Welcome Baby Ilianna

 

6"-8"-10"

I received a request for this cake, with a picture of a cake made by Sandra's Cakes. How many times should the word "cake" be used in a sentence? Anyway, the cake was super cute but a few changes were requested such as the birds and the egg in the nest topper. It's a really good thing that my cakes are whimsical because a lot can be gotten away with under the "whimsical" hat. For instance, no one can convince me that the tiny little mama bird laid that ginormous egg. But hey, the cake is "whimsical" so it doesn't matter. Maybe the daddy bird laid the egg? When it came time for the cake's photo shoot, I picked out this pink leopard print (or leppid print, as my sister calls it) and started snapping away. Then I thought maybe I should use a less...busy background just in case this one would hurt the eyes of the viewers. So I did. I chose a sort of robins egg blue, solid background that wouldn't take away from the cake at all. I then sent the pictures with both backgrounds to my sisters and asked them which they preferred and guess what? They both chose this one! I knew they were my sisters for a reason! I actually have 3 sisters but I guess 1 was busy because I only got a response from 2 of them. That doesn't make sister #3 any less cool, as I'm sure she would have chosen the leppid background as well.  As it turns out, the solid blue background took away from the cake and this pink leppid background made the cake even better! =D

Wilson is 1!

8"-10"

Wilson's mom (I LOVE the name Wilson) wanted a nautical/shark themed cake for his first birthday. She sent me his invitation and it had a chevron pattern on it which I love! So I definitely wanted to incorporate that but I heard from a reliable source that it's not an easy task to make a chevron pattern for an entire tier. That's why I just used it for the name plaque...I thought it would be cute and also it saved me from some un-needed stress. =) I also needed a shark because lets face it, you can't have a shark themed cake without a shark. How cute would it have been to make a whimsical 3D shark topper? Super cute! Well, this one just ended up being a 2D shark. He has a fin that sticks out of the cake so that makes him 2D. Then I added a few other little sea creatures like a crab, sting ray, jelly fish and an octopus. Actually, he's more like a quadropus...quadopus? He's a 4 legged pus. Haha! Oh and I added that little life saver thing because the party plates had that on them. I made it from "memory" and then after I put it on the cake, I looked it up and they actually have 4 red stripe thingys and mine only has 3. My memory didn't serve me too well with that one! Oh well, I think you still know what it was meant to be. Here is Wilson's cute little invitation...

No, she didn't send out smudged invitations and no, the shark wasn't drinking blue koolaide. I smudged out the address so that no strangers show up at Wilson's house unexpectedly with a towel to swim and eat cake. =)

Purple & Damask Baby Shower Cake

4"-6"-8"

This cake is basically a replica of the cake that I made with the pram stroller on top. Only that one was pink and this one is purple and black. (obviously) I just switched out the pram for the baby shoes. For the damask print, I used a stencil and some royal icing. I'm still learning how to do this! I thought for sure that it would be pretty easy to accomplish but for me, it's not. There are lots of different techniques that people use to stencil on their cakes and I've tried a few of them but nothing works very well for this girl. I kinda just hold the stencil on the cake and stencil little sections at a time and move my fingers to hold it in a different spot as I move along. Fool proof method? Nope. But it's the only way that I can achieve this for now! =)

Happy Birthday Nicolle!

8"

This cake is for a sweet lady that wanted a corset cake and left all of the details up to me. =) I chose purple and pink because they are 2 of my favorite colors. I've been experimenting with taller tiers. You can't tell from the picture, but this cake is 6" tall. It kinda looks like just a 6" round because of the height. Haha Actually, I made a quick little collage of the 4 cakes that I made this weekend and you can't really tell at all that the tiers are all different heights. They all pretty much look the same!

Oh well...in person, you can see the difference. If the 4 cakes were photographed in 1 picture together, you'd definitely notice! All of the cakes except for the purple/black damask cake have 3 layers of cake and 2 layers of filling. The damask cake just has 2 layers of cake and 1 layer of filling. Nicolle's corset cake is 6" tall and Ilianna & Wilson's cakes have tiers that are roughly 5" tall. The damask cake has tiers that are about 3.5-4" tall. This doesn't really seem like a big deal...the cakes are still cute and fun even with shorter tiers! I just really like them a little taller. =)

Ayvah's 1st Birthday

4"-6"-8"

