Sending out happy Friday greetings to you with this portrait of a smiling burro toy! The wallpaper background he’s photographed against is a favorite in our collection. We just love the faux woodgrain pattern with a semi-transparent overprint of flowers and various vessels.

Maybe because June is creeping up with us, or because the weather here has been so warm, it’s gotten us thinking about summer parties. Anyone else out there have party plans they’re brewing?  We’d love to hear about them!

Have a great weekend!

-Susie & Heidi

The other day Jan, a colleague of ours, mentioned that she was making Lemon Sponge Pudding for her family.  I wasn’t familiar with it, so she sent the recipe over for me to try. After making it, I can see why it’s her family’s favorite!

First of all, it’s so easy to make.  It was in the oven baking in mere minutes. Secondly, it’s addictively delicious! It’s a combination of a pudding or custard and a cake. What could be better? There is a tiny amount of flour in the recipe which creates the cake-like layer that rises to the top. The whole dessert is so light and refreshing.  I couldn’t stop eating it!  In fact, I ate the one in the photo, even though it was 7:30 in the morning when I photographed it!

The recipe she gave me comes from an old issue of Martha Stewart Living.  I added some blackberries to the recipe since I had a bunch from the farmer’s market and I love them paired with lemon. The flavor contrast between the blackberries baked in the recipe and the fresh ones that I plated them with was delicious.  I even snuck a little bit of my homemade lemon curd in there!  You can serve them in the ramekins that you cook them in, or do like I did and scoop them out onto a plate and garnish them with fresh berries.

I realize that I’ve posted a lot of lemon recipes on here.  What can I say?  My lemon tree is so bountiful, I have ample opportunity to cook and bake with lemons!

Lemon Blackberry Sponge Pudding

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for ramekins
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
• 24 blackberries, plus more for garnish
• Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter six 6-ounce ramekins; set aside. In a large bowl, stir together butter, granulated sugar and salt. Stir in yolks. Add flour, milk, and lemon juice and zest; mix until incorporated. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry peaks form. Gently fold egg whites into butter mixture. Ladle batter into prepared ramekins. Put four blackberries into each batter-filled ramekin. Transfer pots to a roasting pan. Pour boiling water around pots to come halfway up the sides. Bake until just set and lightly golden, about 25 - 30 minutes. Remove from roasting pan; let cool slightly. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, garnish with fresh blackberries and serve.

Makes 6 servings

- Heidi

We’re always excited (and honored) when our products get featured in a magazine.  We’re doubly excited about this full page shot of our Father’s Day coffee mugs that are in this month’s Woman’s Day magazine.  We love the photo!  Our mugs never looked so good!  : )

- Susie and Heidi

Hello Friday Friends! Hopefully your week has been a good one and you have some fun stuff planned for this weekend. We’re going for a hike at sunrise tomorrow in Malibu to visit Escondido Falls Trail and check out the 150 ft waterfall. Soon the hot summer weather will dry it up for the season. We’re really looking forward to it. It’s been a real busy week of work and this hike should do us wonders, both physically and mentally!

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments to our Mother’s day post this week. It means a lot to us. Sending a big Happy Mother’s Day hug to all the Moms, Step-moms, Mother-in-laws & Grandmas out there!

-Susie and Heidi

With Mother’s Day only a few days away, we wanted to take a moment to remember our Mom. She passed away when we were still kids and not a day goes by that we don’t think about her.  She loved us and gave so much to us in the brief time we had together.  She encouraged our creativity and adventures. She taught us to take pride in making things by hand. She instilled in us a love of family and home. And, important to our future with Rock Scissor Paper, she taught us the value of putting pen to paper.

From a very young age, we constantly made cards and wrote letters. We relished going to Quigley’s ,our local five-and-dime store, and picking out new letter writing sets. In the seventies, graphic writing paper (with matching envelopes) were really popular, especially if you had a pen pal to write to.  We sought these sets out all over the place, even at amusement parks.  (We even had writing paper from Universal Studios complete with illustrations of Jaws and other attractions at the park!)

