I was a big wuss last month and failed to do the challenge for lasagna. No time. Moving and Venison? no thanks. This month I was a little more enthused about the challenge because it included my favorite dessert and didn't take 12 hours. It was also very handy that Penelope had a birthday this month, thus giving me an excuse to make Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake. Since I wanted to give Penelope her own cake, I made the cheesecakes in cupcake form using silicone cupcake cups (genius!). This happened to make doing the water bath much easier to do and removing the cakes a snap. The recipe conveniently makes exactly enough crust and cheesecake for two dozen cupcakes. I think I ate 9 or 10 out of the 24 I made. Penelope had fun playing around with the cupcake. It looks here like she was going to eat the whole thing, but she ended up dropping it on the floor. Molly the dog ended up eating it. The dog liked it at first but her intestines didn't. Poor dog.

The cheesecake was subtly flavored with fresh lemon, served up side down with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and chocolate covered pomegranates. It was a very tasty combination. I really liked presenting the cheesecake upside down. It just looks more fun to eat.

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake:

Crust: 2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs 1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted 2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar 1 tsp. vanilla extract Cheesecake: 3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature 1 cup / 210 g sugar 3 large eggs 1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream 1 tbsp. lemon juice *1 extra tbsp. lemon juice *zest of lemon 1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean) DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. 2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker’s choice. Set crust aside. 3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest and blend until smooth and creamy. 4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water. 5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve. Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil “casserole” shaped pans from the grocery store. They’re 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away. *My Notes: I added more lemon to mine (yum) and since I did it in silicone cupcake cups, I only cooked it for 20-35 minutes, or until still a little jiggly, and cooled using the cake directions. The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Pingg and the telephone were a great back-up plan for Penelope's invitations, but I just still was a little sad that I didn't have the time to make her a more personalized invitation. But if I had time, here's what it would've looked like. . . These invitations were inspired by the square petal envelopes at Paper Source (I'm in love, seriously--Paper Source is my favorite). Well, I didn't have a chance to use these invitations, but if you have something coming up, Penelope's fill-in-the-blank invitation is available for download, right here!! For free*.

*Design and design elements are Free for personal use ONLY.

Thanks to How About Orange for linking to this post! If you're new to IS•LY, welcome, welcome! Feel free to look around and as always, comments are encouraged!

In my attempt to decorate for our family parties for Penelope's birthday, I wanted to make a cute birthday sign. I've seen so many parties decorated with bunting and I've truly fallen in love. I've been on a paper sewing kick and I had a bunch of fun yellow and grey wallpaper that was screaming to be used. I'm really happy with the final product, I can't bear to take it down. I think the whole project took me just under an hour to make. It helped that my mom had a cricut so I didn't have to cut out the letters by hand. Make your own birthday bunting with IS•LY's easy tutorial! Click here to download.

Life for the Esplin clan has been a little hectic, as I've mentioned in every blog post the last couple of weeks. Since we've been so transient, it was a little hard to plan the birthday celebration for Penelope that I had in mind. While I've had to come to terms with reality, we didn't seem to have any shortage of laughter, cake, ice cream and family. I was a little disappointed that I didn't have enough time to send out proper invitations, so I settled for pingg invitations and good ole fashioned phone calls. Pingg is fabulous, except when you don't have everyone's email addresses. Sadly a couple of family members fell though the cracks and weren't informed of our partying. My theme, if any of this had any sort of theme, was yellow. I love yellow, and Penelope brightens so many people's lives that it just fit. I wasn't able to get yellow cupcake cups or yellow napkins or yellow flowers (again, seriously only 24 hours to prep for this thing), but I did find my mom's awesome wedding plates that had a ribbon of yellow, my yellow table cloth and some yellow wallpaper for Penelope's happy birthday sign. Find the tutorial on how to make your own banner, here. I now realize how much effort my parents went to when it came to celebrating my birthdays. They always made such a big deal out of us kids. Stay tuned for a special birthday tutorial & download!

Happy Earth Day, Everyone! Today is a day of great celebration. Isn't this earth awesome?!? This month's giveaway is a little special. Here's the deal:

• Five lucky readers will win!
• Each gift will be made from upcycled/repurposed material to save mother earth.
• It'll be a surprise, and made just for you!!

