Fake Baking in Seattle with zulily

Rosewater spray, an ocean of wavy dark brown curls and eyelashes with more drama than a contrived soap opera actress.

All real.

A stiff as starch white button up shirt, two dresses and one denim vest.

All real.

Hysterical laughter, pink frosting on noses, and dad and daughter memories that will last a lifetime.

So very real.

The only thing fake in Seattle last week were the mini cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies we didn’t actually bake on set #22 inside zulily’s cavernous downtown headquarters.

My daughters and I were flown across the great expansive of the country after school, and after Mouse’s post-school elementary band concert, on Monday night.

From the Sea-Tac airport, in the dark of night, in the back of a Toyota Prius, we were driven to Seattle’s most iconic hotel, a place literally on the water and famous (as well as infamous) in rock-n-roll lore.

The next morning, after cliche Seattle raindrops were swept away by friendly enough clouds and a blue enough sky, we three sauntered through the Edgewater parking lot, across the active train tracks that run along Alaskan Way, and into zulily’s very own Starbucks.

The girls nibbled on breakfast sweets and sipped a vanilla caramel steamer and hot chocolate as we got to know zulily’s meastro of marketing and PR.

After crumbs were brushed off laps and cups tossed into the compost bin, we went inside the hub of the e-retail giant and walked among miles of shelving storing props of all kinds, a few green rooms, studio sets where precious little babies were being photographed next to busy hardlines creative directors capturing images of under sink trash cans (they really do sell EVERYTHING on zulily!), elaborate camera rigs, massive portrait lighting umbrellas, and hard-at-work zulily employees making sure the 9,000+ new products that hit zulily.com and the zulily app daily are eye candy for and read appealing to the 5 million active zulily customers.

We weren’t there to giggle and shake when bubbles are blown in our direction or to seamlessly glide out from under a kitchen sink. Instead, zulily invited the girls and I to Seattle to take part in their 2017 Father’s Day program centered all around dad & daughter dates.

We had a handful of themes to choose from (road trips, STEM building, and baking among them) with the idea being we’d sit in make-up and hair for a bit, model for the camera, and POOF! a real life zulily sales event featuring our smiling mugs and the gear we used in the shoot would appear in the days leading up to Father’s Day.

Life continues to be weird and wonderful.

Being obsessed with Yolanda’s How To Cake It channel on YouTube and doing a lot of baking in our own home kitchen, this wasn’t even a choice for my teen and tween!

BAKE WE MUST! BAKE WE WILL! FAKE BAKE WE DID!

This dad & daughter baking zulily sales event experience was our first modeling job and it was surreal to say the least.

The girls were a bundle of tired bodies and excited minds in the hours leading up to the photo shoot.

Being in hair and makeup for 45 minutes or so first was not only a rad treat (for them AND for me) but also helped to gently ease them into the lights, camera and action of being directed and photographed on a real studio set.

The mix of jetlagged exhaustion and nervous punch drunk energy played well on camera as we three fake-baked mini cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies on a dreamy butcher block topped kitchen island and in front of a radiant purple wallpapered backdrop.

I even managed to deal with the flour that was cinematically strewn across the countertop.

At home, I’d be wiping up non-stop but on set I was all, ‘go ahead and fling icing around and who cares that there’s cookie batter sticking to the counter and falling on the floor!’

How’s that for acting!

Pretend or not, zulily set #22 was turning into the kitchen of my wildest dreams because it was my kids and I in it together, singing along with the Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording, being ridiculous, and laughing so much that I sincerely hope the poor photographer assigned to our madness was able to get at least a few decent shots needed for our dad & daughter baking zulily sales event set to go live from June 5-7.

I’ll have another post on June 5th to officially announce the start of our zulily sales event, with links to it, some of the professional photographs from it, and maybe even a funny gif or two of the girls and I on set.

In the meantime, check out all of the cool swag zulily sells every day. And get ready to buy the muffin tins, whisks and kitchen gear in our very own zulily sales event next month!

*zulily provided all travel expenses and a per diem for us during our whirlwind 48 hours in Seattle. We are also slated to get some zulily credit that will be spent by my girls moments after arriving.

All opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased. I really did not freak out standing in front of a messy kitchen island and my girls are 100% obsessed with baking and with shopping on zulily.