Oh, Oh, Oh, It's Magic!

I personally love Wizards of Waverly Place, and Selena Gomez, she is so cute!

This cake was done to coordinate with the Wizard's party supplies. This was one of those cakes where I just could not stop adding more and more stuff to it. Though I think it worked for the overall look. I know that most little girls this age have raccoon fever, so the more going on, the better.
My piping is getting a little bit better I think, a little trouble around those feathers still. I think piping on a vertical surface is redonks difficult.
I think adding the name of the recipient on thiese fondant lollies is a great way to top it off, and finish the cake. Thank you Amy F. for the great idea!!!
And to think her mother and I had to convince her not to go with a Littlest Petshop cake.

Girly

But not too girly.
This cake was made to match this party set.
For some reason I had the hardest time taking pictures of this cake. I just kept standing right smack in the middle of the light and casting my own shadow in the frame. Basically I couldn't get out of my own way, that's just sad.
Hot pink buttercream frosting!
I had no idea those wing cutters would be so usefull!

Cake Attack!

It's the end of the swim season for The Kid's team, and we had an awards banquet to go to.
Naturally there needed to be cake.

I had hoped to have the mouth propped open a little more, but that really did not work out too well.

My favorite thing about this cake was the fact that the frosting did not need to be neat. Fantastic! And the bottom edge of the shark, who cares? Just slop some frosting up against that bad boy and call it "waves". Woot!
This was a ridiculously heavy cake, I actually had to rest twice during the walk from my car to the restaurant. It was half and half, chocolate and white cake, and the shark was red velvet. So while I was serving the cake I was asking: "Chocolate, white, or Shark?" it MMN.

The HAMMER!

My friend Judi's husband is having a birthday this week, so she wanted a cake.

I guess one New Year they were going around the room making their resolutions, and he declared that he was going to become a UFC fighter that year. He was then presented with his new name...

This should look like a prize belt, but I'm not too sure it's coming across too well.
Either way, it's still pretty funny.

Judi and I are now a tag team. She's "Hulk Harvin" and I'm "The Teriyaki Terror". Lenae's going to be our Nitro Girl.

It's ON!

Baby Lion

My friend Staci is having a baby...eventually.

I gave her this cake on her due date, which was Wednesday.

Very simple, but very cute. The baby's room is done in yellows, with a jungle theme.

I saw her on Saturday, and still no external baby.

Hot-Cha-Cha!

Our PTSA did a Teacher Appreciation lunch this week with a spicy theme.

I'm not so much for cooking spicy foods these days (The Husband has a sensitive palate), eating spicy foods yes, cooking not so much.

I'm usually on desserts for these things, so I decided to try something new.

I hear that the chocolate/chili combo is supposed to be very nice.
So I did chocolate dipped chili peppers on regular chocolate cupcakes.

Here is The Kid's teacher after braving the first nibble.
I'm guessing it was a little hot, though she did admit that her tongue was a bit numb after the rest of her spicy lunch.

The consensus of those who braved the pepper was that it was a nice flavor combination.

Who knew?

Oh Pooh!

This was the cake that almost never got made.

Lenae and her family were over for dinner, and she wanted me to have the last glass of wine in the bottle we opened. However, I explained to her that I did have to finish a cake, and it had to be a Pooh cake, not a poo cake. It does not help that I'm the cheap date.

ANYway...

Here is Pooh bear relaxing with a nice pot or two of hunny after a hard day.

This cake came together surprisingly easy and quite well. Sometimes I get lucky and things seem to go very smoothly, from baking, to frosting, to sculpting.

The tree stump and honey bees were a last minute idea. Luckily I had some leftover batter from the cake that I made into cupcakes, and I used one of those for the stump. My fondant figures tend to get slumpy, so it was nice to have something to lean him up against.

This is a cake for a little boy, I was a little hesitant to add the flowers, but the cake needed a little something more. I decided to go with some neutral colors for the flowers to keep it from looking too feminine.

Happy first birthday Patrick!

Come to the Dark Side

We have cake!

I have not had much luck with Star Wars cakes in the past. My excuse for that one was that I was also taking care of the rest of the party, not just the cake. My poor kid, she sure gets the short end of the lightsaber sometimes.

Anyway.

Slightly more sucessfull this time around.

Just a general Star Wars kind of theme.

The Death Star and the Jedi Order emblem.

Lucky for me I had just gotten a big bag full of Star Wars party acessories from a friend who was cleaning out her stash.
Including this pretty cool Darth Vader candle holder for the top.

And all of those cut outs of the various characters.

The Dark Side smells like buttercream!

