Vibrant Ladybugs!

What can I say, I love these!!!  I love polka dots, this green colour, and I've been wanting to incorporate lady bugs into something, so here it is!  These are mini cupcakes that I made to use up a little extra cake batter I had.  Once again, I was just playing around but wanted to make something that would really pop and thought a nice vibrant green topped with a little something red would work.  Rather than doing the typical flower (not that I have a problem with that, I happen to love making little flowers), I decided on these!  Love love love!!!

Patch Treasurechest for Charlie!

 I've always wanted to do a pirate themed birthday party for one of my boys, but they've always been interested in something else!  I've put it out there again this year for the twins, who will be 5 next month, but I'd mentioned robots at one point and they're all over that like white on rice!  I am looking forward to that too and am already thinking of all the fun robot themed fun you could include in a birthday party...maybe the pirates will happen next year!!!  You can imagine I was happy to be asked to make a cake to go with a little man's pirate themed 3rd birthday party!  More specifically, it was themed around a Lalaloopsy Pirate doll, called Patch Treasurechest!  Charlie's only request was that the cake include a treasure chest and gold coins!  Well, it seemed like the only thing to do was a giant treasure chest with little Patch sitting propped against it!  Of course his little parrot friend had to be included and sat perched on top of the treasure chest.  This cake was huge and as I was making it, I was aware that it was far more than required for the party.  I thought it would look like a wimpy little treasure chest if I made it any smaller and you can't have a wimpy pirate cake!  The cake itself was vanilla buttermilk with vanilla buttercream filling.  I used a chocolate fondant to cover the treasure chest and then "carved" into in with one of my fondant tools to give the wooden look.  A bit of brown colour gel brushed on finished the look I was going for.  Strips of fondant that had been coloured golden yellow were added for the trim and then brushed with gold shimmer dust.  Patch was made completely out of fondant.  I tried to keep him realistic and made an enormous head.  Wow, was that thing ever tricky to hold up!  I got a bit carried away with the details and used small amounts of black and white fondant to make a little skull and crossbones on his shirt, as well as his little Chuck Taylor's.  Charlie got his wish and heaps of "gold" coins overflowed from the chest!  A little brown sugar for sand and a treasure map wishing the birthday boy a happy day, finished it off!  Phew, this was quite the project, but well worth it, especially seeing pictures of Charlie biting into Patch's head the second he was allowed at his cake!  The "carnage" photo of Patch afterwards had me laughing every time I looked at it!  So glad Charlie liked it and that he had a very happy day!!!  

Super Cookie!!!

I was recently asked to make a large cookie to mark a special day for a special family!  Using a 9" cake pan, I made my standard chocolate chip cookie dough and pressed it into the bottom of the pan.  I wasn't quite sure how long to bake it but it looked done, so out it came.  Using purple icing I piped onto the top of the cookie and made a few fondant flowers out of orange, pink and purple and finished it off with a touch of pink shimmer!  The special little one it was made for is apparently quite the cookie monster and was so excited to open it and find her favourite colours on a giant chocolate chip cookie!  I didn't know those were her favourite colours but do I ever love it when that happens!!!  Heard the cookie didn't last long!!!

More Play Time!!!

Using an extra 9" square cake, I decided to cut it into four and stack them to make a cute, but slender cake!  Using strawberry buttercream filling between the layers of chocolate cake gave it some additional height!  I then took some leftover icing and used one of my favourite techniques to create this incredibly simple, but pretty little number!

Budding Artist!

When asked to make this cake, I was told that the the birthday girl is very interested in art and, in fact, her birthday party was art themed.  Due to unexpected schedule changes with the customer, I didn't know I would be making this cake until two days prior to the party...yikes!  Thankfully I work well under pressure and with little sleep!  Picasso was mentioned as a possible feature of the cake but it definitely had to include something art related.  I decided that what the cake needed was an actual Picasso painting, so I set out to hand paint a portion of Picasso's Le Reve (The Dream).  

Using a multitude of colour gels, I went to work and was pleased with the way it turned out! I finished it off with a gold fondant frame and propped it on top of the cake. The next step was the painter's pallet.  Using fondant I coloured brown, I added some extra brown and pulled it through to give it more of a wood grain look.  The paint brush was the finishing touch and sitting it in front of the cake seemed like the perfect spot!  I'd originally thought of covering the cake in white buttercream, to give more of an impression of a blank canvas. It came to mind that this was meant for an 8 year old's party and that a splash of colour might be nice.  I decided to bring out the very faint mauve in the painting and then use a darker purple for the trim, writing and flowers.  It took far longer than I had hoped, particularly after getting it in my head that I was going to replicate a portion of a Picasso painting!  I was glad I stuck with it and hope that Ahrielle had a wonderful birthday!


My own pallet used in the making of this cake!

Elmo in Pink!

 This cute cake was made for 2 year old Lily's birthday!  Lily's mom let me know that Lily is a big fan of Elmo and that she is also a real fan of pink!  I have such a new found appreciation for combining red and pink!  I also thought I'd pull out the orange of Elmo's nose and incorporate that throughout the cake!  The cake was vanilla buttermilk with raspberry filling.  It was covered in vanilla buttercream with Elmo and all other accents made of fondant.  The cake was 4 layers high, giving it a little more gusto!  I had a lot of fun doing this one!  Lily's mom thought she would like some chocolate cupcakes to go along with the cake!  She'd mentioned cupcake toppers, which I don't typically use, however, I saw these online and they were so cute, I thought they'd be perfect!  I soon found out that these were nowhere to be found and that they have to be ordered online.  I ended up calling my very talented graphic designer cousin, who was able to print the images for me.  Some paper, ribbon and cake pop sticks were all I needed to finsish them off!  Hope you had a very Happy Birthday Lily!!!