May EVENTS!

Let's see... Middle of May, Everything started getting C-R-A-ZZZZZZ-Y!

I did several cakes in the month of May, and I'll post them all here so that they are all in one post in the case that anyone just wants to view any of them.

Weddings, Graduations, Babies... When you're the Jack of All trades, you stay busy when other peoples lives are in the midst of HUGE change!

So let's start out with Haylee's Graduation.

My little cousin (when I say little I mean very little All of 4'11) graduated from Bixby High School! We had a graduation party for her. I wanted to do a little something special for her. I made a cake that went along with the theme and colors of the party, but I added a little special-ness to it!

We've always called her "Haylee Bug" So when I knew I was making her cake I knew that I some how wanted to put that in there! I also used one of her Senior Pics for some what of a cake topper! Added lady bugs to the cake.

(p.s. please excuse my messy kitchen when doing 2 larger cakes in one day, it's bound to be a little messy right??)

Some how, I ended up double booking myself for this day. Thankfully, both parties wanted the same colors!! So besides the fact that, I had no room in my fridge for actual food, it all worked out perfectly!

The 2nd cake I made that day was for a bachelorette party! Same colors. Pink and Black. 

 

I had a lot of fun with the bride cake. Both of the cakes were made of buttercream, which I am finding a little harder to smooth out and it is not as durable as a fondant cake. On the flip side, it taste tons better!

A week after these 2 cakes, I had a wedding cake that had to be done. It was a small wedding cake. I decided to use fondant for this one, since it is a more formal occasion.... I went with a white cake with pink( hard to see in this pic) ribbon, and Ivory flowers..... This cake has a horror story with it! To be told at a later time- But lets just say I thought i'd get some better pics of this cake at the wedding.......

And lastly, I was asked to do a cake for a baby shower. I gladly accepted! I found out that she was doing lady bug theme for the baby. So I decided to go with a plain white buttercream (which ended up being not so durable and as smooth as I wanted) and lined the bottom with red ribbon and the top with polka dots!
I found some cute lady bug accessories, and some sweet little letters and whipped up a cake right quick! After 2 cakes in one day 2 weekends in a row, this seems like "cake work" ((pun intended!))

 Oh and might I add that the flower on top, I also added a little clip to it, so she can clip it to her babies head band!



Scott and I did the aquarium run, and the full moon run in this month... We are continuing to condition and still plan to train for the Half Marathon in November!

I also did some hair and make up for some weddings which was fun! Anyways, I'll continue to update a little more often now!

Sticky Business

I had a great client of mine ask me a few weeks back if I would make a cake for her little girls 2nd birthday. So I would consider this my first business transaction! I was overly excited to do this for her, for one reason. Her taste is a lot like my personal taste. SO I knew with out doubt that this would be a fun, creative project. I ask her how she wants it decorated, and what her theme is and she replies " There is no set theme, I want it colorful, and whimsical"(also adding that she likes the polka dots and stripes) This was music to my ears.  When I'm allowed to kinda make my own decisions and come up with my own creative ideas--- This makes it so much easier to do. I feel like b/c I know her and I know her taste, that this was an advantage.



So I find out how many people are attending. And she says between 30-40. I still am not exactly sure how to figure out how much cake is enough, but really who can ever tell right? Well after all I'm NO professional. Just a girl with a hobby.

I had to brain storm for a bit to come up with something. I knew I wanted multi-colored. But I really struggled with the idea of going with pastels(since she is only 2), or the primary bright colors. I decided to go with the rainbow colors. I felt like it was still child-ish enough, since it reminded me of CRAYONS! :-)

Anyways, I decided to do a 3 layer cake. This was my very first attempt with more than 2 layers. I did the 8 inch cake for the bottom layer. It was the rainbow chip with strawberry and lemon icing filling. The middle layer was 6 inch chocolate with strawberry filling. And the top layer (which was pretty much just a smash cake for the baby) was a 4 inch strawberry cake. I decided to try my hand at the butter cream icing for the entire cake. I have to get in a mental state to know that it will never be as smooth as fondant, and surely isn't as durable. Having said that, it tastes a hundred times better! I'll still do some work with the marshmellow fondant, but I really would like to work on perfecting my buttercream skills. Especially for things that are so decorated. It's not quite so obvious that it isn't perfectly smooth. I did use the fondant for my decorations. If you don't already know, the fondant is white to begin with so each color was "dyed" by me.

I decided to take some pictures of the cake as I was building it once it was iced. It's kind of neat to look back at it now, and see it transform.

