Wednesday, June 17, 2015

"Alice in Wonderland" Teacup Birthday Cake

There is something special and fun about PINK cakes!  And topsy turvy cakes are super fun!  The teacups were a little tricky, but much needed!


 The White Rabbit's clock.  "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!!"  Clock and #1 made of gum paste.
 I strayed a little from the original picture of this cake by making the blue pattern out of the playing card suit symbols!  Gotta get those little details in!
 I really love making gum paste flowers!  And those gold leaves are adorable!

 Do I need help with cakes?!  YES I DO!  I was so busy with cakes this week that my daughter was awesome and made that gold chain by herself!!  She painted it in gold for me too!  THANK YOU RACHEL!!!
 Here's the little smash cake to go with the big cake!  I really adore the rose swirls, and the teacup was painted by my daughter as well.
Okay, so sometimes something goes wrong with a cake.  Something went really wrong with this cake!  I delivered the cake, everything was all good, then I got a very sad message from the mom of the birthday girl.  The teacups had fallen off the cake and broken!  I felt awful cause I was out of town and wasn't able to fix it.  It was truly one of those heart dropping moments when I felt horrible! Live and learn with each cake!!  Please forgive me, Blaire!!!
Such a seriously cute cake and I enjoyed every second of making it!  Happy 1st birthday Morley!!! 
 I hope your party was super fun!!!

"Blaze and the Monster Machines" Girl Version

The original idea for this cake was simple!  Take my other "Blaze" cake and make it in girl colors with the two little people characters instead of the painted trucks.  But as you can see, plans had to be changed!  This happens a lot to me!

 See this cute girl?  Ya, well Gabby was supposed to be a tiny little girl that would sit next to a big monster truck.  She ended up MUCH larger than I meant to do!
 So I ended up making a BIG monster truck coming out of a gift box instead!  I gotta work on proportions apparently.  But it was fun doing something different and I loved making the bow and ribbon for the gift box.  Plus, this is much more girly!
 Folds of the wrapping paper.  Cake was completely covered in modeling chocolate.
 Blaze's cool giant tires busting out of the cake.  Made of fruity pebble treats and covered in modeling chocolate.
 Gabby's cute little self.  Made of gum paste
 AJ rocking the thumbs up!  Made of gum paste with a wooden skewer as his skeleton. 
I REALLY loved making the front messy with the torn 'paper' and cake crumbs!  And I really really love making new designs and not repeating cake ideas.  So it all worked out in the end!  Oh, and it was yummy gluten free vanilla pound cake with creamy vanilla butter cream frosting!
Happy Birthday, Whitney!!!

Vintage Dude/Ninja Nerd Birthday Cake

This is a mix of a couple ideas, but it turned out quite well.  The sweet wife wanted to make the shift to 50 as painless as possible for her husband.  When she saw the "Vintage Dude" birthday theme she knew that was the answer.  Throw in his love of ninja's and we had a cake!  Vanilla cake with yummy raspberry filling...oh so delicious!


 Large letters and numbers made of modeling chocolate the rest was hand painted on a square of fondant.
 Gum paste ninja and ninja stars.
 Modeling chocolate hand cut letters.  Super fun, but they take forever!
 Modeling chocolate Japanese arch
Just yummy frosting for most of this cake.  Happy birthday, Courtney!!!  (50's not that bad!)

Pink Rose Swirl Barbie Birthday Cake

Sometimes it's really nice to do a fun and easy cake!  I loved the simple swirls for the Barbie dress and doing the rose swirl with gum paste for the top of the dress was perfect.  BUT, it couldn't be JUST a Barbie!  I had to add something unique just for the birthday girl....

 ...her very own guitar!  This one is based off the birthday girl's actual guitar!  Made of gum paste and hand painted.  Just the right touch!  Happy birthday Brooklyn!!!

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Hand Painted Elsa "Frozen" Birthday Cake

I know we've all heard of Disney's "Frozen" movie.  I know we've all seen the cute cakes with the adorable little handmade sugar Elsa and Anna and Olaf.  I really love those cakes, but I also really, really LOVE being as original as I can with my cakes!  I have nothing against the other cakes I've seen, I just knew I HAD to make this cake stand out.  One of my many fatal flaws!  I look at a cake challenge and say to myself, "Make it cooler!"  Sometimes I go a little further than other cakes.  Thus this cake.....
 I've been wanting to do a 'painted' cake for a while since seeing this post by one of my favorite cake decorators!  She's got incredible cake tutorials that have been so helpful in my cake decorating journey.  I love the idea of making cake a piece of artwork.  Art was originally my biggest passion in life.  And McGreevy Cakes is so inspirational in this department!  (Thank you!!)
 I made the top of Elsa flat then had the bottom tier curve around the cake.  I added drapes of fabric to help give texture and movement to the overall picture.

 Snowflakes and swirls create the now famous picture of Elsa and her ice powers!
 The colors were ever changing on this cake.  I didn't have 'teal' food coloring, so I painted regular light blue first, then went over it with blue and green luster dusts.  Add silver and edible glitter for the folds and it gave so much fun dimension.

 The snowflakes started out with some cutters my awesome sister bought for me but they needed to look more like the "Frozen" snowflakes.  An X-acto knife and several minutes later and I had the shapes I was looking for.
 The folds of the dress ended in a fade of colors.

 Those lovely eyelashes were done with edible markers and edible 'paint.'  Check out the site above for how to make the paint.
And a HUGE shout out thank you to Brandi for her photography skills to capture this beauty!  I just recently watched her in action with a big group family photo shoot and her skills are off the hook!  She's so skilled with a camera.  It's like her magic wand!! Please go check out her site here and if you need a photographer call her!!!
Happy birthday, Addison!!!!  Thank you for giving me a chance to recapture my love of ART!!!