All you have to do is:

• Comment here on this post (any comment will do and only one per person).
• Overseas comments welcome!
• Comments close April 29, 2009 at midnight.
• Repost this on your blog and offer the same giveaway to 5 lucky readers.*
• Post on your blog a picture of what you won as soon as you get it!*

*Participation is completely optional and potentially a lot of fun.

Thanks Nicia for the sweet prize! Look what I got (Pictured below: handmade card, envelope & bookmark):

Happy Birthday, Penelope, Nelly, Nels Bells, Nels, Nels A PEA, Pearl, Belle, Goobie, Pen, Lope, PP, Little P, Miss P, Nelly Pea. . . I can't believe that it was a whole year ago that you made your very timely debut. Not only were you born at just the right time to give Chris his full two weeks of parental leave, but you were also born on your cousin's birthday and Earth (aka Earf) day. Pictures and birthday party tutorials to come!

I'm thoroughly enjoying the recent surge of springy weather we've been having and therefore shirking in the blog posting department. :( I've had these flowers in my drawing book for some time (since my Idaho weekend), and haven't scanned them in, thanks to living out of a suitcase. Tomorrow Chris and I are heading down to Arizona to spend some time with the Esplin family, and I'm greatly looking forward to crafting with my in-laws, and hopefully get in some painting and drawing time with the sisters-in-law, too. I think the drawings might make for some interesting paintings. Hopefully I'll get around to painting soon.

[side note: I think I've told Chris 99 times today that I'm apartment/house hungry--it especially manifest itself this weekend when I went thrifting with my cousin's wife, and nearly bought a set of fiberglass chairs for the home I don't live in. Thanks, Natalie, for oogling over vintage home treasures with me!]

[other side note: I've had some stellar luck with some great second-hand finds, I found a cool wool coat for $5 (pictured above) and a metal cafeteria tray for $1 and a stellar stainless steel breadbox for $10--talked down from $12. The breadbox was a particularly awesome find because about 15 minutes later I found another one selling for $50!]

Chris likes to send me emails of things I should do. Redesign his banner, join an affiliate program, learn about seo. . . Two days ago it was to get the WPtouch plugin. I would like to announce that IS•LY now has an iPhone, iTouch, mobile device-friendly site! Now when you're crafting up a storm and don't want to look up a tutorial on your bulky home computer, whip out your trusty mobile and search my tutorials with ease! Whooppee! This awesome plugin even came complete with your own button template for custom buttons! Nothing makes me happier than making custom buttons ;) . Anyway, if you have a wordpress site, I strongly urge you to give it a try. If you're not sure if it will look right, download the iphoney application for easy testing.

[This is a pretty long post. Sorry] Excuses, excuses: Chris and I got back from our Idaho/Montana trip late Thursday night. We've not been in one place for more than 3 days for the last 2 weeks. We're living out of suitcases at my parents' house. . . Therefore it's been just a teensy bit difficult to do much of anything crafty, especially in time for Easter. I was hoping to make a big deal out of it this year with dying eggs, homemade easter baskets with sweet treats, and matching dresses (all traditions from my childhood), but it just wasn't very realistic (just like my idea of having an elaborate party for Penelope's first birthday). However. . . For the last couple of months, I've been thinking non-stop about making a striped skirt like the one from Anthropologie and I just so happen to have 5 yards of very similar fabric. I think it was Saturday afternoon that decided that now was the time to make that idea happen. I used the skirt pattern from the Sew U book (it's genius), and modified it just a tad. It probably took me nearly an hour to figure out how to place the pattern pieces on the fabric to get the stripes to line up just right. I like the enclosure in the back with the grey buttons, I also like the light weight fabric and the look of the bias. Overall, I think it turned out ok, but Chris just might say otherwise (he's just not a fan of the pleats in the front). So, I'd like to ask you: Should I keep the pleats in the front, or should I modify the skirt to make it flat-fronted?? I'm not sure, because it looks like pleats are all the rage, but I'm a little self-concious about it. Seriously, I need your opinions!!