This is after 2 layers of the buttercream frosting. (which I make myself. It's SOOO  yummy!

 These are the fondant polka dots and a few large circles that I colored, and put on. Already makes a huge difference! It helps to cover up blemishes and oopsies too!

Finally, after a long day of working on this cake it is finished! I asked husband to put in the butterflies and flowers for me.

Now, as for the butterflies, flowers, "J'' and ribbon, none of that is edible! I would much rather buy and used it to decorate. After all, that's all we're aiming for here! While I think it's extremely impressive when people can make everything out of the fondant and gum paste, no one ever eats it anyways. So why not save a ton of time and energy!! 

All in all, my client informed me that she loved the cake and it was easy to decorate with! Perfect!!! I'm so happy to have had the oppertunity to do it for her. I love the practice!

Happy Birthday CARRIE!

Happy Birthday to my neighbor and friend since we were in diapers.. No really...

Well I made up a little something for my sweet friend on her birthday! She has a lot coming up in her life, and I think her birthday may seem a little over looked. So I wanted to make her something a little special.

I found out that her favorite color is green, and her iphone  cover is zebra, so I put 2 and 2 together and came up with this........

My husband helped(OK did all the work) make the fondant. Instead of the store bought fondant we made our own, and it's made from marshmallows. So it tastes about 100% better than the Wilton fondant. A little different to get used to working with. And as always my butter cream under the fondant is home made. Yum. IT's so hard not to eat all this sugary stuff while making it!

The fondant is white obviously(marshmallows) so you have to put the gel colors in to make each different color. Bet ya didn't know that! -- That's a lot of why some of these cakes can take so long! So many different colors.

The letters are silver but kind of add a "white" appeal to the cake. There are a few little white stripes on the cake. I didn't want to OVER do it, so I just added a few on each side. This was the easiest cake by far that I've done. Once the idea is there, it is good. It's also only a 6 inch cake.

It's yellow cake with lemon icing filling ( all store bought ).


Just wanted to do a quick post! I'm excited about it.

Baby shower/ High school reunion!

This past weekend, some friends from high school got together to celebrate the arrival of a new baby! It was really a lot like a reunion. Some of the girls, I hadn't seen since before high school was over! April is welcoming her 4th little baby to her family. So Carrie being the fantastic friend she is, wanted to throw her a baby shower. And let me tell you she did a KILLER job! Carrie and I are neighbors so we had the pleasure to whip up some crafts together. In the end everything turned out just perfect! It was great to get together with some of the girls again, and hope it's not another 7 years before we do it again! So here are a few of the pictures!

Old friends.The amazing hostess herself!!!Of course we had the good ole' who can drink the fastest bottle race! Kacy isn't playing around!The diaper cake. It was HUGE!!My little creation of course.All the yummy food--Peyton (bottom of pic) was VERY excited for some DUCKY cake!

 Me and my little friend.

Ducky Cake

This is the cake that I found  on the internet that I liked.... I like the idea of the ducky with the bubbles and such.

So I used that as a place to start...

I found out from the AMAZING host what colors and decor she was using. She told me it was multicolor, cirlces and polka dots...

So this is what I came up with!
The top layer is chocolate with strawberry/cream cheese filling... And the bottom layer is yellow cake with lemon icing filling!

Had some left over cake and fondant so I made a small little cake and sent to Allie Jo's 1st birthday party with my mother in law. Figured it might as well get eaten.. Wanted to get more practice with making the gift bow. 

 Chocolate cake with lemon icing filling.

So anyways it was about a whole day's (on and off) work. But I have been planning and thinking about what I should do for about 5-6 weeks now. So that makes it easy when I have the time to plan for it.

I have a few more events coming up that will help with practice... After all this is only my 3rd cake, so I will need it.

I will say, that this was alot more work than usual b/c I ( with a TON OF HELP from my husband) made the fondant. It's actually marshmellow fondant. So it taste TONS better. And I made my own butter cream icing which tastes so much better too. The MMfondant was a little different to work with, but with practice I think that I will get it down easier and easier.

I'll post some pics of the whole shower later.

My 2nd Cake!

Ashtin is having another birthday party for her friends. I decided that would be another great opportunity to practice. So I did. She is just having a party with some of her friends. So I decided not to do as large of a cake. I did a 6 inch bottom  ( I double stacked it ) with chocoate mouse filling, and a 4 inch white on the top.

