John Deere

Happy 2nd Birthday Ethan! This was a birthday cake for Ethan. He loves tractors so his mom, Leslie, asked me to make a 3-D tractor cake! Everything is edible - from the bales of hay to the big ole tires. It's so funny, I have made quite a few birthday cakes for little boys lately. I say it's funny because I have always thought having a little girl would be more fun because you get to do all the girly themed parties, clothes, etc. I am starting to change my mind and think boy stuff is just as cute!

Happy Birthday Husband Dave!

This past Friday was Dave's 29th birthday. I can't believe this is his last year of his "20's". He is gettin' up there so I decided to make a cake to bring back his childhood days. Darkwing Duck was Dave's favorite cartoon growing up. He even has quite a few episodes on DVD! Since being married, Dave and I have spend a few Saturday mornings popping in some of those DVDs. You can't watch Saturday morning cartoons without your PJ's, a comfy couch and a bowl of Lucky Charms :)

The cake was a new recipe - triple chocolate! I covered in it buttercream and fondant and had so much fun forming Darkwing. I really like out the little night cityscape turned out! I think it would be really cool to eventually make a whole "city" themed cake.

On Friday night I threw a big birthday party for Dave. 20+ of his closest friends came to help up celebrate! We had so much fun having everyone over. It has been quite a while since we have had any sort of get together cause we have been working non-stop on updating our kitchen. We've noticed how the dynamics of get togethers have started to change. Now we have an assortment of single friends, married without children and married with children. We love that there are kids around now!! It is so much fun to have our "little friends" around. Here is a pic of Dave and Braden. Braden is in Dave's group at Awana and we have become close with the whole Barbour family! We love spending time with them and thank them for letting us share in their kid's lives.
Early that morning I surprised Dave with a "doughnut cake". Dave LOVES Dunkin' Donuts so I have started a birthday tradition for him where I get a dozen doughnuts and stack them up in a big ole tower with candles. This year I didn't have time to snap a pic before he blew out the candles because they started to catch the doughnuts on fire.


Here is this year's pic. What's funny is that he is wearing the same shirt! I just noticed as I posted the pics. Maybe he thinks the shirt makes him look younger?! JK. I sure do love my 29 year old husband, even though he likes Dunkin Donuts better than Krispy Kreme!

Rainy Daze

Yes, I'm in a rainy daze and I love it. I have lots to update on my blog and a rainy day is a perfect time. I'm sitting here at Borders with one of my bestest friends and college roomie, Dianna. She is the one who encouraged me to start decorating cakes and has been cheering me on ever since. Anywho, I am enjoying a cinnamon coffee, a chocolate chip cookie sample and doing a little people watching (another hobby).
Ok, since I have been slack in my recent cake posts, there were be quite a few updates! This was a small cake a made for Kathryn. She has been a BIG supporter of my cake business - thanks Kathryn! She is always giving out my name and it is such a confidence boost to have people recommending me. She ordered this cake for her and her friend's birthday and they brought it to a birthday tailgate right before a concert. So fun! I actually covered this one in just buttercream becuase I knew I would be doing a lot of the decorating with fondant. Yummy :)

J.E.'s Monkey Birthday Bash!!

I have lots to share with you today! Whitey, J.E.'s mom, called me a few months ago to place an order for J.E.'s BIG first birthday. She sent me the invitation (loved it!!) and asked me to base everything on the invite. Here's the invite from http://www.polkadotdesign.com/






Here is the cake for J.E. to eventually smash...it is covered in buttercream and the monkey, stripes and bananas are all fondant. We decided on buttercream so it would be easier for J.E. to smash it.








Whitney also wanted 30 chocolate cupcakes with monkey heads on top. Here is the big army of monkeys:





To go with the whole monkey theme, I made little bananas out of fondant to top another 30 cupcakes. I painted them with brown food coloring to make them look more realistic.



And last but not least, here are some banana-shaped sugar cookies! I have never had an order of cookies before and I really enjoyed making them. I iced them with royal icing so they would harden and I could paint the brown spots on them. They turned out yummy and I had some leftovers for Dave to snack on :)

Hockey

I think the best part of making this cake was getting to see Jasmine! Jasmine is Aaron's wife and we used to work together when I interned with Crusade. We hadn't seen each other in about a year! It was great to catch up with her!
Aaron loves to play hockey and Jasmine surprised him with this cake at the big birthday party she threw him. This cake is covered in fondant and I painted food coloring to make the the wood look real. I am really into painting my cakes recently! I guess it is the artist in me :)