star wars lego cake

My most recent cake order was for an eight year old birthday party....star wars lego theme!



My boys had their first lesson on Star Wars characters. Jonas was running around the house saying, "d2, d2."

cake three

This is the third of three different baking jobs I had within a week! Wheww!! (See other two in the next posts.) This was a second birthday party for my niece, Skylar. There wasn't a specific theme so we just made it fun and girly. I think she enjoyed it!

cake two

So, this isn't actually a cake. I made this for the groom's cake at a wedding. The groom requested a brownie pyramid. This was my first time to make anything for a wedding. Thankfully, the bride and groom were very low key and made this a much lower stress event. Thankfully, I also had two helpers that worked with me on the day of the wedding to bake 6 dozen brownies from scratch. Thanks, Katie and Danna, I couldn't have done it without you (or your kitchen, Katie!). I also helped coordinate the wedding ceremony and reception, which made this day even busier. David was recruited to be the "tech" guy and started/stopped the music for me. I think we just started our new family business! ha!!

cake one

I made this cake and cupcakes for a wedding shower a couple of weeks ago. I took the flower design from the napkin that we used and the invitation had the hummingbirds on it.

cake stands

If you have been searching high and low for the perfect cake stand, dome or platter, you need to check out Sweet and Saucy Supply. They have vintage style supplies as seen in the photo above. If you are a cake lover like me, then you can just look at a cake stand and imagine the delicacies that could rest upon it!!

batman party theme

What do you do when your almost 4 year old requests a Batman themed party for his birthday? You start by Googling images of Batman themed parties to gather your ideas and then let then fun begin!! We started off with homemade invitations. We used free printables from this site.

You welcome all your Superfriends arriving to the party!

You have a Batman cake (made by your mom)!

You make a birthday banner using recycled comic strips for the letters.

You have food inspired by this Batman party. Our menu included: Penguin's Pizza, Robin's Raw Veggies, Catwoman's Claws, The Flash's Fruit, Superwoman's Pasta Salad, Mr. Freeze's Fruit Tea (for the superfriend's parents), Wonder Woman Water and Joker Juice.

You use your Batman toy for decorations.

You have a drink station for thirsty SuperFriends (thanks Deanna for letting us borrow your beverage dispenser).

You hang bats made from foam from your lights!

You create Gotham City! I had recycled a box and turned it into Gotham city, using black spray paint, a silver marker to outline the city, cut out windows and lined with recycled yellow tissue paper and then placed a small desk lamp behind to give the nighttime affect. My mom had covered Asher's present with large Batman symbols so I recycled one and used it above the city.

You give party favors! I again loved the ideas from this party and for the party favors I found yellow buckets (for the boys) and pink buckets (for the girls) and attached a bat symbol with modge podge and filled them with SuperHero Snacks (again, free printable from here).

I also made each child a customized cape and mask. The capes were made from felt and I used felt with adhesive for the letters on the back. Each child then had 4 stars they could use to decorate their cape.

This kids loved running around with their capes and masks as they did the SuperFriend training outside.

pink party birthday theme

We celebrated my neice's 5th birthday at the beginning of March (yes, I'm very behind in posting!). I made her cake for the pink party theme. This was my first attempt at making a bow. I learned a few things from it and hope to improve the next go around.


The birthday girl enjoying her cake!!

3 girls, 4 cakes, 1 birthday party

I have been busy cake making/decorating so have been absent for awhile. This last cake order was fun to do and brought new challenges to what I have done in the past. The party was for three girls with birthdays all within a couple of weeks of each other so instead of three parties, they decided on one party with the same theme and same friends. The theme was gymnastics and I really didn't know where to begin with a design. But, thankfully to Google images, I was able to find a cake that fit the description and we altered the colors to match their party theme. I matched the girls' hair color with the girl on top of their cakes. The most challenging part was making the fondant gymnastic girls. I had difficulty with keeping their legs, arms and faces from not falling off. You will see that I had to repair the girl on "Ellen's" cake so her leg isn't as straight as I would have liked. Thankfully, Ellen and her mom were very forgiving and layed back with the it all and were so fun to work with in the design. Each girl had their own 8"round cake to take home with them for their family party and then we did one sheet cake to serve their friends at the the party.




If anyone has had prior experience to working with fondant in this situation, would love to hear any feedback!!

hootenanny cakes

My friend, Emily, was having quite a birthday celebration for her daughter and husband today. So she was in need of some cakes (yes, plural) and asked me if I would make them. We had several ideas but finally came up with the perfect design for a "hootenanny." We wanted the design to capture that it was for both father and daughter. Of course, we had to start with a smash cake for the first birthday!