The other night, we received a time capsule of sorts. At a family dinner, our Step-Mom gave us a box of cards and letters that our Mom had saved many, many years ago.  The box has sat untouched in a cupboard for countless years and when doing some spring cleaning, she came across it. It was such an amazing thing to receive, especially right before Mother’s Day.  It was chock full of both store bought and homemade Mother’s Day cards that we had given to our Mom.

The box was also filled with letters that we had written to our Mom.  She was diagnosed with cancer when we were small and over the course of her 10 year battle with the illness, she spent a lot of time in hospitals.  It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time, children were not allowed into patient rooms at hospitals, not even to see a terminally ill parent.  During these times, we would talk to her on the phone as much as we could.  Some nights, if she was lucky enough to have a hospital room that faced the street, our Dad would take us across the street so that we could wave to her from the sidewalk while she stood by the window.  As much as those brief moments of seeing her meant to us, we can only imagine how much they meant to her.

Since our contact was limited, we wrote letters back and forth, our Dad serving as the “mailman” for these notes.  Our Mom always referred to them as “little love notes”.   Sometimes she would send home a toy from the hospital gift shop to accompany the letter.  It certainly, on many levels, makes us sad to see these letters now, but in other ways we are so happy to have them. It’s wonderful to see her writing, see her words and to know how much she loved us and wanted to be with us. Having these letters is truly a gift!

The cards she often sent home to us were ones that benefited the charity UNICEF and featured the artwork of different artists from around the world.  We loved reading about each artist on the back of the card, and still do! Our Mom was from Belgium and on one particular card she excitedly pointed out that the card’s artist was a Belgian.  The world was a lot less globally connected back then, and it was exciting to discover anything that connected her to Belgium.

We’d like to think that our Mom would be proud of us and all that we have accomplished with Rock Scissor Paper.  Whenever we get discouraged at work, we think about all the cards we’ve created and sold, that have found there way into people’s mailboxes, bringing with them a little love and happiness and caring. Just like our Mom’s little love letters made us feel so many years ago….and still do today.

Happy Mother’s Day!

- Susie and Heidi

It always amazes me how food connects us as human beings.  A memorable meal, a childhood treat, a favorite weeknight dinner; the memory of food ties us to people, places and times in our lives.

When we were growing up, our Mom used to make these Madeleines often.  Originating in France, they are a delicious cross between a cake and a cookie, perfect for an afternoon snack or an after dinner treat. Our mom was Belgian and much of the food in that region is influenced by both France to the west and Germany to the east. Susie and I loved when she would make these and now often make them ourselves. When we do, we think of our Mom.

Making madeleines requires a traditional moulded pan, which gives them their distinctive shell shape. They are commonly available in cooking stores now.  The one pictured above is our Mom’s, which we now used.  I love the patina it has taken on after so many years.

Below is our Mom’s recipe for these tasty treats.  You can find many variations on the internet, including ones for Earl Grey Madeleines and Orange-Cardamom Madeleines.  In the end, I prefer my Mom’s which have just a hint of lemon to them.  They take me back to being a child again and sitting anxiously at the kitchen counter, waiting for her to finish sifting powdered sugar on top of them.

Do you have a favorite recipe that makes you think of your Mom?  Share it with us!

Mommy’s Madeleines

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter , melted & cooled, plus extra for pan
• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted, plus extra for pan
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush madeleine molds with melted butter, dust lightly with flour and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat eggs at low speed, gradually adding salt and sugar. Increase speed as batter becomes light and fluffy, about 8 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add vanilla. Turn off mixer. Using a rubber spatula, fold in flour in 3 batches to prevent lumps. Add a batch and turn mixer on for 2 seconds, then off. Repeat two more times. Add 1/2 cup of melted butter to batter using same on-off technique. Do not overbeat. Use spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add lemon zest. Spoon batter into prepared pan, filling each mold 3/4 full. Bake for 10 minutes, or until madeleines are firm in center and golden on the edges. Immediately turn out onto wire rack and let cool to room temperature. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Makes 24 madeleines

- Heidi

This afternoon at the studio, we got the bug to do a little crafting. This often happens around here when we’ve been sitting in front of the computer for 7 plus hours. We just needed to use another part of our brains and get our hands moving!

