Whooooo's Turning One?!

Bad joke, I know. But I did a couple of very cute first birthday cakes for this weekend! And one of them had an owl theme. It is soooo cute! Sweet Blaise's mom is a graphic designer and made the cutest invitation for his first birthday party. I designed the main cake to match the owl on his invitation. The main cake was milk chocolate fudge covered in buttercream icing. I have attached the invite and the cake below. Let me know what you think!

This was the outfit that Blaise had to wear at his party. I designed his smash cake to match the bib. The smash cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

This was another first birthday cake and smash cake that I did this weekend. Both of these cakes were designed to match plates that were being used at the party. Both cakes were french vanilla covered in buttercream. Below are pictures of the plate and the cakes.

Stroller Cake

This has been a popular choice this summer! This stroller cake was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream icing. I used the colors and a little of the design from the invitation (posted below).

I LOVE this cake!!!

I made one of my most favorite cakes ever this week!!! Two of our very best friends, James and Mary Margaret, are missionaries in Zambia, Africa. They have been home for about 7 months, but are heading back to Africa in the next few weeks for another 3 years. These two show more faith than I can wrap my mind around! Mary Margaret has had both of her precious children in Africa and they are faithfully raising them in their home there. Me... I would be a wreck if I couldn't call my pediatrician every other day when I feel like something is not quite right with Taelyn! Anyway, Mary Margaret had a birthday recently, so while all of our best friends were together yesterday I wanted to celebrate her birthday. MM and I share a deep appreciation for the Twilight books, so I immediately knew what kind of cake I wanted to make for her. I have seen some Twilight cakes on the internet so I have been wanting to do one of these for awhile now and her birthday was the perfect excuse to make one!

I wanted to make it look like a book, but wanted a representation of all four covers. And, of course, the inside of the cake had to be red velvet! I love the way this cake turned out and I think MM loved it too! She was really excited!

I put both of these pictures up because I wanted you to be able to see the "pages." Let me know your thoughts of this cake!! 

If you'd like to keep up with what is going on in the world of James and MM once they are back in Africa, I have their blog in my favorites list to the left. 

Cake Catastrophe

I've heard about it. I know it happens to others, but it had never happened to me. Until now! I was completely finished with a cake - had taken finished photos and everything - and I had a cake catastrophe. It all happened very quickly, so quickly that I can't really remember vivid details, but it involved a fondant rolling pin in my hands and a dog under my feet. And the fondant rolling pin piercing the bottom half of the cake. Sigh. Oh, and some tears. And a lot of freaking out.

This is the bachelorette/lingerie party cake that I mentioned in a previous post. Like I said, we had decided to do a Victoria's Secret bag. And like I mentioned previously, this was my fourth cake of the week and I had a lot of packing and cleaning to do before I left on an 8 day vacation the next day. So once I ruined the cake, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to start from scratch because I just didn't have the time. Plus, Kacey, who was attending the lingerie shower and requested the cake, told me at the beginning of the week not to stress out over this cake. I felt like I could do something to salvage the cake and make it semi-cute without having to start all over again. So I chopped off the ruined bottom half and added some fondant "pieces" to the bottom of it. I was hoping to pass it off as tissue paper, but in all honesty it looked very ridiculous. Kacey assured me that it was fine and still looked cute, but I know that she was just being nice. Here are before and after pictures.

Before

After

Then the cake had to travel 6 hours to Destin. It made it in one piece, luckily. Kacey said everyone at the party loved it. Sigh. 

Busy Week!!!

It has been an incredibly busy week for me! But as I am writing this we are in a wonderful condo in Destin, Florida relaxing so I am starting to come down from the whirlwind of it all! I'll tell you briefly about my week (because I know that you don't really care), and then I'll get to the cakes I made this week!

Okay, so in my busy week I made a record number of cakes for one week - four! I've never made this many cakes in such a short time before, but at the very beginning of the week I took some time getting organized and figuring out exactly what needed to be made when. That helped me keep my sanity through it all! So, not only did I make four cakes this week, but I also managed to fit in a pre-beach mani/pedi (thanks to my sweet husband for the mother's day gift certificate to Trio!), I went to see Eclipse (all by myself at 10:15am on Thursday - I already know I'm lame so you don't have to say it!), I packed for an 8 day trip for Taelyn and me (started with this on Thursday night after my last cake was finished and we left today, Friday, at noon. I only packed for Taelyn and me because I let Scott pack for himself - I'm nice like that), and I also managed to clean my house from top to bottom before we left today because let's face it, there isn't much worse than coming home from a long vacation to a messy house. As much as I hated to do it, now when we get home we will have clean sheets, clean floors, laundry is all done and put away (other than the massive loads that we brought with us), and everything is dusted - okay never mind on that one - there will be dust waiting for me on every surface despite the fact that I dusted every inch of the house today, but the others still apply. So... that was a synopsis of my week. Now on to the cakes!

I already posted the first cake that I did this week - the brown and blue paisley stroller cake. I did another stroller cake in addition to that one. It was brown and aqua harlequin pattern, which is how the baby's room is decorated. Nothing gives you a hand workout like piping harlequin pattern, but I think this cake turned out cute. It was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream icing. I realize that in the picture it looks aqua and black, but trust me - it is just a dark brown. The coloring is a result of me taking cake pictures with the camera on my cell phone. Which is a result of me finishing most cakes late at night and being too lazy to get out our good camera.  I hope you like the cake!

The next cake that I did this week was a horse cake for sweet Reagan's birthday party! She wanted a cake that looked like a horse, so that is what she got! I really enjoyed this cake because it was a challenge for me. I love doing cakes that I haven't ever done before! The cake is french vanilla with white chocolate chips covered in buttercream with marshmallow fondant accents. 

The fourth cake that I did this week deserves a post of its own, as I am still recovering from it! I will try to get it up in the next few days. I'll just tell you that it was for a lingerie/bachelorette party. Have you ever googled "bachelorette cakes?" The results aren't pretty! We finally came up with the idea to do a cake shaped like a Victoria's Secret box/bag. The one idea that didn't make me blush with just the thought of cutting a cake shaped like it! Pictures to follow!