We here at Brown Sugar Design love cake, and in the words of Jim Gaffigan, “Pie can’t compete with cake…Put candles in a pie, and somebody’s drunk in the kitchen.”

This subject brings us to our new blog love: 100 Layer Cake. Fairly new on the scene, they have drawn some great attention – and rightly so. Their blog is beautiful and full of creative wedding inspiration and ideas. All this – and they haven’t even launched their ‘full’ resource site yet. We can’t wait to see what they come out with. If you haven’t yet, go and check it out. You won’t be disappointed and will quickly see the truth in the statement “pie can’t compete with cake…” especially if happens to be 100 Layer.

In case you haven’t seen this yet, Junebug Weddings, one of our favorite online wedding resources, is having a guest blogging series by Mindy Weiss.

Check out the first installment of “Ask Mindy” where Mindy answers questions on how to keep your wedding budget under control.

She offers some great advice on ways to keep your wedding budget in control without losing your personal style or the quality that your wedding day deserves. We can’t wait to read Mindy’s next installment!

I recently saw Nole from Oh So Beautiful Paper post about her new business cards designed by Simple Song Design. These are so nice and subtle – a very nice compliment to her great blog. The colors are great and the the blind de-bossed letterpress gives the cards and stationery a great texture.

If you haven’t seen Nole’s blog go check it out now; you won’t be disappointed by all the great ephemera, especially this week with her regular posts covering the National Stationery Show.

Just a quick update to the little challenge to ourselves – and possibly others (if you’re not sure what we are talking about check out this post):

Well, Whitney and I did it. (Personally, I did fall behind with my commenting on Friday, but caught up on Saturday.) Both of us noticed that there were a couple of days that when we went back and thought about it, we ended up commenting more that three times without even realizing it. We’ve also both found new blogs that we suddenly can’t live without – both of our google readers are even more loaded up now than they were before. Up next: week 2!

In the words of our friend Keith – Viva Communication!

Can we just say we love blogs – we love reading them, we love writing for ours (and sometimes others) and we love the virtual dialog that happens with each post. This virtual dialog is something we realized we have neglected over the past few months or even more. While we never forget to read the blogs we love, with things like RSS feeds and our iPhones, it makes it so much easier to read the posts and move on. The problem is; no dialog.

We read blog posts and say to ourselves or to each other things we would normally want to say to the writer, but then don’t pass it along because we are out of the habit. No more, we say! No more. We are starting a movement! Well, okay , not really a movement, but for the next two weeks Whitney and I have set the goal to comment on at least 3 blogs we read daily (each of us individually) to help keep dialog going. We hope that after two weeks it will become more habit to comment on some of the blogs we love and not just be 3 comments either – we have numerous blogs we keep up with.

If you too have felt the same we encourage you to start commenting again too. Take up our same challenge and let the writers know how you feel about their post. Tell them that you agree or disagree, you love it or hate it or just that you love reading their blog. Why not start today?

Shoot. Another way to waste time.

all photos from the daily wag

I just discovered Martha’s two frenchies, Sharkey and Francesca, have their own blog: The Daily Wag. How did I not know about this sooner? In any case, the blog is stinking ADORABLE; Sharkey and Francesca share with all of us their love of travel, farm animals, and antiquing, their irritation with Bill O’Reilly and skunk attacks. Each post is accompanied by a gallery of the two bloggers on their adventures- let’s just say it’s a great way to waste time.

What do you think? Should we let Stella be a guest blogger here? She doesn’t have quite as many adventures as Sharkey and Francesca, but I’m sure she has some very important things to say…

Thanks to all of our readers for your patience during our server moves and subsequent wordpress update. Here is a little something for our subscribers out there who use Google Reader to keep up on all their feeds. I know Whitney couldn’t live without her Google Reader!

Check out Helvetireader and insert some style into your daily reads.

We’re glad to be back! Stay tuned as we have some great updates for you all, so go ahead and make it easier on yourself and add us to your blog subscription.

Our IT team (Okay, IT guy) is hard at work moving our site and blog to a new fancy server – hopefully even better than what you see above. (sweet vintage ad, huh? love the trade gothic) Because of this move we will not be posting new stuff here on the blog for the next day or so. This will not disturb any other normal activity – you will still be able to view our site and email us.

It’s been a crazy few weeks. And the next few months promise to be just as crazy. Susy, the designer behind  SusyJack, blogged a bit today (on her inspiring blog, heysusy) about her own business and the new ventures that she’s moving forward with, and this little bit at the end of her post expresses exactly what I needed to hear today:

…while I know I could be looking at these new ventures as overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, I think, this time, I’ll just go with it, savor it, and believe in it.

I feel so encouraged by that little snippet and it’s going to be my anthem for the next few months (because I couldn’t express it any better on my own if I tried).

Attention, hostesses!

12 Too Many is a great new website from Sheena Kalso (also the Invisible Hostess and the brain behind Totally Tabletops). Here’s what it’s all about (in the words of Sheena and partner, Anna):

If you’ve just had a wedding or party that left you with “12 too many” vases, table runners, props, or other decor items, we can help you sell your stuff!

Selling? Fill out a “submit item” form and upon approval your listing will post for 2 weeks. Buying? Select the city you’re buying in and browse by category, color, or theme. You contact the seller and arrange pick up or delivery.

In a nutshell, 12 Too Many is a craigslist for all of you party planning peeps! Best of all? It’s free! It’s still fairly new, so not all cities are represented and they’re just starting to gain more of a following. If you don’t see your city, add it! And spread the word!