Lovely Ladybug Cake

My husband works for the an e-commerce company managing their online experience team.  I know it sounds fancy, but truth be told I'm not exactly sure what it means (Shhh, don't tel the hubby!).  What I do know is that this great group of people write a lot of 'code' which produces a great looking, fast and profitable front end website where you can purchase just about anything you might need.  This team of people are also responsible for fixing any 'bugs' or problems that might occur on this code.  From what I understand. fixing bugs can be pretty tricky and somewhat stressful.I made this cake for the team to celebrate fixing 5,000 bugs.  Great works guys!

 

 

 

 

Austin's Angry Birds Birthday Cake

 So, after the huge Lego Party that was Austin's 6th birthday, he comes to me and says, "but I didn't get a birthday cake". Technically, that is true.  There were cupcakes at his party, along with many other goodies, but there was no 'special cake' made by mommy. So, I felt bad and since we planned his birthday party about a week and a half before his actual birthday I let him choose a cake theme for a cake I would make him on his true birthday.  I had no idea the detail he would provide for me when requesting and angry birds cake.  Not only was the design very specific but the birds had to be EXACT replicas.  I can not tell you how many times he came over to 'check on how I was doing' and offer his critiques.  Towards the end, I just had to grit my teeth and tell him that this was the best I could do.  I guess it's my fault for being a perfectionist that is raising a perfectionist.  I think it turned out pretty great.  Happy Birthday Buddy! I love you!

Austin turns 6...a Lego party!



It's that time of year again! (Well, not really this post is only 8 months overdo...)  Austin's 6th birthday is here and we had to make it a great one.

Austin has been in love with Legos for years now and it seemed about time we had an awesome Lego party.  There are lots of Lego party ideas out there but here is our version.  It was a blast and everyone had a great time!


This is my sweet boy on his big day.  We used the tradition Lego color palette and made everything to match. I even made Austin and his sister these super cute Lego t-shirts.  I used some directions I found online for freezer paper stencils and a little fabric paint from the craft store and voila...cuteness!





I found some Lego font online and had it printed at Kinko's on a large scale printer and glued it to this red foam core board. We had the perfect space to hang it across from the dessert table.  It made a huge impact for just a few dollars.



I found a great set of printable Lego party goods online and used them to add a lot of fun little details to the party.  The water bottle labels, 'happy birthday' flags, mini chocolate bar wrappers, thank you tags and coloring book all came from Anders Ruff at www.shop.andersruff.com





Mini Lego chocolates

White chocolate covered Oreos with polka dot edible images

Lego marshmallow heads

Lego head fondant cupcake toppers

The Lego bricks in the background of this photo were empty Capri-Sun boxes wrapped in colored wrapping paper found at Target.

I also spent many months collecting large peanut butter jars so that I could paint them yellow and make large Lego head decorations like this one.  I think I had about 7 of them.  That's a lot of peanut butter!

The Lego man crayons were made from a ice tray mold I found at our local Lego store and the coloring book was also from  



This is the gift bag each child got at the end of the party! The Lego cars that each child made during the party were tucked inside as well.

Austin and his friends building Lego cars.

My wonderful husband built this ramp for the kids to race the Lego cars they built on.  It was a hit!

More building...

Grandpas love building too.

Happy Birthday to Austin.



I love this little guy and his sweet smile!

Washington State Cake Show 2012 - A Fairy Tea Party Cake

 

This is the Fairy Tea Party Cake I made for the Washington State Cake Show. The theme of the show was 'Decorated to a Tea'.   I entered it in the advanced catagory and won Best of Category!  The cake also won the Best of Theme award! 

 

 

Ballerina Jewelry Box for the Evergreen State Fair 2012

I made this Ballerina Jewelry Box cake for the Evergreen State Fair cake competition this year. I recieved a First Place ribbon and a Special Merit ribbon as well. I am super happy with how things went at the fair and I am looking forward to entering again next year.

Elmo Muppet Cake

I wanted to practice the techniques I learned from the Muppet class I took with Lauren Kitchens and decided to make Elmo. I mostly wanted to practice doing the hair texture with modeling chocolate and see how that turned out. Elmo ended up going to an auction which raised money for a mission project that my friend Amie was leading. Amie and her team were raising funds for Project Kesho, which enabled them to go to Tanzania and help build playground equipment and deliver shoes and school supplies to the kids in local schools there. Elmo was glad to support Project Kesho and is now hanging out on my kitchen counter. Stop by and say 'Hi' to him if you want.

Muppet Cake Class with Lauren Kitchens

 I had the awesome opportunity to take a class from Lauren Kitchens . Lauren ownes Fancy Cake by Lauren in Dallas, TX.  Lauren is famous for muppetizing the judges on the Food Network's Cake Challenge.  For this class we got learn all about muppetizing people.  Our first challenge was to choose someone we knew to use as our inspiration and then go about replicating their likness into a muppet.

 I chose my daughter, Anna. 

















For this class, we worked on styrofoam dummies,  The body, head and 'splat' on the cake were all accomplished using modeling chocolate.  I had never used modeling chocolate before and I think I have found my new favorite medium.  It is so awesome!  I'm so glad I got the opportunity to take this class and look forward to making many more muppets in the future!































The finished product...and side-by-side comparison.

A class full of muppets.