Delicious, Colorful Cake Balls!

I'm not much of a cook and making these funky & fun cake balls is a breeze, even for me. So here's how it goes...

Things you need:
-1 box of cake mix (and whatever ingredients you need for this- normally 3 eggs, 1.5 cups of water and 2/3 cups of cooking oil)
-1/2 container of fluffy vanilla frosting
-Candy coating (However many colors you want to use. You can also use food dye)
-Sprinkles/ dessert toppings (This is where you can get creative!!)

Step 1- Bake the Cake! Mix together your ingredients and throw it in the oven.

Step 2- When you take the cake out, cut it so that it cools faster. It doesn't matter what the cake looks like, since you're gonna be turning it into BALLS! Now let that cake cool (I tried this run with angel food cake- it was pretty delicious).

Step 3- Once the cake cools, crumble the cake entirely into a new bowl and mix in 1/2 of a container of frosting.

Step 4- Roll the frosting/cake mixture into little balls and put them in the freezer. FOR BEST RESULTS, LEAVE THEM IN THE FREEZER FOR 24 HOURS, but you can take them out to decorate as soon as you'd like. I've done it in as soon as an hour, but sometimes the balls fall apart in the candy coating if they're not frozen.

Step 5- Melt the candy coating in the microwave until it mixes smoothly. I normally do this for about 30 seconds, mix it, and then 30 more seconds. Mix colors together, add food coloring, but be careful- this can get messy!

Step 6- Top your cake ball with desired (or funky, monster-like) toppings! 

Piece of advice- I like to put it on a plate and decorate it, but it dries fairly quickly, so maybe put it on wax paper to let it dry and top it off there!

That's it! Happy Cakeballing! 

Phoenix Fashion Week

Last Saturday night, I was looking forward to a date with my couch, ANOTHER wonderfully bad Tyler Perry movie (don't judge me) and a ridiculous amount of cheese and or wine. Yes, wine and cheese are interchangeable in my life and I prefer them both in the amount of "ridiculous." Around 2 o clock on Saturday, Lindsey got word that our good friend Tiffany (over at Kitten Paws Vintage!) and her friend Anya had two extra tickets to the final night of runway shows at Phoenix Fashion Week in Scottsdale. Tyler Perry would have to wait. 

I wasn't sure what to expect from it all, but there was a lot to take in. What was it like, you ask? There were lots of good looking people, even better looking outfits, LOTS of people in silver sequined hats (okay just one guy...apparently he was kind of a big deal..), and a lot of things that would inspire anyone that had ever so much as thought about picking up a sewing needle. Also, tall girls everywhere-something that made me feel incredibly happy, even if their waists were more like the size of my left pinky toe than my waist. You tall girls out there know what I'm saying.

Some of the designers were incredible-inspired by things delicate, whimsical, simple, elegant, extravagant, fluffy, bright, victorian-all things we love at Purple Party Shoes.

Others were not as impressive- Lindsey and I had exchanged some "don't they sell that at Target (Hey! There's nothing wrong with Target, but you know what I mean)?"looks. Overall, there were many more "don't they sell that at some store that I can't afford?"looks. I think the ultimate goal is to make or own something that looks like it was made at a store you can't afford but that you got at Target. Or K-Mart. or the Swap Meet. Just sayin'. 

We were like little girls in a candy store. Mesmerized by the experience, the people, and how much we felt like were on the set of Sex and the City. And we ALL know how we feel about that show. We left  Phoenix Fashion Week with big grins on our faces and hearts full of inspiration. 

Thank you Phoenix, Fashion and Tyler Perry.

Welcome to the Inevitable

I’m a 10 year old in a 25 year old’s body. I start celebrating Christmas in September and love nothing more than a homemade grilled cheese and a warm hug from my mom in the home I grew up in. I daydream about the street that I had my first kiss on, a street that was full of the sweet innocence of a 15 year old never knowing she would learn so much more from boys that kissed her with so much less. I miss this street and the innocence that gripped me with everything it had. I miss not knowing more than I could handle.

I know I’m not alone in this. We are growing up.

As many of my friends seem to be all-consumed by the details of things like their weddings (Nothing wrong with this.. it’s just not relatable for me at this point), I am sitting here on my computer, typing the words that may or may not fully paint a picture of me longing for the sounds of my childhood. The hum of the nighttime highway after a trip with my family, long before I could drive; the sound of my mothers voice, comforting me with words through moments I’m sure she had no clue I was listening to. But I was listening. And I already knew I would one day wish for that moment to be given back to me.

There isn't a day that I don't.

I have always had a tendency to live in the past; it is one thing on a very short list of things that I wish I knew how to control. Logically, I realize I will never be woken up by my brother on Christmas morning with the excitement that we both shared when we were kids, nor will my biggest worry in life ever seem as ridiculous as I’m sure it was when I was a young girl. 

As hard as it is to accept, everybody has to grow up. It’s one of those difficult, hard to love facts, something completely inevitable, something we have to embrace.

Is holding onto these stories, images, sounds, memories unhealthy? Not a chance. To me, parts of my past, the love of my family, the air of my childhood is my home, my safety net, the place that will continue to help form the beautiful, warm, enchanting stepping stones to my future.

Online Dating & the Men that Make it Worse

       I should have known when the guy I had been talking to online drove 1700 miles and planted his Cillian Murphy looking self on my doorstep without any sort of notice that online dating would never take me anywhere in life. In fact, it would only make my pinch of a love life seem absolutely more desperate. Like I couldn’t find someone even if I was searching through the depths of the internet, a place that the saddest of sad are given false hope through websites with names like “okcupid.” I’m embarrassed even typing that name; imagine how my love life feels.

I know, I know, you’re probably saying “Um yeah, except, like I totally know a couple that met on Match and they, like, TOTALLY belong together.” If you are saying that, you may or may not be right. You also may or may not need to go back to school. 

However, that is similar to saying that one shade of brown and one shade of grey looked great together ONCE; there are literally billions of people in existence, of course some of them are going to find love in the weirdest places possible. John and Yoko? Sometimes it just works.

Last year, I went through a period where I really thought online dating might be the answer to all of my unanswered questions; where are all the hot dorks hiding? How do I meet guys without having to approach them? What’s a good way to mask my insecurities? The internet, duh! The craziest part is that I didn’t give up after the first terribly shy, “much shorter than he said on his profile” date (there were plenty more of them); I was persistent in my defeat. The guys I went out with were not my type, but the part that still stings is that, typed out, they fit like a glove. 

A few months ago, I went on a date with a guy that had a profile that oh-so-perfectly veiled his lack of charm (he swore by his love for cheese...the man knew his way to my heart from the get go). This gentleman brought a six pack of beer to my house, drank four of them and made a full-hearted and unnerved effort to come back minutes after he had left to get the two stragglers out of the fridge. And who says chivalry is dead, ladies?

It’s sad that I can hardly remember the name of any of the guys I went on these dates with. I never thought that I’d be the type of girl that couldn’t remember a guy’s name that she talked to for weeks, but the truth is, dating guy after guy after guy was exhausting and made each date less special, less exciting, less hopeful. 

After a few more bad dates, I felt like my love life had been wounded, shocked, completely destroyed with the power of one crappy website and a handful of men that were either born to be car salesmen, or made SO little eye contact that I’m not actually sure they even had eyes.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned (I’m not) or just tired of feeling like I’m crazy for making bad jokes on dates with men that seemed like they’d appreciate them (they didn’t), but online dating isn’t for this girl. I think I’ll meet my Yoko in the real world; I’ll take my chances.