so i’ve decided to just start over. i actually plan on starting afresh with a new design as well. i’m tired of this one and in all honesty, i don’t think it says a whole lot about me as a designer.

so, expect some changes. i’ve been debating what approach to take. white, dark, playful, minimal, serious, detailed…