When Ayvah's mom asked me to make a topsy turvy cake for her 1st birthday, I was a little nervous! The last topsy turvy cake that I made was in 2010 and I didn't really know what I was doing and the cake didn't come out the way I wanted it to at ALL. It looked short and squaty and like it was going to fall over, maybe?  So I wasn't thrilled about having to make another one. I knew for certain that I didn't want this one to turn out like my last one did! So I did some research. A lot of research, actually. One of the things that made me VERY happy was the fact that the cake in the inspiration picture that she sent me didn't have the inverted tapered sides that some topsy turvys have...PHEW! So anyway, I'm much happier with the way that this one turned out. =) I did have a problem with the cupcake on the top though. It's made with rice crispy treats. It was a little heavy but I used ganache under the fondant to help make the cake more sturdy so I didn't think that I would need to put supports under the cupcake. Well, I was wrong. About 5 hours after I put the cupcake on, I noticed that it had started to kind of sink into the cake on the low side. GRRRRR! So I had to get a knife and pry it off of the cake because it had been "glued" on with melted chocolate...then I added some supports under the low side of the cupcake and glued it back on again. This time it stayed up like it was supposed to...yay! Other than that, I didn't have any major issues so I can say that this one was a success. =)
Oh and this is the picture of the party plates that she sent me for color inspiration...

 

Lingerie Bridal Shower Cake

8"

The plan that I had for this cake was to make it shaped like a corset, where it would look cinched in at the "waist", in the middle. Instead of making the tier like I usually do, which is 2 cakes with filling in between, I added an extra cake and filling so it was cake/filling/cake/filling/cake. This made it taller than usual and I loved that! So I went about carving in at the "waist", which I've done on cakes before, but because this one had 3 layers of cake and 2 layers of filling, I was having issues getting it smooth and perfect. The dam that I had piped to keep the filling from coming out kept being taken out in chunks by my knife. I put the cake in the freezer for a little bit so that it could firm up and make my carving a little easier. After I finished the carving, I iced it and then covered it in fondant. I could see bumps under the fondant here and there but I knew that the zebra stripes would cover them. Well, the more I decorated the cake, the more the base fondant bulged and bubbled. There was no way that the decorations would mask all of the flaws that kept popping up now! Grrrrr! I made up my mind that I was going to throw the cake in the trash and start over completely...but then I decided to just strip all of the fondant off of the cake, carve the sides straight and leave out the cinched waist part and then go from there. So that's exactly what I did! So my 8" round turned out to be more like a 7-7 1/2" round instead. Haha! So in this case, I needed either a sturdier cake or a better knife. Or both...

Evelyn's Glamping Cake

8"-10"

Have you ever heard of "glamorous camping" or "glamping"? Well this is the kind of sleepover that Evelyn was having! Her mom sent me the party invitation and this is the cake that I created for her. Here is the invitation...

Nicholas Turns 2

6"-8"-10"

Thomas the Train cake for Nicholas. I got ideas from many different Thomas cakes and put them together and added my own touch. I had 4 cakes to make this particular weekend and I had no time to try to make the trains myself so I bought toy trains from the store. =)

Jacob's Woody Cake

6"-8"

I was going to attempt to make characters of Woody and his horse, Bullseye but that didn't happen! I had 3 other cakes to work on and so this was all that I was able to muster up. Haha

Emmeline is 1

6"-8"-10"

Emmiline's grandma emailed me asking if I could make a girlie Yo Gabba Gabba cake for a 1st birthday. She searched and found a picture of a cake that she loved and wanted me to recreate it. So I did but added a couple of tweaks. =) And here is her little smash cake...

Gender Reveal Cake

4"-6"-8"
This cake was originally going to be a two tier cake. It was for a gender reveal party for some friends of my parents. One tier definitely had to be chocolate so I made that the bottom tier. That left the top tier to be the one with the gender reveal color. Well, my mom wanted to play a little joke on them and make the first tier that they cut into be pink and blue to throw them off. Haha That meant that we needed another tier that would reveal the real gender of the baby. So it became a three tier cake!  Here are some pictures that my sister captured with her iPhone during the cutting of the cake...notice the confused look of the daddy in the blue shirt in this first pic! haha

Good thing they have a sense of humor...

 And now the REAL reveal....

Can you see what it is?? It's a BOY!! =) They were thrilled! They have 2 little girls and now they are getting a little boy to finish off their precious family. =)

Here is what the mommy had to say...

"I must say that we enjoyed the fruits of your labor tremendously and will never forget the special touch you gave to our surprise!!!! It was just as delicious as it was beautiful!!! Thank you so much Dusty"