Review: The Sweetapolita Bakebook

My mother is a baker. I love watching her create and try new things. So this one was for mom! She is using a few random things as bookmarks and I can tell she is excited to give these ideas a try. The bright colors and amazing photos caught my attention right away. I just want to eat everything. I checked out the author's site too. Amazing. The link will be below. ;) My mom already made blue raspberry, lemon curd filled cupcakes this week.... what's next?! Can't wait to find out!


The Sweetapolita Bakebook by Rosie Alyea
Published by: Penguin Random House on April 7th, 2015
Pages: 208
Format: Paperback
Source: Blogging for Books

 

About Rosie Alyea:

ROSIE ALYEA trained in Cake & Confection Design at the Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionary Arts in Toronto. She established herself as a savvy entrepreneur with the creation of Cake Beauty, a popular dessert-themed line of natural bath and body products before going on to found Sweetapolita.com. She has been featured in TheGlobe and Mail, Reader’s Digest, Martha Stewart Living online, Huffington Post,People.com, and The Kitchn.

Book Synopsis: 

The world of Sweetapolita is sparkly and sprinkly and charming as can be, with 75 recipes for everything from pretty homemade cookies to decadent layer cakes. But what really sets these treats apart are interactive designs that let everyone in on the fun of decorating: Painted Mini Cakes are served with edible “paint” for guests to personalize at the table, the fondant-covered tiered Chalk-a-Lot cake is paired with homemade edible “chalk,” and Rainbow Doodle cookies are made for kids to go to town on with edible markers.

Rosie Alyea, the creator of the Sweetapolita blog, frolics in flour and frosting, and she loves to get her two young daughters involved, too. The pages of her debut book are full of playful ideas that will inspire creativity in bakers of all levels—including a recipe for making sprinkles at home and numerous ways to showcase them, such as the Sprinkle-Me-Silly Pizza with rainbow jimmies and nonpareils galore.

With 75 full-color photographs of cookies, cakes, and more plus step-by-step technique tutorials, The Sweetapolita Bakebook will change the way bakers decorate, while entertaining every kid—and kid-at-heart.

My Thoughts and More: 

Basically a fun, bright and generally exciting baking book. If you have kids and like to bake, this would be a great buy! But honestly, no kids required. I can imagine all the awesome birthdays at your house though. lol This is a fun book that covers mostly cakes, cupcakes and cookies. I can just stare at the photos forever. It all looks so cute and yummy! The Sweetapolita Bakebook covers your basic cake flavors and then goes right on up to making edible chalk for your totally awesome chalkboard cake. Yes. A chalkboard cake. A great feature of the book is that there is a section with some tips on baking and decorating. I got some advice on icing cookies, stacking cakes and using fondant. My mom is the baker, I have minimal skills when it comes to it. At least now I feel like I can actually offer her some assistance in the kitchen. I recommend also checking out the authors website to see more recipes, ideas and helpful videos! This book and her site are ones that we will keep coming back too. I know my niece will also love some of the ideas in this book. There are many kid friendly ideas here. :)

Short Book Preview: 

Click the images to see them larger. :)

Blue Raspberry cupcake with a lemon curd center!
So good when they come out of the freezer.

My mom used this recipe for the lemon curd centers! She said she wanted to eat it straight out of the bowl.

Links & More:

Thanks for visiting! I hope you liked my review! 

Rosie's Website: http://sweetapolita.com/

To purchase this book and see more of the inside, visit here!

Disclamer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review! :) 

Review: Monstrously Funny Cartoons

Look what came in the mail! I'll be doing a review on this step-by-step drawing book by Christopher Hart. Keep on reading to learn more about this book, the author, his other works and get a quick preview of some pages! :)

Monstrously Funny Cartoons by Christopher Hart
Published by: Watson-Guptill Publications on October 14th 2014.
Pages: 152
Format: Paperback
Source: Blogging for Books

 

About Christopher Hart:

CHRISTOPHER HART is the world's bestselling author of drawing and cartooning books. His books have sold more than 6 million copies and have been translated into 20 languages. Renowned for up-to-the-minute content and easy-to-follow steps, all of Hart's books have become staples for a new generation of aspiring artists and professionals, and they have been selected by the American Library Association for special notice.

Book Synopsis: 

Learn to draw the silliest and scariest monsters, zombies, vampires, witches, mummies, and other creepy cartoon favorites. -- Cartooning master Christopher Hart teaches aspiring artists all the drawing tips and tricks they need to create laugh-out-loud renditions of their favorite monsters and scary creatures. This jam-packed cartooning guide shows readers how to capture the lighter side of these creepy creatures by combining them with Hart's incredibly popular cartoon drawing style! ... [READ MORE]

My Thoughts: 

What a fun book! The bright colors and layout drew me in right away. I am not the best at drawing realistic scenes, but I love to doodle and draw cartoons. I thought this book full of "monstously funny cartoons" would be right up my ally! As promised, there are zombies, vampires, witches, aliens and more! The books takes characters that would usually be scary, and makes them into great humorous cartoons. :)

Besides seeing the basics of how to draw various cartoon monsters, you get tips and tricks for drawing different facial expressions, setting up a great scene for your characters, and more. I really enjoyed the bit of humor in this book as well. It makes it even more fun to flip through. It kept me interested and wanting to really check out each and every page.

