Portland Studio

My sister-in-law, Tara, was visiting from San Antonio, Texas last week. As Tara is a talented photographer, while she was in town, we took a little trip to The Portland Studio to take some pictures of a few of my desserts that I have been working on for the last couple of months. These include Double Chocolate Smores cookies, Lemon Lavender cookies, and a red velvet and raspberry cake. I had not previous been to The Portland Studio (link to their site is at the bottom of this post), and I must say, it is amazing! They have a lot of different props you can include in your pictures, and amazing backdrops for taking pictures. I would definitely recommend this place in the future to people who are looking to photograph people or other items! 

With the beautiful (and hot) Oregon weather of the last couple of months, it has been a wonderful opportunity for hiking many of the wonderful hikes around the Pacific Northwest, as well as various water activities and camping! And what is real camping without Smores? Not real camping, I will say that! While there, one of my friends said, "Erin, why don't you make some Smores cookies sometime?". As soon as I got home I started looking around for Smores cookies recipes and surprisingly didn't really stumble across much! Through much trial and error, I decided to use a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, but add in crushed graham cracker & Hersey's chocolate chunks as well as melted marshmallows. Once freshly out of the oven, I pressed in a few more Hersey's chunks on top, so you would really be able to know that they were incorporated into the recipe.

Becoming a contino

I have taken a step away from the site over the last half of this year, due primarily to the fact that a few months ago I married the love of my life, Liam. A few quick facts about our relationship (so you aren’t completely annoyed with the fact that this isn’t exactly a “baking” post and don’t run away as quickly as possibly from my site).
1. Liam was not a “love at first sight” kind of thing for me. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I found him overly talkative and quite honestly, very annoying during our first class in college together.
2. Eventually, I found myself needing his smartie pants brain the following year when we had another class together, which is when he slowly melted my heart to figure out the kind of man he really was.
3. It was during those 3 months of that class that I discovered what a kind, passionate, gentle, loving, and generous man Liam really was - and I should not have judged him before even meeting him first.
4. Last, but not least. Liam was with me during the beginning phases of my baking passions (where there was still experimental evenings of batter splattered on my apartment ceiling and flour all of the floor), and he has never stopped supporting me to this day. And I know he never will.

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Happy 2018 Friends! Where has the time gone? As the holidays have just come to close and we are beginning a new year, I always appreciate the time to reflect on the past year and the goals that I want to set for myself over this brand new year. I am so thankful for how much my baking business has increased in 2017, and all of the potential it has of continuing to grow over the next year in 2018. 

I read in an article in The Business Insider which stated that 80% of New Year's resolutions fail by February (1). Now, I don't know about you, but I do not want to be a part of that 80%. I want to be a part of the 20% that actually succeeds in conquering their goals during the year 2018. While sitting down and planning out my goals for the year, I realized that as I have two really big goals, I needed to make smaller ones along the way to be able to accomplish those bigger ones. Now, how does that realistically happen? I would say (in learning from the past, in being a part of that 80%), accountability is huge. It is important to have a few people - if not just one person - who can be there to help you accomplish your goals for the year. Whether that be by checking in with you once a month or even once a week, and having them ask you questions such as: "what have you done this week to help you reach the goal you set?", or "what can you adjust next week to help you get closer to that goal if you don't feel like you did as well as you would have liked to this past week?". 

As well as setting smaller goals for myself, I realized as 2017 was coming to a close, that I needed to continue to push myself to be more creative during the year 2018. I read an Instagram post from a dear friend of mine, Vanessa, that I felt was important to share as we begin 2018. Let me just rave about Vanessa for 2 quick seconds and then I will share her beautiful post with you. Vanessa is one of the most creative people that I know. I met her and her twin sister, Anna (Who is so incredible as well! I'm going to leave her information at the end of this post, because her and her husband Gregory are absolutely amazing photographers and I want to share their beautiful work with you!), a little over 8 years ago. I remember sitting in a coffee shop with Vanessa, sipping on lattes while she shared her beautiful designs she had created for my company, when I was just starting my business a little over three years ago. A few days before 2017 came to a close, she posted a picture on Instagram, with a beautiful caption that not only encouraged me, but I'm sure encouraged every single person who read through it as well. Here is what that caption read:

 I know that I'm not alone with the struggle of being copied AND the temptation to copy. In being copied, people have said to me, "take it as a compliment!" or "you're just a trend setter!" but the same ache returns in my chest and I really struggle with letting it go over and over again. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not innocent in this. I've used language like, "they're my inspiration", but really I just try and do what they do. I was wrong in that. The temptation, especially with Instagram and all it's force, is ever so present. 

I've fought to be original in my work. It takes time to come up with new ideas, a discipline to not look at everyone else's work and mimic what I see. Yet the cycle of being copied makes it even harder to keep on creating... nevertheless, I fight for hope and for originality. 

There's a question out there that asks, "is anything actually original these days?" and I would argue, yes! I think God, the Creator, has innovative ideas. He's given us that we have yet to tap into. I think we'd be creating more beautiful and incredible things if we'd learn to look into our hearts and minds than outward at what others are doing. 

I ask that you would examine yourself and see where you lie on the spectrum. Is the time you spend on Instagram helping or hurting you? Do you find it hard to create purely? Do you need to forgive and release those who have copied you? Are you looking inward or out at people for inspiration? 

We can't change this cycle until we start being honest with ourselves. We can't survive as creatives living off of someone else's ideas (2).       

Now, if you skipped or skimmed through the text above, I would strongly suggest going back and reading through it. This year, I want to strive to not only be more creative in my baking endeavour's for myself and for the people I am baking for, but ultimately I want to do it because I believe that we really honor God through our work, and I want to honor God with every aspect of my life. I hope that this post is a small encouragement to you as you think about your goals and how you want to really make 2018 the best year for yourself yet - no matter what your circumstances might be. Happy 2018 Friends!