That time I bought celebrity liquor...

My primary guilty pleasure is the show The Vampire Diaries. It's my go-to on-in-the-background show and it's my go-to having-a-bad-day show. 

And then I randomly discovered that Ian and Paul Damon and Stephen (sorry. I can only refer to actors by their characters' names) made a celebrity bourbon. 

So I needed to own that. Aviation gin can go to hell. 

And then I needed to make this cocktail that Damon and Stephen somehow failed to list on their website... 

The BLOOD Orange Old Fashioned. 

You're welcome. 

#couldbeasponsor

Blood Orange Old Fashioned Recipe

Ingredients:

1 sugar cube

2-3 dashes angostura orange bitters

ice

2 oz Brother's Bond Bourbon (you can use another brand, but then it's not in the spirit of the recipe)

 

Steps:

1) Place sugar cube in bottom of rocks glass and moisten with 2-3 dashes of bitters.

2) Use a muddler (or the back of a knife or similar if you don't have a muddler) to smash the sugar cube. 

3) Add ice to glass and then bourbon. 

4) Finally, add a slice of blood orange and enjoy!

That time we did a photobooth...

I love photobooths. 

There's a jukebox thing at this bar in my town where we went for the afterparty of our friends' wedding that has a photobooth mode that lets you email the resulting photos to yourself. We were there a couple weeks ago.

Anyway. I saved the photostrip to my desktop and didn't know what to do with it so I decided to put it here. 

I'm glad we're not really short.

That Time I Saved A Paper Plate...

I didn't just save a paper plate. I saved two paper plates, several plastic utensils, and two plastic-lined paper cups and plastic lids.

And, no, I didn't save them as in "kept them as a keepsake." I saved them from being used...

That Time I Was Finally a "dot.com"...

It happened. Finally.

Every few years I would go on a domain-sellling site and search for "laurenofalltrades.com" and see if it was available to buy. 

And then because it wasn't available, I would visit laurenofalltrades.com and see who/what was keeping me from having my custom url. I was laurenofalltrades everywhere else. Instagram, Facebook, Gmail. YouTube. Probably more I'm not thinking of. I couldn't be laurenofalltrades on Twitter because it's too long. But no one can be laurenofalltrades on Twitter. 

I settled for ".blog." Bleh. 

But then this year, I randomly checked for laurenofalltrades.com when I was reviewing a renewal of a different domain. And then it magically. didn't say. TAKEN. 

And it wasn't ridiculously expensive. 

So welcome, FINALLY, to laurenofalltrades.com! 

laurenofalltrades.blog links and bookmarks will redirect here for the next year, and then they will stop working. Sorry in advance for that. Although, it's unlikely you will be able to read this if you don't notice your bookmarks not working until its too late. Whomp. 

That Time I Decided to Recommend Products...

Since I started my YouTube channel and pretty much stopped blogging about my adventures, I've been struggling with what to use my blog for. I really like my blog and keep paying for a custom URL, so it feels like a waste to not be writing ANYTHING in it. 

Well. Recently I've come across some products that I was just hands down thrilled that I purchased, so I thought that could be something that I can impart to the world...