Cutie Patootie Baby Shower cake

This is a baby shower cake made for my friend Emily....well not for her but she was throwing the shower for one of her friends. She sent me some pics from the new baby's bedding and I designed the cake from that. The little monkey's curly tail is my fave! I actually tried something new for this cake. It was vanilla with chocolate buttercream icing and covered in fondant. I have made chocolate buttercream before but never covered it with fondant. I hope it turned out yummy!  

 

Last Saturday Dave and I also had 2 little visitors for the morning. Kinsey and her little brother came over to our house and we had so much fun decorating and baking cookies. Kinsey helped me make my favorite cookies - peanut butter kiss cookies.

Here we are getting them ready to pop in the oven. Oh yeah check out my super stylish Darlin' Designs apron! It was a birthday present from my good friend Cathy...thanks Cathy, I love it!

And here we are with the finished product! She is a great assistant. Maybe I'll hire her one day to be one of my decoraters.

Shutterfly Christmas Cards <<-

Merry Christmas! I can't believe it's here once again and I am loving it. I love getting creative each year and it is even more fun now that we have a house! Dave and I got a GIANT tree this year. It is the biggest I have ever had and we can barely see our TV. After we got everything decorated on Saturday, our friend Heather came over to take some Christmas pics for us. I am super excited cause we plan to use them in our Christmas card. Karoline told me about these awesome cards from Shutterfly. They are so cute and there are a TON to choose from. I think this one is my fave:


 As most of you know, I love monograms! They are so classic and fun to include in Christmas decorating.
Here is a link to their photo Christmas cards

Another project that I have wanted to do for quite a while is to use all of our wedding pics in a picture calendar. Yeah, we have been married for almost 2 years and I have yet to use our beautiful wedding pics! I have a picture collage on our living room wall but that is about it. Shutterfly makes it pretty easy to use those pics you have been wanting to use for quite some time.

Here is a link for their photo calendars

And once the Christmas season is over I always have a need for Thank you cards! As a full time art teacher I get a TON of gifts from my little kiddos. I must admit, it makes Christmas so much fun. They love making me little fun gifts since I am their Art teacher :) Anywho, they deserve thank yous so I might have to order a few of these:

I like these cause they look "Christmasy" but I could use them throughout the winter season as well.

Here is a link to thank you cards

I'll be back soon with some new cake pics! Hope you are having a Very Merry Christmas season!

Love,

Tricia

Look Whoo's One!

Some of my favorite cakes to make are First Birthday cakes. I love all of the cute birthday themes that are out now. This one was for a little girl and the theme was "Look Whoo's One". Dave and I both agree this is now our favorite. I am going to miss our little owl friend who will soon be smashed by the birthday girl. Yum Yum! The biggest layer is white almond, middle chocolate and the top "smash" cake is white almond as well.

Rubik's Cube Cake

This cake was made for an 80's themed birthday party. I can't believe how heavy it was!! The inside is white almond and I had to make 6 - 10" square cakes to make it a perfect square. It was difficult trying to get everything even. I spend a lot of time with a ruler in hand. Before I began this cake I thought to myself "a big square with cut out squares should be easy." Each time I make a cake , Dave reminds me I shouldn't say that because that never happens! I was super excited about getting this order because my customer found me linked to another blog...how fun :) That means people are reading and I don't even know it!

I love the weekends :)

It's Saturday night and I must say that I am a VERY  blessed wife...my hubby is making dinner tonight. Not Tuna Helper or microwaved chicken breast (like he would make for me when we dated). Yes, I did say microwaved chicken and boy it was chewy!! I happened to be upstairs cleaning the bathroom and came down to find him in my apron and just had to snap a pic so here it is:

He's making manicotti btw :)

Unfortionately, I only have one cake to post about today! I am very sad because last weekend I had three cakes to post pics of and my memory card crashed. For some odd reason I can't get my pictures off of it. If you know of anyway to fix it please let me know! I always look forward to the pictures after making cakes because it is the only tangible thing I have left from my artwork (since they usually get eaten).

Here is a cake I made this weekend for a bachelorette/birthday party. I was able to do whatever I wanted so I went with pink and black and came up with this fun design. I hope the girls enjoyed it!

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!!

Sailboat Cake

Here is another cake I made for Justin and Cassandra's wedding. This was the groom's cake and they also had it at the reception. Justin is a big Miami fan so Cassandra requested that the sail have the Miami logo on it. There were a few other "inside" jokes that she wanted on the cake. The water was a last minute detail! I felt like I was on one of those cake shows with only a few minutes left to finish up. I was going to just used blue buttercream icing, but I didn't like how it looked. I always tell my art students when they paint water to mix lots of different blues and greens together because water isn't just blue. I also remind them their water doesn't need to look "perfect" becuase it is always moving. I love using the lessons I teach my students...I need to learn how to follow my own advice :) Anywho, I painted a few of the waves with white food coloring. I just discovered white food btw.

