via sweetpaul.typepad.com

Have you seen Sweet Paul? If you're into prop styling like a certain somebody...ahem...you'll love it. The Sweet Paul blog features Paul Lowe's styling, culinary, and crafting endeavors, all of which are great.

via sweetpaul.typepad.com

Sweet Paul is also a magazine available both digitally and in print. Check out the Summer 2011 Issue. LOVE. His use of splashes of bright colors juxtaposed against white and grey and white space are right up my ally.

Today I especially love Paul's use of negative space - negative cookie dough space to be exact. Highlighting the cookie dough remnants as a canvas is truly unexpected.

I've been inspired by text and typography lately, and I'm planning to do some styling involving text sometime this summer. Aimee Wenske is on board, so yeah, it should be good. ;)

Hope you had a great weekend, and if you have time go look at the Sweet Paul blog.

xoxo,
kathyphantastic

PS Umm oh yeah, he has a glue gun tat.

via ohjoy.blogs.com

I wish I could wear this to my work meetings.

via pompomfactory.com

via pompomfactory.com

via pompomfactory.com

I love what the Pom Pom Factory has done with pom poms. They do weddings, styling, windows, DRESSES...

This makes me want to go style something right now, preferably in a very fluffy dress

...or hat.

Aimee Wenske and I (mostly Aimee Wenske) made this little stop motion movie for the Austin Bakes for Japan Bake Sale .

I can't get over the Aimee Wenske Chococat photographer fully accessorized with chococamera.

Hooray for Sanrio cake pops from kathyphantastic and Objects of Confection.

Come to Austin Bakes for our cake pops and cake balls among many other bloggers' and foodies' baked goods Saturday, April 2nd at Hotel San Jose between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm and The Shops at Mira Vista between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.

You might have heard that Objects of Confection and kathyphantastic are making Keroppi Cake pops for Austin Bakes for Japan Bake Sale benefiting AmeriCares.

It's true, Sanrio Keroppi cake pops will be available at Austin Bakes for Japan. But that's not all!

We're proud to offer the cake pop versions of other Sanrio characters such as the Hello Kitty cake pops I made for Sharon Loves This' bachelorette party.

Oh and there's more. There's also Pekkle and Chococat.

Badtz Maru and Pochacco just stopped by for the photo opp. They won't be available at Austin Bakes.

Our Sanrio Cake Pops will be available at Hotel San Jose and The Shops at Mira Vista. Jessica from Objects of Confection will be volunteering at the Mira Vista location, so be sure to stop by say hi and get a few of their delicious cake balls.

And to let blog readers in on a little secret: those Keroppi pops are red velvet inside.

Huge thank you to the amazingly talented Aimee Wenske for photographing these Sanrio cake pops and Kathryn Hutchinson of Austin Gastronomist for organizing Austin Bakes for Japan. We hope to raise a lot of money for Japan through cuteness.

That's right. Cat lovers have spoken, their meows have been heard.

Some feline-centric fans saw my custom dog portrait coffee mugs and inquired on my plans to offer a custom cat portrait mugs. I expedited their request to prevent any fur warfare. Custom cat portrait mugs are now available on the kathyphantastic Etsy store.

My talented graphic designer friend and closeted crazy lady, Nathalie was kind enough to let me practice drawing cat mugs with her three cats.

Original photo:

Some of her kitties have Spanish names while others have English names. Mr. T was my favorite name, but Apple was the chosen one. I wonder if Apple is responsive to "manzana?"

Custom Personalized Kitty Cat Portrait Mug, kathyphantastic on Etsy, $42

A huge thanks once again to Aimee Wenske for photographing this pet mug and all my other Etsy products.

Nathalie should be receiving her holiday gift soon. I'm pretty sure each sip of coffee is going to make her giggle.

Crazy cat ladies unite! Cat mug prayers are answered! (kathyphantastic not included)

Here's my first attempt at a custom puppy mug. I tested the dog portrait idea on my friend Christine's dog Shipley. Christine is getting this mug as her Christmas present. She already knows and subscribes to my blog, so no surprises there.

Here's the original photo:

Here's my mug version:

Just for fun, we added astroturf for texture.

Thanks to my fabulous friend and photographer Aimee Wenske for taking these pictures for my kathyphantastic Etsy store.

Custom Personalized Dog Portrait Mug, kathyphantastic on Etsy, $42

Woof is right. More doggie mugs to come.

FYI I drank all that hot chocolate and probably ate all those marshmallows today.

This summer Leite's Culinaria ran a food photography contest on their recipe and food blog site. Aimee Wenske and I decided to team up and submit joint work. We had to use a recipe from the site, make the food, style the food, and then photograph it.

We went with this recipe for strawberry shortcake, a. because that's something we'd want to eat and b. we could easily assemble more if needed.

Luckily strawberries were in season, because we used a lot of them. Aimee's boyfriend Josh was a huge help not only baking the shortcakes, but making whipped cream, and cutting up dozens of strawberries. Thanks Josh!

Unfortunately, we didn't win, but we did end up with some more pieces for our portfolios. The pieces that did make it to the top five had a different aesthetic.

I wish the stem was prettier on the strawberry on top.

Congratulations to the Leites Culinaria food photography contest winners. We'll try again next time.

New on kathyphantastic Etsy: you can't give me a "you're fired" banner, I give you an "I quit" banner.

After hearing all those quitting stories - Whiteboard girl, JetBlue guy, and the sweetest way so far, resignation cake, you could put in your two weeks with an I Quit banner.

Here's to the abrupt end of your choosing.

You're Fired Banner, kathyphantastic on Etsy, $27

I Quit Banner, kathyphantastic on Etsy, $25

Thanks to Aimee Wenske for taking these pictures and for blogging about these banners.