You can see in this last photo glimpses of all three cakes. We ended up with a strawberry smash cake for Sophie, a strawberry sheet cake and a two-tiered chocolate cake. That's a LOT of cake! I really enjoyed making these cakes. This was my first time to decorate with fondant to this extent. I dabbled with fondant on Jonas' birthday cake but not to this level. I plan to build on this fun, new found skill!

1st Birthday Party

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated my neice Skylar's first birthday. The theme was a simple first birthday theme based on this napkin below.

From this napkin, I used the design to create the large cake for the guests and the small cake for Skylar to eat.

I enjoyed adding the detail of the bugs on the side of the larger cake.

The birthday girl enjoying her cake!

Looking forward to making the next birthday cake on my list...but not for another month! :)

A Week of Celebrating

It's hard to believe that Asher turned 3 on March 12th! We have been celebrating his birthday in many ways over the past week. Since Asher doesn't like large groups, I had our neighborhood playgroup friends over for a lunch and firetruck cookies. On the day of his birthday, Asher wanted to eat at Pie in the Sky so just our immediate family took him there and we ended with cupcakes from The Cupcake Collection (a local cupcake shop a couple of blocks from our house!). Below is Asher enjoying the the cupcake at Pie in the Sky.

My mom and stepdad, Bruce, and my aunt Candy all traveled down this past weekend for us to have an extended family party for Asher. David's mom and his brother's family all joined us as well. We had taken Asher to the party store to decide the theme of his birhtday this year. It came down to Thomas the Train or firetrucks and he chose firetrucks.

Below is Asher asking me if we can have his birthday cake yet. So sweet! (Notice he is in his fireman boots.)

I asked Asher if he wanted a hook and ladder truck or a pumper truck for his cake. He went for the hook and ladder. David said it was funny that we even know the different types of firetrucks.
And here is the cake (my final cake for the month of March)......

We are singing "Happy Birthday" to Asher and you can tell he wishes he could disappear. He definitely does NOT want to be the center of attention.

Jonas thought that he would get into the mix of opening presents. I suppose he figures that he will get to play with them as much as Asher. Elijah (Asher's cousin)is dressed up in Asher's firejacket.

I was thankful that my mom was able to come for the party. It was nice to have her help, along with my aunt's and even step-dad's (who helped me put together the ladder for the cake) to make the party a success.

For our goodie bags, we gave everyone an iced sugar cookie of a firetruck.

It was such a special time to celebrate Asher's three years of life. I am so thankful for him and all the ways he has changed our lives!

Princess and the Pauper

My neice, Meadow, celebrated her 4th birthday this past weekend. She wanted the theme to be Barbie Princess and the Pauper. I believe it is from a video but since I am a mom of boys, I don't know much about the Barbie scene. So, last week kept me busy making this cake...

I must admit that these types of cakes are not my favorite because I have never been good at drawing (or decorating with buttercream icing) faces. Cartoon type faces I am better at, but human like faces, I am not. So, I was not as pleased as I would like to have been with this one. I did try to recover with my failure to replicate faces by highlighting some of the details of the dolls. As seen below...

I was unable to get a great picture of the blonde Barbie close up but with this cake, I even used some gold dust (edible) to create the gold in her crown, on her necklace and gown.
This is the month of cakes...next up, Asher's!

Baby boy shower

This weekend I made a cake for a baby boy shower that my sister-in-law was hosting. She gave me a napkin they were using that had a train and stripes on it. So, this was the design we decided on. This was my first time to do stripes on the sides of a cake and found them to be challenging to get completely straight. However, I enjoy new challenges with each cake that I try.

A baby shower

This past weekend I helped host a family baby shower for my friend, Tracey. Her husband and three boys moved back to the US last year after being missionaries in Togo. They were surprised when they found at they were expecting again...and to find out it was another BOY!!! So, we decided to have the whole family at the shower to help their boys (from 6 to 11 y/o) be a part of welcoming this new baby. One of the families wrote out advice for the three boys on how to be a good big brother to their baby boy who will be arrving soon. It made the afternoon very special. I was in charge of making the cake for the shower. I decided to make a baby block and spelled out "BABY" with a letter on each side.

Since there were kids at the shower, I decided to also make mini cupcakes as well. The cake was chocolate with buttercream icing and the cupcakes were vanilla with a buttercream glaze icing.

Looking forward to making my next cake! Anyone in need of one?