I am so glad I'm done!!

I've never had such a busy weekend for orders!!  It seems there is always one weekend out of every month that everyone seems to want to have their celebration of some sort.  For June it was on the 26th and 27th.  I had so many orders coming in, I had to decline about 4, which I really hate doing, but I'd already committed to far too much.  I had 6 cakes, 6!!  What was I thinking??  And to top everything off I had to go camping with Austin's class on Wednesday,  we brought home Alyvia's new pony and colt and my husband left for a 3 day fishing trip. It was one crazy week!

The weather was very humid which created a lot of problems in my house with the cakes.  Once I laid the fondant over the buttercream the cake instantly began to sweat.  Now, this has never happened to me before and I was very clueless on what to do.  Most of the cakes became super  sticky and gross.   I did eventually set up a fan in the house and it helped  a bit.  On one of the 2-tiers, it was so yucky, when I put the 2nd tier on, everything went down hill.  The bottom tier began to collapse and I had to quickly remove the top tier.  The bottom tier however had to be stripped of the fondant and re-iced (all the lettering was already done too!).  I was just about ready to cry!

All in all, the cakes did get finished with all the hurdles that I was forced to jump.  I've learned to never take on as many cakes as I did.  I became too overwhelmed and frustrated.

25th Anniversary Fishing Cake~french vanilla cake.

65th Birthday Pension Cheque~Red Velvet Cake

25th Anniversary Life Cake~Chocolate

This is the cake that gave me so much grief!  The final product still wasn't up to my expectations, but I couldn't fix it in any way with the time frame I was on.

1st Birthday Square Cake, Cupcakes and Baby Blocks ~ French Vanilla and Banana Chocolate

My first gumpaste rose on the square cake as well as my first time making the baby blocks.  They were really very time consuming!

Transformers 2-tier ~ French Vanilla with custard filling

Bridal Shower~ French Vanilla

not my design, but I loved it!  I made this Sunday morning!

Father's Day Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

I had to post these!  This is Alyvia's design.  She just told me to ice the cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and she decorated the rest.  I love her design!

I hope you enjoyed looking at the pics, lots more coming.  I have any extremely busy summer booked with lots of weddings and birthdays!  Stay Tuned!!

Beautiful Butterflies!

It was a super hot week this past one.  I had a huge wedding order and one birthday cake.  I really didn't want to be inside baking on such wonderful days, so I paced myself and made what I could ahead of time and crunched everything else into the last day and a half.  I was contacted only a couple of months ago to make this wedding cake and cupcakes and I am so glad I had an opening for it.  I absolutely LOVE it!  The cake was something so different and non-traditional.  The butterflies were a new one for me as well, but I love how they turned out :) .  I made 150 of them and painted them all with lustre dust.  The cake was red velvet on top, french vanilla in the middle and deep chocolate on the bottom.  All the cupcakes were a mix of flavors with my yummy vanilla SMBC and a new dark chocolate buttercream.  So Yummy!! 

And the birthday Thomas the Train cake.  I think every three year old loves Thomas!  My little guy went crazy over this cake.  I tried out my new lettering.   I found it difficult to use, but I will just need to practice a bit more.  The gumpaste kept sticking and then ripping...any suggestions on what I could do to make it easier and more clean looking??

Lightning McQueen

A cousin of Ryan's whom we haven't spoken to in  a really long time called a few weeks ago.  She saw my cakes somewhere and wanted one for her little guy.  Even though the Disney movie Cars has been out for years, the Lightning McQueen is still a favorite for many little boys!  Scott is obsessed.  He loves McQueen so much that his mom wanted a replica made out of cake.  I was pretty excited, well because I've seen alot of cakes on google, but hadn't had my chance to create this one yet.  She decided on banana chocolate,  which is such a yummy moist cake and worked great for this 3D cake. 

Austin had soccer on the Saturday and the party was Sunday.  I thought we'd be home by 2pm and we didn't get home until 9pm!  I hadn't baked the cake yet, never mind made icing or fondant.  Yikes, I think I was starting to panic!  So I was up until 11pm baking...then had to wait for them to cool.  I decided to just go to bed because I was so exhausted from spending almost 10hours in the sun at the soccer tournament.  Sunday morning I woke up and got to work.  I made the icing, fondant, carved the cake, crumb coated it, iced it, and laid the fondant on all in 4 hours!  I was so amazed.  I am very happy with this cake and so were the kids at the party.  When we brought the cake out, all the kids were screaming and pointing at the cake.  They had which part they wanted to eat.  It was so cute!

Camper Cake

I wish I would have had more time on this cake.  I had a lot of great ideas to make a fire pit and some trees, make the camper look a lot better.  I was called the night before and had to move my time up about 6 hours.  I wasn't ready for that!  I at least had the cake baked, but nothing else done.  I would've started the night before, but I didn't get back from a school field trip with my son until 9pm.  It was a long, exhausting day.  6 hours on a bus with grade 2 and 3 kids and wearing a back pack full of lunch and water bottles took a toll on me.  I am not used to that.  It was a great experience, but I'm a tad bit sore.  So after that, I wasn't going to being decorating a cake.   After I got Austin off to school the next day, I began the cake and ran out of time quickly.  Here's what it looked like. 

My Weekend!

It was so beautiful outside this past weekend.  With +30 Celsius weather and trips to the park, the kids and I loved it!  Ryan was up in Conklin working, so I was soloing the entire time.  On top of making a new flower bed, hauling dirt, playing with the kids, cleaning house, I had five cake orders!!  Today I am still exhausted, I just want to sleep for an extra few hours everyday, but Aidan's been waking up at 5:30-6:00am.  WHY???  I hope that changes, and quick!  Anyways here are the pictures from last weekend.

