Weekend Inspiration: Dresses, grey couches, and an ode to flourless chocolate cake

Weekend Inspiration: Dresses, grey couches, and an ode to flourless chocolate cake

• 4.04.2014

It's been... a week! My book manuscript was due to my publisher on Tuesday so I had a couple of high-stress days there for a while, and I'm SO ready to relax and do fun things I love over the weekend! Here are a few!

Flourless chocolate amazingness

We're having several friends over for a dinner party tomorrow, and I'm super excited to make this flourless chocolate cake. I've made it twice now (Christmas and family trip the other week) and it's sooooooo delicious, plus easy and made of basic, pretty wholesome ingredients! (I substitute butter for the coconut oil, and omit the maple syrup and water.) 

Seriously, I highly recommend you try this at home. It's basically chocolate, butter, EGGS!, and vanilla! Perfect for gluten-free eaters and so impressive for anyone else who likes chocolate - better than any dry, scratchy chocolate cake like the ones I remember! Plus, it looks so impressive because it bakes in a springform pan and you can add pretty toppings (I've been doing fruit or homemade fruit compote/syrup), but it's really super easy.

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The darling British cooking show I've been into features a flourless chocolate cake, too, in the "Celebratory" episode! Seriously, watch this sweet show with Sophie's perfect accent and it'll inspire you to do whatever she's doing, too. I think I'll top my next flourless chocolate cake with about 5 pounds of fresh berries, too! ;)

Flowers, couches, you know--spring.

It's springtime for real now, so I've been admiring flowers on desks and tables all week (both online and in the office!). So nice to see perky tulips cheering up an otherwise sort of seasonless space again (at my work, at least). 

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Spring cleaning, spring re-arranging... I got a little carried away pinning last night while I was supposed to be in bed. :/ Oh, well. Catching up on inspiration! I also absolutely love this entire home tour and am thinking about re-arranging our living room this weekend. Probably after the party! Wonder if we could fit both of our (grey) couches in our living room...

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Dresses! And a chair.

I also have some serious sewing goals this weekend!! I have a very cool black and white print maxi dress cut out, and I really need to finish a chair slipcover I started, um, more than a year ago. Oops.

And on a totally different note, I'm also starting to get excited for the summer wedding season, and thinking about what I'll make for my dear friend's wedding since I saw her last weekend and got to hear some of the details! It's at a venue that has peacocks walking around, and her colors have some peacock-inspired blues and greens. I have a lovely shimmery periwinkle-ey purple-ey lightweight poly that would be great with some gathering on the bodice. Maybe I'll draft/modify a pattern to create something a little like Lupita Nyong'o's lovely pale blue Oscars dress!! But less low-cut! And shorter for daytime!

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Looks like a fun DIY challenge!

Well, that was all over the place! Such is the way with sudden flashes of inspiration, eh??