Latest Cake Projects

WOW!!!!  I have been SO busy with cakes this last month or so!  It has been AWESOME!  I will start with February.

A friend of mine has a little boy who just turned 2.  He LOVES Elmo.  She asked me if I could do Elmo cupcakes and of course I said yes.  They turned out SO cute!!!



These I did while we were shut up in our house with that 2 day snow storm that came to us in February.  It was nice, because I just opened the sliding door to our back yard to chill them.  That way I didn't have to find room in the fridge.  Sure made the kitchen cold....sure felt GOOD!  They were all chocolate cupcakes.  I used buttercream icing to ice them and then I used orange jelly bellies for the noses and an Oreo for the mouth.  Too cute!

Also in February I did a baby shower cake for this really sweet girl in our ward that lost her baby last year when I was pregnant with Reed.  She was having a baby boy and I REALLY wanted to do the cake, so I did.  :)

 
 I LOVE this cake!  It turned out SO cute!  I did a chocolate mold for the bear on top and then, since this girl is such a chocoholic, I made chocolate cake for both cakes, but the top layer had raspberry filling with cream cheese icing and the bottom layer had chocolate butter cream filling with chocolate ganache poured over the top.  SO yummy.

In March, of course there was Reed's birthday that I made the monkey cake for and the cupcakes (pictures posted in an earlier post).  But then the next week I had a cake to do for the Relief Society birthday party that our ward had.


The theme of the party was "POP", Perfecting Our Potential.  They were having a carnival type of atmosphere so I had the idea to do a Topsy Turvy cake.  This was my very first actual Topsy Turvy cake, the one I did for my graduation was Styrofoam.  Anyway, the bottom layer was chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream filling and vanilla butter cream icing.  The top two layers were yellow cake with almond icing filling and vanilla butter cream on the outside.  Then I candied some popcorn the colors they told me they were decorating with and had my mom help me string them on wires.  I had some left over sugar from the candying and I made some red swirls with the sugar that I placed on top with some popcorn "popping" out of them.  It turned out so awesome, although the next Topsy Turvy cake I do, I will construct it COMPLETELY different.  :)  This was definitely a learning experience.  I got a lot of compliments on it.  I'm so glad that they were happy with it.

After the Relief Society cake, I got 5 more cake orders and they were all for the same week, the week after the Relief Society party, which brings us into April.  :)  It was fun.

I was hired by our Stake Young Women president, who is also a friend from the ward to do a large sheet cake for the Stake Young Women in Excellence fireside like thing that they had.


The youth theme this year is "Arise and Shine Forth" and they wanted that on the cake as well as a rainbow of all the value colors.  This was a fun cake.  I then made it shiny.  :)  It is half chocolate cake and the other half vanilla with strawberry filling through out and vanilla butter cream icing.  I used this stuff called "Disco Dust" to color some gel to make the gold writing to represent Virtue.  I was happy with this cake, although next time I do a rainbow I will do it differently....another learning experience.

That weekend I was also hired to do 36 Mickey Mouse cupcakes for a friend of my friend Kim (the one I did the Elmo cupcakes for.)  Turns out this girl was at my friend Kim's little boys birthday party and flipped over the Elmo cupcakes and then wanted me to do Mickey cupcakes for her son, I believe also turning 2.



I was really happy with how these turned out.  The cupcakes are vanilla and chocolate with cream cheese icing.  I cut the Mickey's out by hand in fondant and then drew the faces on with fondant writers.  She was very happy with them too.

Then, the next day I had a cake for another friend in the ward.  Her husband was turning 30 and she was having a big scavenger hunt for his party.  It was centered around puzzle pieces and she liked what I had done with the popcorn for the Relief Society cake and wanted that done for his cake, so I did!  :)


He wanted carrot cake this year so I made my yummy carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  I glued puzzle pieces on the ribbon that wrapped around the base of the cake and overlapped them, she liked that feature.  Then I had Spencer glue puzzle pieces together with wire so that I could stick them out of the cake.  I like this cake.  It is different and I like how it turned out.  I later heard that he really liked his cake, which makes me so happy!  We swapped my cake for her pictures that she will be taking of Reed, I hope soon.