So this is my first wedding cake for 2010.  I absolutely love it!!  A few firsts on this.  I only did quilting once before on a birthday cake which didn't turn out, this turned out perfect.  I didn't get a chance to make it to the city, so I made my own quilting tool.  I used a piece of thick card stock cut to kinda resemble a ruler with a diagonal end, a tool to poke the points into the fondant and a roller tool.  It worked, which still amazes me, probably took much longer than it should have, but I did what needed to be done!  I also made the calla lilies for the first time.  They actually weren't as bad as I thought they'd be.  Again, didn't have the right tools, so I made my own cones from printer paper and didn't have a ball roller, so I used a rounded lid. 

"Thank you so much for the beautiful cake Andrea. I absolutely loved it and it tasted great too. Thanks."

Well, one out of nine wedding cakes done.  Super excited for the next one coming up in June!!  Stay tuned!

My neighbour wanted her little guy's favorite teddy bear, I mean stuffed donkey to be replicated out of cake.  This was a challenge for me.  At first I didn't even know where to start.  I was so exhausted the night before, I woke up in the morning and made this before the party.  I think he turned out pretty cute!

"Thanks Andrea! You did an amazing job on the cake. When Wyatt saw it, he smiled and said "donkey" so thanks again! The cupcakes were delicious! :)"

A few of 36 cupcakes I made for triplets.  E, A and C are the first letter of their names.  I got the idea for the three cupcakes out of the Hello Cupcake book. 

"The cupcakes were awesome. Can't wait for the cake. "

I'm not really sure what kind of cake this was, the little girl's mom came to me with a a picture of the cake she wanted, but only wanted a one layer cake.  I changed it up a bit and made the mask, fan, bow, #5, name flower and hangy things out of gumpaste.  I've really enjoyed working with gumpaste, it's alot of fun and I can do alot more with it than fondant.  Anyways, back to the cake...  She also told her mom she wanted diamonds on the cupcakes.  I came by these diamond rings at a dollar store, I could only get 16 though, so I changed up the other cupcakes a bit.  I think the rings look pretty cute on the cupcakes.

Horse cake.  Not my design, I saw a picture on google somewheres'.  My daughter loved this cake, she has become very fond of horses, maybe I'll have to make her one next January.

And here are some pics of the kids enjoying the nice weather. 

Yummy Watermelon!

Alyvia, Aidan and cousin, Teila on the tire swing.

Alyvia checking out her butterflies she caught.

Austin and Alyvia looking for butterflies.

Aidan and Austin on the top of monkey bars.  Yes, my little 2 year old can climb anything!!

A Beautiful Photo!

I really wanted to post these pictures of one of my wedding cakes I made last year.  It was professionally photographed by a friend of mine and wonderful photographer!!!  Chantelle does such beautiful work and you can check her out at http://mflphotographybychantelle.blogspot.com/  or on her facebook page . 

~

Create!!!

So today was a great day!  Back in March I took a scrapbook class and found out I really want to expand my creativity!  My sister and I went together and had so much fun, that when another class came up, we jumped at the chance to go.  Not only do I get a day break from life, I get to use my brain to create beautiful pages in a peaceful, relaxing atmosphere.   Rebecca is so amazing and creative and taught us how to make a mini coil album.  I can't stop looking at mine, I LOVE it!!  I am so impressed that I actually made it and didn't copy exactly what she did.  The first class, I was quite the copy cat, but now I feel I can branch out and try something on my own.  I can't wait for the next class!

Before all the fun I had today, I was busy for three days baking and decorating.  I was only suppose to have one order this week and then a few last minutes came, which I didn't mind. 

The first was for my cousin's father in law. It's not a super 'WOW' cake, just something I was able to get together quickly before they came (I only had one day notice).  Again terrible picture quality, like I said, last minute.  He was fun to create though. 

"Hey Andrea! Just wanted to let you know that everyone loved the cake, it was awesome!!! Thanks again!!"

The BIG, FAT, Calico Cat!!  I love this cake!  My calico didn't do as it was suppose to.  Originally it was suppose to be a white with grey, black and brown mix, then when I added the black, it turned purple!  This isn't Alice in Wonderland!  So I just mixed in a few more colors, ended up with grey and then attempted to see what would happen when I put the white, black and brown.  It was all the fondant I had left, so I was glad it turned out alright.  Marbling is a bit harder than I had anticipated.  He was really fun to make and the customer absolutely loved it when she picked it up the next morning!!

The lady who ordered this cake has a mother who loves Cardinals.  She asked me if I could create a 3D bird, I think I hesitated before I answered.  This could be a toughy!!  She told me every year her and her sister compete to see who can get the best cardinal gift for their mom.  She said a cardinal cake could never be beat.  I was honored to make this!  It took a bit of planning and figuring out how to stack the cake and shape the cake into a bird figure. Then came the decorating and making of the feathers.  I will admit, this was a challenge, but I am pretty pleased with the end result.  The pictures are terrible, but this cake really needs to be seen in person.  I was able to try a new technique out, which I always love. I painted the fondant on this cake.  The 8" bottom was originally supposed to be white, but I kept dropping red paint on it, so I made it brown. 

"LOL won the competion hands down with the cake...it was awesome, my mom didn't want to eat it....but we convinced her!! The cake also tasted awesome!! Thanx Andrea! "

Stay tuned, next week another busy one.  A birthday cake, birthday cupcakes and  a tiered wedding cake!!!  Wedding Season is here!