I found the tips really helpful, especially since I am no professional artist. Among some of the tips are tricks to draw better hands, good line flow, eye details, proportions, props and the dynamics of a good pose. I think this book is very inspiring! I will certainly be going back to this book for reference and when I feel like being artsy. I love all the little monsters inside and can't wait to try and put my own spin on them!

I think this book will appeal to teens and adults, whether more of an advanced beginner or even a professional trying to broaden their horizons. It's different than a lot of "how-to-draw" books that I've used before. It's more fun and Christopher Hart will encourage you to make your own cartoon drawing style as opposed to the more exact step-by-step, single pose, draw exactly this, type of books. :)

I am very interested in a few of his other books, especially the Manga for the Beginner: Kawaii! If you are interested in drawing manga or cartoons at all, I encourage you to check him out.

Short Book Preview: 

Click the images to see them larger. :)

 

 My quick and messy try at some of the characters! I used a pen, so I couldn't erase anything... Much harder that way. I recommend using a pencil. *wink* If I did that, I would have been much happier with these. lol

Links & More:

Thanks for visiting! I hope you liked my review!

 

Check out Christopher's website to see his books, video tutorials and to read his blog. :)

You can also view all of Christopher Hart's books here!

 

Disclamer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review! :)

Books, Books, Books!

Reviews and hauls and such! Goodbye summer... it was nice knowing you. Lots of reading time now though! lol ;)

March Books

Here are two book videos for March! I did my haul and wrap up video in the same day. They are a little late and I am a little sick. lol So here are the books I bought in the month of March and also the books I read and a little of what they are about and what I thought of them. :)

February Book Haul/Unboxing

I've gone about this a little differently this time! Enjoy a lovely video of my goofy self trying to open up my packages and revealing my new books. I have more on the way, as explained in the video. Can't wait for them to arrive! I'll do another video once they all get here. :)

Thrift Shopping Haul

I am pushing my Wreck This Journal post until tomorrow! Today I am posting the things I bought while thrift shopping today. I got my usual small hoard of books and some clothes today! I only spent a little over $10 on everything. :) I can always count on the local Salvation Army. It is probably my favorite place to shop nowadays. Also, for some reason everything I bought today was green!

This green dress by Blair is from who knows what decade. lol I didn't have a dress like this in my closet yet. I love the color and the three small buttons on the shoulder! It used to have some type of belt around it. I noticed a thin loop on the waist area. No worries, I can find another!

 Another teal/green dress, this one is made by Merona. It's light and flowy with a high, stretchy waistband... yay for the slimming effect! ;) This one is so comfy! Can't wait until warmer weather. I have so many new dresses to wear from previous SA trips!

While walking toward the dressing room, the horses on this button up sleeveless shirt caught my eye. I had to do it. It was only a little over $2 and on top of that, the tag color was 50% off today! Couldn't pass it up. I love riding horses and this will be great to wear over a tank top or something in the summer time. :) Pretty prancing ponies!

 Here is my book hoard from today! I've made a list of the titles and authors of each one. I filled a bag of books for the lovely low price of $1.99 today. I love this place. I do, I do, I dooooo! I added Goodreads links to the books that were available. :)

Projection - by Risa Green

The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - by Rhonda Riley

The Probable Future - by Alice Hoffman

Persuasion - by  Jane Austen

Her Secret Star - by Bennie C. Hall

A Kid's EcoJournal Set (missing summer, sadly) - by Toni Albert

Conejos/Rabbits (Spanish to English) - by Ottenheimer Publishers

Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth - by Lucy Bate & Illustrated by Diane DeGroat

The last little bunny item isn't really a book... it has a cut out on the front and you open the rest of it to see the bunny family. There are 4 square pictures of the baby bunny on the back. Not sure where it came from! lol There was a turtle one too, but I am the bunny lady. ;)

Wreck This Journal [2]

It's another Wreck This Journal Wednesday! Here are the pages I've finished since the post I made last week. :) I am loving this book! I will probably be a little sad when I finish it, but also feel a good sense of accomplishment too. lol There are a few things that I can't do until the snow melts, so at lest I know I have a while longer with it. :)

See my previous WTJ pages, here.

 It's hard to see in the pictures, but it's tinted pink. :)

 I don't want any food smeared in here. I'm afraid of what smells it might take on or things will mold! lol So I went for stickers instead! I have a huge sticker collection.

I love my staplers... one has blue staples and the other has green! I used two blue staples to keep these pages together. I used the green staples on the office supplies pages above. :)

Mess [1]

Hello to Mess Monday! It's a short and sweet post today. Here are the pages I've done so far in my book, Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes. So far this book is pretty fun, but nothing beats Wreck This Journal! I'll be back again tomorrow with one of the reviews I've promised. :)