Promotions

We have a good friend who was recently promoted, and I was asked to make the cakes for his after party.

First I made a traditionally decorated cake. Kind of plain, chocolate cake frosted in buttercream.

The second cake was a little more personal to the promotee. He has a habit of greeting everyone by yelling "WHAT'S UP CLOWN?!?!". I think The Husband actually yelled "Way to go CLOWN!" at the promotion ceremony. Anyway, I made a clown cake for him.

It's wearing boxing gloves because he also threatens to "fight" everyone.

This cake is rainbow, covered in buttercream and fondant. I had a little trouble with the fondant on this one (as usual) and ended up having to cover several trouble spots with the stars.

I also created some chocolate coins for him to give out at his ceremony. Many high ranking military members have personally minted challenge coins that they give out. Chances are our peer group will be unlikely to have coins of their own, but a promotion of this level is still a significant milestone in an Air Force career. Why not have a coin for this event? I made some of these for The Husband when he promoted as well.

I dont have a picture of it, but I took an old Crown Royal bag and altered it to say "Clown Royal", and put the coins in it for him to hand out.

It's great to have a theme to go with.

Star Wars birthday

You know how the saying goes that a doctor makes the worst patient? Well I think there should be one that goes a baker's child gets the worst cakes. Well, my child anyway.

She was happy with it so I guess all is well.

My daughter had a Star Wars themed birthday party this year, and she left the cake making up to me. At first I was going to make a R2-D2 cake (I may attempt this one for the Star Wars convention held on base in October), but the humidity put me off of that idea. Nothing worse than a melting R2.

So I scoured the internets for ideas, and came up with a lightsaber cake. Seems pretty easy right? AAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Well, I used Rice Crispy treats for the first time, and made the actual lightsaber out of that, and covered it in fondant.

Yeah, the adults at the party had lots of fun ribbing me about the **ahem** "Size of my Schwartz".


The cake portion was made up of three 9"X13" cakes halved and stacked, and then laid end to end. They were all "rainbow" cakes frosted with buttercream icing. The Daughter does not care for fondant.

Hoops & Yoyo

I had a few cupcakes leftover from another order and decided to decorate them with Hoops & Yoyo for the school nurse.

I even found Hoops & Yoyo cupcake cups!

Too cute!

ARRRR...thar be PIRATES!

One of the classes at the intermediate school held a pirate themed party this year. I'm not too sure why, but there you go.

I took a rectangle white cake and carved it to make the beach, and then used my soccer ball cake pan and baked a chocolate cake which I carved into the hill, and the small island off the back of the beach. I'm not sure if you can see it in any of the pictures.

The figures are made out of colored fondant, and have wire armatures to help them stand upright. There were balance issues even with the comically oversized feet I gave them, so they were propped up with toothpicks from the back. I was not that happy with that, but what can you do?


For the decorations at the top of the hill I made some skulls and bones from fondant and painted in the details with frosting dye. Those cannon balls are Whoppers. And of course I had to go out and buy some cocktail swords.

Other than those few fondant decorations, the cake is frosted with colored buttercream. I dug a little hole in the beach and shoved some gold wrapped Rollos candy into it to create a treasure cache for the guys to fight over. I even frosted the cake board to look a little like to ocean to give it a more finished look. The chocolate coins scattered around are actually locally purchased, so they are Euro coins.

Bye Bye Jen!

My very supportive girlfriend Jen is leaving...boo-hoo....
Well, she had a farewell dinner in early June. I provided the dessert favors.
I called them "Grown Up Cupcakes"

Cute little cupcakes decorated with fondant roses.

Then I placed them in individual celophane bags.

Put them in cardstock baskets along with some white chocolate truffles.

And displayed them on my tiered tea cake stand.

I'm still pretty upset that she's leaving, but her family is moving on to a better opportunity, so you can't really fault them....but I still am.

The Swarm!!

These are bee cupcakes for a 2nd grade end of school year party.
The teacher's theme is Honeybees.

Just the flowers


Here come the bees!! Oh wait, no worries, they're blind, no eyeballs.


Completed bees. I got the idea to use almond slivers for the wings from the April/May 2009 issue of Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade magazine.

These cupcakes were rainbow cupcakes (made with a white cake mix) with buttercream and fondant frostings.

Not just cakes

I only started making cakes within the last year or so. Most of the time I'm a crafter. I sew most of the time, making quilts and other small crafts. I don't do clothes, but I do make costumes for my daughter. I like projects that can be completed in one day, and serve a purpose, fulfill some need, or provide a solution in my home.

Here is one of the very simple items I made recently.

It is to hold my earrings, but this one can only be used for the hook back type earrings.

These are the supplies you need.

Embroidery hoop
Solid fabric larger than your hoop
Tulle or other kind of porous material the same size as your solid piece.

That's it!

All you do is put the fabric in the hoop, tighten the screw very tightly and pull the fabrics taut across the hoop. Trim the fabrics, I used my pinking shears, and then hang it up.

One additional option would be to glue some matching or contrasting cute ribbon along the edge of the hoop to give it a more finished look.

I really like being able to see all my earrings at once, and this storage solution keeps them from getting tangled in my jewelery box.