Going to the Dogs

So, puppy dog cupcakes for a birthday.

Luckily I had just checked out this book from the library, and it had some great ideas for making dogs.

A sort of Dalmatian.

My favorite, a disapproving Scottie.

Some sort of squishy faced dog that kind of looks like Chewbaca.

And a sort of a Westie.

One little girl went around the room collecting all the dogs from classmates willing to give them up. She ended up taking about six of them home on a plate, it was kind of strange.

An Organza Extraviganza!!!

I totally could have made a double entrende with that title, but restrained myself, this is a family blog after all.

Anyhoodles.

So The Kid got those cool Valentine's Day Cards to give out. I have one or two friends, so they get a Valentine's Day gift from me too.

Last year I made some corsages out of roses made with this very simple ribbon rose tutorial.

I figure I should keep with the theme of a corsage by giving them out again this year. But of course I can't go do the same thing as last year.

Thankfully the internet is full of fantastic tutorials for those of us who are good at execution, but not development. It's like saying I'm the brawn of the crafting community. Well, not the whole community, just.....well, anyway...

So for this year I used this tutorial for making organza flowers, and made them into corsages.

Here is the lump of them on my ugly ironing board before I thought to lay down a nicer piece of fabric.

This is the boutineer that The Kid's Principal gets.

And the "action shot".

All you need is some organza (1 Euro a roll at Kik in Spiecher), a candle, scissors, needle and thread, and some time on your hands.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I so totally wish I could take the credit for this one, because it is a seriously AWESOME idea.

These are The Kid's Valentine's Day cards that she handed out at school.

Isn't that the best?!?

I found the idea here at the blog 24-7-365.

Here is the original picture I took.

I then digitally cut her out and added a background and the wording.

I did not have them printed as photographs, rather I printed them on regular paper with my inkjet, and then mounted them onto pieces of scrapbooking paper.

Actually there are two versions because I could not decide between the two shots.


Best idea EVER!!!! Thank you Alissa!

Sweet Blossom

A friend's husband called me up to do a surprise cake for her birthday this week.

We managed to decide on her favorite color, purple, and her favorite flower, cherry blossoms.

Turned out quite well I think. It's not as big as it looks, that top tier is made of two large cupcakes.

The branches are made of dark chocolate, and the flowers are fondant. I might just have to do an easy tutorial on making these cherry blossom branches some time in the future. They were surprisingly easy to make.

Here is a shot of the back. I think that little branch was one of the small ones that hardened up before I could throw some flowers on it. But, I usually like to continue a design on the back of the cake as well as the front. I think it finishes the whole composition off very nicely.

Funnily, as I was dropping this cake off today at the husband's office, the wife pulls up infront to take him to lunch. I think we spotted her before she did us, and we had to scoot back inside. He ended up going out and I waited in the building until they had gone, and I snuck the cake into his office. I am very, very sneaky. Hopefully he was able to pull off the surprise.

Happy Birthday Melissa!

Bowl me Over

So I guess there was some kind of big sporting event going on yesterday?

I had and order for a Superbowl cake, and man I love baseball, so of course I said yes!

Just kidding, of course I know that the superbowl is football. Unfortunately, it is not the kind of football I like.

Anyway, on to the cake. My directons included the phrase "Make it look custom, not like a normal cake."

I hope this is what she meant.

I was quite proud of my football helmets, there was a couple of hours there where I was rather confused as to how it was going to work, and a bit of time where I was thinking "Stuff it, just do the logos!"

Colts

Saints

And the Superbowl logo for this year. Colors are a bit off, and I am the first to admit that my piping needs alot of work.

I just happened to notice the chocolate footballs at the store, and grabbed one up just in case I needed something extra to add. Then I had a thought.

Lombardi Trophy!!!

So a bonus side of chocolate trophy. This would be my first time working with chocolate like this, and it turned out surprisingly well. I suppose it would have been alot different if I had to make the football too.

Here's where poor planning also kicks me in the butt.

Yeah, I set and frosted the cakes before I realized I was not going to be able to pipe my borders on those inner edges. Whoo! D'oh!

Poke-Char

What I don't know about Pokemon is alot. Luckily I live in the age of Google.

Here is a Pokemon cake made for the middle son of one of my best customers.


She supplied me with all those little figures, which was awesome because then I did not have to make my own.

This little dude kept diving off the cake though and left a couple of dents in the side.

I was trying to make a completely round Pokeball thing for the top, but it was incredibly hard. That is something I need to practice a little more, and not just try to do on the day of order.

This cake is the party counterpart to these classroom cupcakes.