World, meet Ava. Ava, world.

S&B has a new addition, Ms. Ava “Piggie-Smalls” Misner. Thirteen weeks old, approximately seven pounds. And obviously adorable.

If her face doesn’t make your day, I just don’t know what will.

If you’re looking for the perfect, most adorable, Valentine’s Day gift idea ever, look no further than Twig & Thistle’s “Naturally Sweet” stickers.

I literally gasped with delight when I saw these. Instead of giving the usual candy, chocolate, and other various sweets on Valentine’s Day, what about fruit? It’s inexpensive, healthy, and totally unexpected.

The stickers are made for apples, bananas, oranges, berries, pears, and passion fruit (seriously!). And with sayings like, “You’re the apple of my eye,” and “I’m going bananas over you,” you can use these stickers all year round.

Best part? They’re free! I mean, are you kidding me? Best. V-Day. Idea. Ever.

Well, now that we’re all grown up, there’s something better. Check out the Fuel Duo food container. The bottom holds your liquid meals and the top holds crackers. It also comes with a foldable spoon.

So now we can all sound really old and say, “I sure wish they had this when I was a kid.”

The past few months have been…crazy. I know people say that, but seriously. I mean it. I won’t torture you with all the busy details of the last few months, but it’s been really hard to blog a lot – or at all – lately. I will be trying to catch up over the next few weeks! This is where I’ve been: getting used to married life!

Photo: Nicholas Donner

Photo: Nicholas Donner

I am so excited to share today’s post with you! Super, way excited! Other than excited, I feel…legit. Like I’ve done something for real!

A few months ago, I was approached by Better Homes and Gardens about a publication they were doing. BHG was working on a desserts bookazine and wanted to include one of my recipes. A recipe by ME?! Remember these blondies?

Naturally, I said yes. So now you can find a way more attractive photo of my blondie recipe on page 7 of “Ultimate Desserts.” It really is an awesome little book with amazing recipes and gorgeous photos. You should definitely get one!

Thank you so much to BHG and Mixing Bowl for including me. I am so honored to be among the lucky ones you picked.

Now get baking, people!

You might notice a new look here at S&B. I’m excited about it! Thank you to my wonderful architect/graphic designer husband for his hard work. Let me know what you think! Also, my name is now Heather Misner, but you can still find me on twitter as heathercummins.

For now, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures from the wedding weekend. Ryan and I leaving the altar at rehearsal::

Recently, I moved into a new space. Up until my newest apartment, I’ve been lucky enough to have pretty big kitchens. They’ve had big refrigerators, lots of counter and workspace, and tons of room in the cabinets.

My current kitchen is a different story. I love our apartment. It has nice wood floors and is walking distance to basically everything I deem important – like the Metro and Ray’s Hellburger. However, the kitchen is a bit small.

Since spring is finally here and since I have lots of experience on the subject right now, I’d like to share with you my tips for small kitchen organization:

1. Store frequently used items in easy-to-reach places or out in the open. Take for example, my magnetic knife strip. For $9 (Ikea), and a little craftsmanship, you can free up an entire drawer. My under-the-counter hooks (see photos below) are nothing more than these 3M stickies placed up underneath the cabinet.
   
   
   
2. Keep things with their own kind. Pie plates go with cake pans and springform pans. Cooking utensils go in the same holder. Oils and vinegars hang out in the same cupboard. You get the picture.
   
   
   
3. Find a storage solution for less used items that works for you and your space. My cake stands and champagne flutes are gorgeous. But honestly, why would I want to take up valuable cabinet space with them? Enter the “ginormous red piece of furniture” that Ryan and I bought and put together. It’s very tall, but is only 47″ wide…perfect for our little dining room. Here I keep everything that I don’t consider everyday.
   
4. Consider organizing spices, sugars, flours, and small kitchen items like bag clips in see through containers that are labeled. This will give your cabinets a more organized feel, with everything in similar looking containers. Check back in a couple weeks for my post on the most important spices and how to organize them!
5. Finally, get things off those counters! I’ve used some of my precious cabinet space for small appliances like my hand mixer, George Foreman, and toaster. It’s worth it to me to have a clean counter space to work on. The only things I leave out on my main workspace are items too heavy to move around such as the KitchenAid mixer and the coffee maker. Use items like under-the-counter paper towel holders and hooks.
   
   
   

I hope you enjoyed your tour through my new kitchen and picked up some tips on how to handle kitchen organization, no matter how big or small your space is.  This will be the site where many new treats are dreamed up! As Tyler Florence once said on how to become a great cook, “All you really need are a few quality kitchen tools, a well-stocked pantry, a little counter space, and a few good cookbooks.”

I don’t know if you heard or not, but I’m tying the knot.

In 19 days. Not that I’m counting or anything.

The last 14 weeks have been a bit crazy, but I’ve been so pleased to see that people are sticking with me through the blog’s downtime. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be back very soon, right after the wedding is over.

And I’ll be back better than ever, thanks to my array of new toys::

It’s pretty much heaven inside our new apartment right now. Plus, I have a barrage of new recipes and ideas to try out so believe me, this is going to be a win-win situation for all.

So, please keep coming back and soon we’ll be up and running per the usual again.

Aaaaand, we might even have a new chic look here at Sugar & Butter. After all, I’m marrying an architect/graphic designer extraordinaire.