The same day that the puzzle cake was due, I also had a half sheet cake for my dear friend Katie whose daughter was born just a week and a half after Reed.  She had bought my services for a cake at the Young Women's goods and services auction the year before, but then she moved out by the temple.  With her daughter, Paige's birthday coming up I offered to do a cake for her, she totally jumped at the chance.


It was also her son Sean's birthday the week before so he was also included on the cake.  I did a demolish cake for Paige that turned out super cute!  The half sheet cake was a lemon cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese icing....YUM!  The lady bug demolish cake was vanilla cake with just the red and black butter cream icing.  We delivered the cake to the party, it was fun to see their new home.  Wish they lived closer though, we sure do miss them.  She has a daughter CJ's age and a daughter Avary's age and they miss them something terrible.  Just a side note, the same day that the puzzle cake and these two cakes were due was also the day of this years Young Women goods and services auction, of which I offered to make some desserts to auction off along with bringing a salad for 20 people.  I was a little tired after this week.  I think I slept all of Sunday, but my kitchen was clean again.  :)

At the auction I also put up 4 separate cake services that were all bid on.  One of my ladies that I visit teach, and also am good friends with, has a son that was turning one!  (We have waves in our ward about 6-10 women having babies around the same time of each other.)  They purchased one of my cakes and she hired me to do her son's birthday cake.  I was SO happy with how this cake turned out!


I used a bundt pan to make the shape of the caterpillar with chocolate cake.  Both cakes actually are chocolate with vanilla butter cream.  The orange is the demolish cake that I offer for free for first year birthday's.  Every kid needs their own cake for their first birthday.  The only thing I wasn't too happy with on this cake were the antennae, notice how I really didn't show them in this picture.  :)

Back to my friend Kim (Elmo cupcakes) and her friend Melissa (Mickey cupcakes).  So, Kim was hosting a baby shower for Melissa and asked me to do the cake for the shower.  She had posted a picture of a cake she had found on my facebook page and asked if it was possible for me to do one like it.  Who am I to say no, so I said yes.


The bow on top is made entirely of fondant.  I then used a square cake dummy (Styrofoam) and covered that with fondant and cut out the fondant monkey by hand and used a cutter for the dots.  I used brown fondant for the other bow and then the cake is red velvet with cream cheese icing.  The cake store was completely out of red food coloring so I had to use a cake mix for this cake.  I hate cake mixes.  Anyway, it turned out really cute.  I was up until 2 in the morning finishing this cake and CJ's birthday cake seeing how they were both for the same day.  In addition to this cake, Kim had also asked me to make some monkey bread like I did for Reed's birthday party (she was there).  She's keeping me busy and I'm loving it.

Last but CERTAINLY NOT least, CJ's birthday cake.  I mentioned this cake in an earlier post, but I thought I would post a better picture of it seeing how the one I posted earlier was in a collage.


Pink swirl vanilla cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese icing.  Pink rhinestones wrapped around the outside with silver "Disco Dust" writing and green beads strung on wires, of which I also had Spencer do for me.  :)  I found a green boa like ribbon at Joanne's and I glued that around the base of the cake.  I love this cake.  It was SO simple and it turned out WAY cute!!!

Now on to my nieces cake.  She is getting married in May and I can't wait to do her cake.  In the meantime, I am catching up on sleep, especially since I came down with another sinus infection right after this last wave of cakes.

S'n'O Much Fun!

So, I am EXTREMELY late in posting this, but hey, better late than never, right??  Well, back in February we got quite the snow storm.  It snowed non stop for about 2 days, it was awesome.  When the sun finally came out we decided that we would go out in the front yard and let the kids play in the snow.  We all had a lot of fun.  Reed even got all dressed up and went sledding for the first time.  We got out our sled that we bought on clearance one year and Spencer did the towing.  They all seemed to have a pretty good time.  Here is a video of Reed's very first sledding excursion:



Spencer made use of a pile of snow at the end of our driveway and Avary had a field day!

