Be Mour

My adorable cousin Lana was turning 12, and I wanted to surprise her with a fun party on her birthday!  Because it was still Ramadan at the time, it was going to be a break-fast dinner, so I tried to prepare foods that aren't dry for the mostpart! I began preparing for the birthday with the funnest part- decorations!  I didn't make them too dramatic because I invited some people who didn't know it was a birthday dinner, and I didn't want them to have an awkward surprise! I chose a pastel pink and green theme, because they're Lana's favorite colors :) I ran out of balloons (eek!), so I filled the middle with some flowers and vines! I'll post some recipes for these in the future sometime! ;) And I couldn't forget about the traditional dates, which are a necessity for beak-fast dinners. I decided to take a little spin on the dates and use date paste, pistachios, walnuts, and sesame seeds to make some date creations: 

Because Cleveland glooms up pretty hard in the winter, Clevelanders try to embrace every ray of sunshine, and take every opportunity to enjoy the warm weather!  So, I set out to make the humble abode more more summery!   Check out our new hanging fleur additions! bm

I've never made donuts before, and it has definitely been on my short term bucket list for quite some time, so I decided to finally give them a shot!  I scoured Pinterest for some donut recipes and decided to try out  this  old-fashioned sour cream donut recipe... It was a success!!!  The donuts were more of a cake-like texture rather than the common fluffy ones, but that's what I was shooting for, and for the glaze, it was yum! Here's what you need:   DONUTS : 2.25 cups flour 1.5 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg 1/2 cup sugar 2 tbs butter (room temperature) 2 egg yolks 1/2 cup sour cream Vegetable oil (for frying) GLAZE : 3.5 cups powdered sugar (sifted) 1.5 tsp corn syrup 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/3 cup hot water 1.  Sift together flour, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. 2.  In another bowl, beat sugar and butter together until sandy. 3.  Add the egg yolks to the butter mixtu

The loveliness of Cleveland you find in hidden alleys, and random corners.  There's always something new to discover in Cleveland, it's really filled with little boutique shops, and saturated with delicious unique restaurants that are rare in other cities! Today, I visited one of the places I love most in Cleveland- the West Side Market!  Not only is it a vast farmers market with numerous vendors shouting right and left to try to get your attention, but it is also a market for every type of food you can think of!  It is very similar to The Grove farmer's market in Los Angelos.  

I'm definitely an independent film fanatic, so I've been waiting to watch this movie ever since I saw the preview in the theaters a few months back! I highly recommend watching it!!  Gave me a lot of feels and tears.  bm

I made these!!! Felt pretty floral!! These are what you'll need: Chiffon fabric (I purchased about 1/2 a yard and was able to make about a dozen blooms) Scissors Tea light candle Needle and thread Beads for the center of the flower (I purchased Bead Gallery beads from Michaels) First step- Cut 5 circles, in an ascending order of largeness.  I ranged my cuts from a 4 inch to a 3 inch diameter.  The circles DO NOT have to perfect! Next, you light the candle, and take one circle and place the edge of it close to the flame (not on the flame o r it'll burn), you'll see it shrivel up like magic! Do this for all 5 petals!  Now, here's a part where you can get creative... You can just shrivel them all up into circles without petals, stack them in each other, and you'll get a poppy-like flower (I actually prefer the way this fabric flower looks more than the petaled one).  OR, you can cut and flame petals and make it look more like a peony!

Unfortunately, I was camera-less for quite some time because I lost my charger!  Boo. Sooo, I couldn't be patient anymore, I needed to find a way to charge the cam so I can actually take decent pictures!  There were quite some websites that sold the charger for my camera, but I wondered if I could just find some way to charge it right then and there without waiting for a charger to arrive! As usual, I googled it!  Anddd... it's totally possible, and now I have a charged camera!  It is totally uncharacteristic of me to fondle with wires, I felt like a mad scientist in the process! So, here's how to do it! First, you have to find a USB cable at home that you don't need, it just has to have one USB end and could have any other end.   Then, you have to look on your camera battery and find the 3 gold squares on the side.  The 2 outer gold squares are usually marked whether they're positive or negative. Now, you have to cut the USB cable at the e