Anyway, It turned out ok, but I'll definitely make this skirt again so I can learn from my mistakes.

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Penelope's dress turned out slightly better, but it too, has its flaws. The inspiration for this dress comes from a Martha Stewart magazine photo of a girl in a pink scalloped dress. SWOON with a capital S! This was my attempt at making that dress from a japanese dress pattern. The pattern is starting to get a little small for Penelope, so I tried to enlarge it. The proportions came out a little funny, but the dress still looks as cute as a button.

I love this little girl, and the grey stripes with the pink ribbon fit her personality just right. Overall, my attempts to be matchy, matchy for Easter were fairly successful, and all it took was 10 straight hours of sewing and $5.

Penelope and I met Tom & Peggy for the first time and it had been a few years since Chris had seen them, so it was a much needed reunion. Chris has told me how handy his grandpa is, but I seriously had no idea how handy until Tom showed me around their [beautiful] home and pointed out everything he had made. I snapped a few photos of the Dobrusky originals. Thought you might enjoy. Peggy showed me photos of how Tom constructed the bridge. It looked like a ton of work and absolutely beautiful. Chris and I knew that Tom had turned the wood of all of their lamps (from wood found in their backyard), but I was taken aback when I found out all the lampshades were made by him, too. Not one lamp was exactly the same. I was also impressed by the ingenuity of their remote control holder. I really could take some cues from Gramps's creativity. Oh, and he made the side table too. And 4 other similar tables that were in the house. Oh, and he made this table. AND chairs. I thought they were purchased. NO, no, they're Dobrusky originals and very comfortable. Tom really likes stained glass and I like it too, especially in this china hutch made by, yes, Tom Dobrusky. It's just incredible to see all of the things Tom and Peggy do, all of the work they put into their home. There's never a dull moment. I can't tell you how inspiring this home was! Nearly everything was hand made, even the bikes in the barn were made from scratch and I believe the golf clubs were, too! It was the motivation I need to get going on some home projects I have brewing in this brain of mine, now all I need is a home or apartment. I had a lot of fun getting to know Chris's grandparents, we better not wait too long for the next visit.

It's good to be back!! It's been a while since I've had full-blown internet access; so I have a few unanswered emails, over 900 unread items in google reader and this blog has been neglected. I've got a lot of catching up to do! Last week we decided to take a last-minute trip to see Chris's grandparents. We had been trying to decide when to visit and then it looked like they might have a buyer for their home so we rushed up in hopes to catch them before moving chaos. The timing couldn't have been better for all of us! On the way to Bigfork, we made a detour to Idaho Falls for a helicoptor ride and Island Park for a relaxing Saturday and Sunday with friends and their family. Doyle [my friend's dad]  just got a helicopter and license so he was anxious to take it for a spin. He did a great job of making it a smooth ride! I can't tell you how incredibly excited I was to ride in a helicopter. It was really cool, as evidenced by the 150 photos that I took. Seriously huge thanks to Alexis and Chad for inviting us, and to Doyle and Elizabeth for the hospitality. We had so much fun!!

One of the best things about having a Wordpress blog hosted on your own webspace is that you have complete artistic control of the entire site. When I got a comment last week mentioning my ugly yellow emoticons I knew I had to do something. I couldn't just stand by letting scary yellow faces haunt the small corners of my blog, so I destroyed all evidence of the the ugly beasties by making some new smilies! :D Enjoy.

Don't forget today is the last day to enter into the Litho Print Giveaway!! Chris, Pen and I are off to see Chris's grandparents in Big Fork, Montana!! Have a great weekend all!! P.S. Am I the only one that doesn't know any of the symbols for any of the emoticons besides ;) :) :D and :P ?

[insert teenybopper screaming here] If you haven't gandered at the sponsor section of the blog, I really suggest you take a peek. One of my great friends, Karisa, has gorgeous design coming out of her ears and she makes some of the most beautiful wedding invitations I've ever seen. Of course their beauty is increased exponentially by the yumminess of letterpress and juicy paper. I'm drooling. I can't tell you how giddy I was when she gave me this incredible stack of stationery! It's just so gorgeous. Thank you, Karisa, for the goodies! I can't wait to use one of the calling cards!