Cassandra and Justin's Wedding Cake

Congratulations Justin and Cassandra! The Johns' got hitched this past weekend and I had the honor of making their cake. I really enjoyed making this cause because Justin designed the pattern I used (it was also on their invitation, etc.). He is an artist and has his own canvas printing business. I must say that I was a little initmidated because he is very talented and their reception was absolutely gooorrrgeouss! I think Spider Mums are my new favorite flower. I took the topper home with me and they are now on our coffee table :)

I cut out the fondant pattern using an exacto knife and a print-out of the design Justin designed. The night before their wedding I dreamed about this design (since I spent quite a bit of that day cutting it out) :)

Guinness Cake

Wow, it's been a while since I have had a chance to write! I have been super busy with lots and lots of cakes the last few weeks. Here is one that my roomie (from college) ordered for our friends Matt and Jennifer Embry. They recently got married and had a party after the wedding and reception - how fun!

I covered the cake board with fondant and make it look like wood. I love painting with food coloring!

Here is the foamy top close up. Can you guess what I used to make it look foamy?? I love how realistic this turned out!

Julie and Richard's Wedding Cake

This past weekend was not only Richard and Julie's wedding but it was also my birthday! Here is the wedding cake I made for them. I love the look of different designs on each tier. The flavors: 1st tier - pound cake, 2nd tier - chocolate, 3rd tier- lemon, 4th tier - carrot. It was iced with buttercream, covered in fondant and every other tier was "quilted". I did the details with royal icing because it hardens and always looks so smooth.

For my birthday, Dave gave me a brand new PINK camera!! I am super excited because I take so many cake pictures and now it is a lot easier to do so. This past summer, I lost my pink cannon camera on the way to Uganda. I was so sad beacause some of my best friends bought it for me for my birthday a few years back. Anyways, Dave replaced it and is is 12 MP!! Can you tell the difference in the pics? ;)

I often get the question "how do you deliver wedding cakes?" so here are a few pics of the process. It is not an easy task and I always needs a second set of hands (usually Dave). It is easier to transport them in an SUV, but since we don't have one, we have figured out how to do it in "Haley the Honda" (my Honda Accord). Dave used to do the driving, but since he is from NY and drives like a maniac, we have decided it is best for him to sit with the cake and for me to drive :)



top half in the front of floor board of my car





Me putting the cake together and making some last minute touches at the reception site



The bottom half in the back seat of my car (which weighed about 50 pounds!!)



The finished product!!



Happy Birthday Karoline!

This past Monday was my best friend's birthday. We have been best friends for 20 years!! I can't believe it. On Sunday, Dave and I threw her a birthday party. It was a a special treat that she happened to be home for her birthday because she now lives in the big city of Boston. She is attending Boston College and is getting her M.Ed. Educational Administration. I am so proud of her and can't wait to see what an amazing principal she turns out to be!!

I made her a banana cake with buttercream icing and it turned out super yummy. This was the first time I made a banana cake and everyone loved it. I always think of Kar when I see gingham (maybe it's cause we used to call her "Little Debbie"?) so I bought some gingham napkins from Target and made a little table runner with them (got the idea from Better Homes and Gardens). I was going to attempt to make a gingham pattern with fondant,but decided it might look better to use real ribbon so I just did the monogram out of fondant.

Here are all the guests eating Manicotti before digging into the cake! After the party, Karoline, Abby, Susannah and I spent some time flipping through our old highschool yearbook which brought back lots of memories!! I am so thankful for friendships that have lasted so long.

Monday morning (her actual birthday) I surprised her with a trip to the Tea Room in Wake Forest! When Karoline turned 10 she had a tea party for her birthday so I decided to try to "re-create" it for her. This place even had a dress up box. Soooo we got all dressed up with big hats, gloves and of course, PEARLS! It was so much fun...Happy Birthday Karoline with a K!!

Baby Blocks

This cake was made back in March but I wanted to post it because I recently made another set of block cakes. I made this one for my friend Kristen's baby shower (before she had sweet little baby Noah).

And here are the ones I made last week. They were a little more complicated because I had to treat them as a tiered cake. Also, it was raining, pouring, and storming during the whole process! I say this because the weather can really affect cake decorating. The fondant wasn't as firm and the buttercream was all over the place. Although I was a little worried, I received an update email and heard that it was a hit at the baby shower! Whew...what a relief :)

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 :)

Safari baby shower cake

Here is my latest creation...a Safari themed baby shower cake for a little girl. I loved these little guys!! This was a chocolate (yummy) cake covered in buttercream and fondant. This past weekend my brother -in-law, John, and his wife, Christine, came to visit us. John couldn't resist jumping in one of the pics :) Hey guys!! We miss you a ton already and please come back very soon. Thanks for being some of the few people who read my blog!!