CJ tried it too, but she has absolutely NO padding on her bottom and her fun came to an abrupt halt when the sled landed.  After the sled jump we started on our own snow cave.  The girls were quite impressed with what daddy could do.  He made a real nice cave too.  Big enough that even he could fit inside and lay down with the girls.




It was funny to see Spencer climb in there.  I opted to NOT post that picture.  :)

While Spencer was building the snow cave, the girls and I tried to get started on a snow man.  We didn't make it too far because the snow would fall apart.  Leave it to Spencer to apply his sculpting abilities and make the girls a cute little snow bunny:



That bunny lasted a long time!  Although it wasn't too long until a dog came and peed on it.  It was a really fun time in the snow.  I even got in it and made a snow angel.  I forgot how fun snow is.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  Yes, I know, another late post.  This Easter was pretty fun.  The weather was absolutely perfect and the kids were VERY cute!  The Easter bunny was really good to them. The girls got matching outfits:
 
 

and Reed got his very first tie.
 
  Boy he was a catch in that thing.

The Easter bunny also left some books for each kid, CJ got the next book in a continuing chapter series that she is really enjoying and she got a new chapter book that is a little more challenging.  I know when she is reading books that are too easy when she finishes them in one day, like the series she's been reading.  She loves them though. They sure have been good chapter books for her to get used to. Avary got two new chapter books from two different series, and Reed got a couple of board books.  And of course, all three got a new stuffed animal.


For dinner we had ham (of course), funeral potatoes, rolls, deviled eggs, salad, and raspberry jello....YUM!!!  Reed LOVED the jello.  :)  For dessert we had strawberry shortcake.  After we picked the ham bone clean, we of course gave it to Jersey which in turn gave her some really bad "disturbances" that would "disturb" her late at night and made her want to go outside.  We were afraid she had an obstruction so we took her to the vet, which in turn left us with a lecture and her feeling better the next day or so.  Every year since we have had her we have given her the ham bone.  This years ham though was extremely fatty and I think that is what gave her an upset tummy.  She's good though and she is now quiet through the night once again.  All in all it was a really good Easter.  The kids had a good day.  Reed especially had fun dumping out all the plastic eggs.

Happy 9 Year Birthday CJ!!!

I can't believe that CJ is 9 already.  Time is just flying by way too fast.  I like the fact that she is maturing, but does she have to grow up to mature???  Ugh, SO not fair.  :(  Her birthday was on a Tuesday this year, so we waited to have her party on the next Saturday.  For her actual birthday though we took her out to dinner.  She got to pick the place and of course she wanted somewhere that had crab legs.  Ugh.  After a long debate and calling around to find out prices (of which we could NOT afford right now due to an upcoming wedding we have to make it to this May), we finally struck a deal with her and her Aunt Analee that the next time she comes to visit us, she will bring us crab legs.  She seemed alright by this and then picked Outback Steakhouse. *gulp*

This year she wanted a "Sweet and Sassy" party.  There is this store for little girls to go and get makeovers, pedicures, have runway shows, shop, etc. etc.  The party girls even get a limo ride in the pink "Sweet and Sassy" limo.  The girls are in love with that dang store.  Anyway, after looking into their prices Spencer and I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to subject her to that kind of venue??  ;)  Instead I made arrangements for a couple of my Young Women and a dear friend of mine to come to our house and we would have our own "Sweet and Sassy" party.  I think it went well.



CJ and Avary made the station signs.  We had a make up station, a nails station, a hair station, and then a photo booth where the girls could get their picture taken after their make over.  I had set up a little jewelery station that the girls could make their own jewelery while they waited to go to the next station.  It seemed like it went real well.  I was happy because CJ was happy how it turned out.  CJ's cake was in turn a "Glam" cake.  I had some fun with it and her eyes lit up when she saw it that morning.  She wanted a vanilla cake, but wanted it pink.  We settled for swirled pink.  She was fascinated with that one, tee hee.  She then had strawberry filling and cream cheese icing.  It turned out pretty good.

I love my CJ.  It breaks my heart that she is growing up so fast!