I wanted to do something bright and girly. After attending Ashtin's first birthday celebration, I got a feel for what she really likes. Bright colors, flowers, peace signs, tide-dye.... You get the point.. Hippy dippy trippy. LOL. I haven't set the cake up to it's full potential yet, but wont until tomorrow, but I wanted to just post a few of the snap shots I took with my camera really quick.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN ASHTIIN!

 

Just call me Ace of Cakes.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! JK!

I did my first cake ( that was actually for something!) this past weekend. It was my sweet cousin Ashtin's 12th birthday. SO I used the oppertunity to practice. My family is always so supportive of what ever hobby it is I'm doing this week. Haha. So I decided to go with a pink and black theme. I decided to go with a 10 inch round for the bottom layer and a 6 inch round for the top. I wanted it to be very girly.

I took a few pics with my phone, and have some on Aunt Marcy's camera I will steal and put on here, those came out really good.

This is before the candles, and I put some little jewels on top and propped her "A" on them, on the top layer. This is just a closer, better look at the cakes themselves.

 

I will be happy to get the better pics up. But this is just a gist of the idea.

Still they are NOT perfect! But it will take lots and lots of practice to get there. I have found that the bigger the cake, the easier it is with the fondant. And I have found that 2 sets of hands are easier than just one. You have to be kinda fast with the fondant before it gets hard. But I did it! Now having said that, it doesn't mean I wasn't blowing Melissa's phone up with pictures for her suggestions. And boy I'm glad that I did! So I have to give thanks to her. And also to my cousin Eva. She has started with the cake baking/decorating for some time now. She does some amazing work! But I got alot of wonderful tips from her!

Anyways, I just wanted to put up a few pics of my first real cakes. I didn't even taste them ( i'm not a fan of the fondant) but I think they were ok. -- I just tell everyone that I am sorry if they aren't the best tasting, but they are really just edible decorations! :-)

I'm working on some more now. Gonna try and do some fillings for this one that is due on Friday. It's again for Ashtin's birthday with her friends. Gonna do something a little different. I'm thinking 2 or 3 layers, and lots of different colors. Kinda hippy like. SHe seems to be in to all that, so I will go with it!

A sweet treat

My good buddy Melissa and I decided to have our hand at cake baking. Well really cake ( fondant ) decorating. And let me say I have so much respect for the amazing people who do this day in and day out. I had a blast doing it. I felt like a little kid playing in all the stuff. It was also just something new and fun to learn. I will admit that we weren't great at it ( Mel is way better than me with her hands!) but I can definetely see where practice and trial and error ( just like any other trade ) will make perfect! Or darn near close.

We started out with just one little cake and split it in half so it really looks like a really thick cookie.. You can't tell but the one that is purply is kind of marbled. It's really pretty, and would be cool if we did them in more bold colors like black and white, or red and white... The swirls were cool though. So we had enough batter to bake 4 of the small little cakes. We really just wanted to practice. And I'm glad we did, but by the time we got to the last one that we decorated, we had learned so much from the time that we started on the 1st one.

So the fondant is white and I have all the little gel colors to make any color you want. So we decided to do something fun and bright. We had no ambition, but to practice. I think if we have a " goal " or an idea of what kind of cake we want to do, that would keep us pretty focused. I will say that you have to come up with things as you decorate, b/c you'll maybe have a little tear here, or a little something that got rolled in the fondant or whatever. But you have to be on the creative side for sure!

So we started with the little yellow one, and took the left over fondant that we had and added red in to it, and made orange...

I like this pic b/c you can see melissa's baby bump is getting powdered!!

We decorated our yellow with dots, and made a little outter ring to go around the orange.. To give it a little, " Sun" effect.

And then we stacked them. We made a mini little 2 layer cake :-)

By all means it is not perfect, but we liked it! And we haven't tried it yet, but who cares what it tastes like!!!

I would love to contine to do this. I think it's a lot like doing hair. You just have to keep doing it to get better. I may look in to taking some classes or maybe a book or something to improve and educate myself a little more. Melissa isn't super keen on it, b/c she's a bit more of a perfectionist that I am. She gets irritated when it's not perfectly smooth! haha.. Which I can understand, since that's the point of FONDONT! So we shall see. We're gonna try some more styles later and see what we can come up with!

The baby decided that she would have her cookie while we played in the kitchen. Between that and the tv, she was pretty occupied. She napped a good part of the day as well.

She's about to make very poor decisions. 

 This is what my kitchen looked like during this fiasco. and yes I'm still alive, and yes it's completely traceless of any cake playing!