Heidi had brought in a shoebox full of cupcake and candy liners that were left overs from baking projects at home (she does a LOT of baking). A few of this color, a few of that color….perfect to put to use in a paper crafting project. We had something in mind right away.

The inspiration? Last weekend at the Unique LA sale, a food vendor named Platine Cookies had a mobile cart that they used to sell coffee and baked treats around the venue. They had used a range of cupcake liners in their company colors to decorate their coffee cart. It was adorable and really stood out in the crowd as you can see here.

So with the memory of their delicious baked goods and our leftover cupcake liners, we decided to make a little celebratory banner for Mother’s day. How cute would this be tacked up on the wall above the breakfast table or across the fireplace mantel ready to greet Mom on Sunday morning?

Very simple and fun to make, we whipped this out in about a half hour. This project could be done by kids with some adult supervision. We cut the yellow triangles from some vintage index cards and punched holes on each side so that they could be strung on a length of ribbon. Hot glue was used to assemble the paper “blossoms” and to attach all the elements together.

Our blossoms are made from multiple cupcake liners in different sizes stacked together, combining metallic and matte papers. It’s real fun to experiment and see what looks good. The basic idea for this banner could easily be used to create fun party decorations for all sorts of occasions.

What ever you decide to do for Mom this weekend, remember that small gestures of creativity go a long way to saying you care.

-Susie & Heidi

(NOTES: photo of Platine Bakery Cart by flickr user uniquelosangeles. Orange & white fleur wrap by our friends at Feterie Paper Goods)

Happy Friday! Doesn’t this guy have a great smile?  You can’t help but smile too! We’re looking forward to a little time off, since last weekend was a busy one with Unique LA. As usual, we’re looking forward to shopping the farmers market this Sunday to see what goodies are in season. We can guarantee that there will be a flat of strawberries in our market basket!

Have a great weekend!

-Susie & Heidi

If you read yesterday’s post, I mentioned an invite my friend Angela had created using papel picado imagery.  She read the post last night and gave me the go ahead to post it here on Make Something Happy.  The invite was for a wedding reception for a couple, Hilary and Rob, that were married in Mexico and then celebrated at home at a later date.

To create the image, Angela first photographed the couple, then traced a silhouette from the photo. She added in the decorative motifs including tacos, hearts and cupcakes.  Super cute, right?

She said that the party was great fun!  The whole place was done up with strings of lights that were clear round bulbs, papel picado banners and pinatas.  They brought in a great taco truck for yummy eats and a retro photo booth to capture memories.

Thanks Angela for letting us post this great invite you designed!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

- Heidi

I got into an email conversation today with a friend who is also a designer.  I had sent her some photos of a party that I was crushing on and she pointed out that they had used papel picado as part of the decorations.

Papel picado, which means “perforated paper”, is a Mexican folk art of cutting paper into elaborate designs. You may recognize them from Day of the Dead celebrations, but they are often used to celebrate holidays, weddings and other special events.

I shared with my friend the invite above, that I created for a couple who were celebrating the impending arrival of their baby boy.  They wanted to incorporate their Mexican and Irish heritage into a fun and casual invite design.  My designer friend emailed me back sharing with me an incredible papel picado invitation she had created for a friend’s wedding.  I wish I had the image to share with you here cause it was spectacular!

They make such great party decorations as well as a party motif.  The bright colors make me instantly happy!

The images above are all work created by the amazingly talented Etsy seller aymujer who hand makes all these flags.  You can even order custom designs.  I really love these small flags, customized with a couple’s name:

These cute cards are by my friend at InvitaPaperStudio:

I even stumbled upon these fun papel picado rubber stamps by etsy seller Tresijas:

How fun are these gift tags?  Next time I bring a bottle of wine to a party, I’m tying one of these on!

Papel picado is hands down a super festive accent to any party!

(photo at beginning of post by Emiliano Rodriguez)

- Heidi