| fav links this week: |

you may of heard, because i know it's all i am hearing and thinking about: san diego has been suffering from a serious heat wave.  i'm so over it. i've never been shy of expressing my massive love for seasons and i'm ready for the shift in temperature.  I want to take out the sweaters, shop j.crew's fall collection, slow cook naughty foods for football or even just bake-- you get the picture.  today's fav friday links all have to do with fall....hope you all have a great weekend. xx

1. host a fun fall soirée; paperless post (my fav!) has the cutest festive e-vite or paper invitations. via paperless post

2.  my sister sent me this salted carmel corn bark that i can't wait to make. via i heart nap time

3.  these pumpkin sugar cookies sound so easy and delicious (the carmel apple cookies look awesome, too!) . via cooking classy

4. i love a fun fall DIY, these metallic painted pumpkins are adorable and aren't too over the top. via lolly jane

5. another DIY: i made a halloween inspired wreath a few years ago; i'm now ready to create a classic fall wreath. via stone gable

6.  leave it to shape magazine to help get our pumpkin, apple fix with these healthy pancakes. via shape magazine

 

the baking extravaganza.

the other day my very dear friend Val came and spent the day with me.  She lives on the Marina and getting into Hollywood can be such a project so we both decided on a jammed pack girlie day.  We started with a shopping trip to the Beverly Center, where I scored black leather pants (I put them on my fall wish list: here).  We grabbed lunch but opted out for dessert because we decided we were going to designate the rest of the day to baking.
I had really fun festive spider cupcake holders, (I'm telling you, I'm totally itching for fall, I even bought a bunch of fall scented candles because I'm losing it!)  We decided on some festive pumpkin spice cupcakes to accompany the spiders.  We got the idea of pumpkin spice cupcakes from a cupcake book my sis got me, but we ended up using a Martha Stewert recipe, with a few modifications of our own. We found a recipe for cream cheese frosting but we, being us, decided to add a couple "Val + Erin" special touches which made the cupcakes pretty life changing.  I actually had quite a few of the ingredients at home but we also decided to make thumb print reese snicker doodles too.  So we headed for the store for a few ingredients & after a major search for pumpkin, we poured ourselves a glass of Malbec and had an amazing time baking and catching up!