Hubby's bday cake

My husband's birthday is tomorrow but earlier in the month it looked like he was going to be in Texas for his birthday.  So I started planning.  I decided I wanted to have a small party and make a cake for him.  Since his parents live in Texas for the time being I asked if they would be able to come.  They said they would try and things got started.  I called a couple friends and invited them over for a BBQ at 5 this last Saturday. 

Then last weekend we (the girls and I) went to visit my husband in Texas and when we came back my mother in law came with us.  She stayed the week.  My husband thought she would be staying for two weeks because that is when he thought his dad would be coming up.  They are also going to try coming up for Labor Day weekend.  We just smiled at each other.

 So I started working on his cake.  I used the Wilton guitar cake pan and the instructions off of Wilton to turn it into an Island.

 I cut off the edges on the neck.

 I frosted the body green and the neck blue.

 I added "wooden" slats to make it look like a dock.

 And then it all fell together.  I made a tent out of graham crackers, the fire pit out of pretzels, and trees from ice cream cones. 

 I used blue piping gel for the water and then stuck whales in it.  I also used pretzels for fishing poles.  They are laying down because that is how my husband leaves them when we isn't on the dock.  That and I couldn't get the icing to hang for the fishing line.

Here he is with his girls and his cake.  It was a good BBQ with good friends.  We had a good time.  My father in law got here around lunch time and that is all that my husband thought was a surprise.  He thought we were going bowling and eating root beer floats.

It was a lot of fun.  I miss making fun cakes.  I hope you all had a good weekend.

Yesterday's cake

Yesterday was a busy day.  I told you that I was working on a project and here it is.  This is the cake that I was making.  We had a young women finish her Personal Progress and we wanted to celebrate it.  So I made a yellow cake and used butter cream frosting.  It was vanilla flavored.  I used the basket weave around the edge and then used butter cream to make all the flowers.  At Young women's last night we planted flowers so I wanted it to look like a basket with flowers in it.

 It was fun making the cake but it took longer than I thought it would because my kids need attention too.  Go figure right. :)

 Here is another project that I finished at least a week ago.  I showed you pictures of Sarah's hat but I don't remember ever showing you pictures of Yana's hat.  I still haven't made the pom poms.  I'm still debating whether or not to put them on.  I'll let you know what I choose to do.  I also made Josh a hat in camouflage but without the ear flaps.  I'm working slowly on one for myself.  It just isn't cold enough right for them.

I am drained today.  I really didn't want to work out this morning but I did anyways.  I'm so tired.  I think I might lie down while Yana is sleeping.

Today's project

Well last night I made a cake.  I was asked to make this cake.  It is not just for myself.  It is for a celebration.  Today I'm sitting here trying to decide exactly how I want to decorate and with what flowers.  So I might not end up spending too much time in my sewing room.  As soon as I get this done then I'll wheel my table out and cut some more pieces.

I'll share pictures with you tomorrow.  Lets see what I can come up with.

Monday!!!

Hello, everyone.  Man can you believe that the year is almost over?  Yana will turn 1 on Thursday.  Christmas is on Sunday.  We have lived here the longest we have lived anywhere.  1.5 years.  I can hardly believe it.

Well this weekend was really good.  Friday night we had a birthday party for Yana.  We invited a few friends over and had some cake.  I'll be completely honest with you.  I didn't like the look of this cake.  It tasted wonderfully but I wish I would have thought about it ahead of time and spent some time decorating it rather than just throwing it together an hour before the party.

 I was originally going to put rose buds on it but I just couldn't get them to look nice for me so I had to change plans midstream.  I'm sure you noticed that there are 2 names on this cake.  The Sarah on the cake is not my daughter but a friend and her birthday is the same day as Yana's.  I wanted her to know that we didn't forget about her birthday. It was a funfetti cake.

 My husband started out feeding her off of his plate and then we decided that it was only right for her to try on her own.  This was how happy she was.  She is a little poser by the way.

 It is getting more and more messy.  She i showing us her messy hands.  Isn't that nice of her.

Ok well off came the messy shirt....look at that mess.  She was so funny.

It was a lot of fun.  Yana didn't open them.  She had no interest in opening them.  So we let the kids take turns opening them for her.  She liked the stuff she got just didn't want to open them.

Well Saturday was good and busy trying to get gifts for Christmas finished.  Sunday was Sunday.  Sarah had a belly ache most of Saturday and Sunday but this morning seems to be feeling better. 

I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend and are almost ready for Christmas.

Baking days....

The last couple of days have been busy.  Josh was in Texas Monday until last night.  So every night I sewed as soon as my girls went to bed.  Tuesday I decided I wanted to try making my own candies so we went to Hobby Lobby and bought a couple molds and some chocolate.  This first picture is what I made that night.  Not too bad.  It was fun and they taste really good.

 There is peanut butter and milk chocolate.  Some solid and some mixed.  I also bought dark mint but didn't use it Tuesday night.

 Ok well this is what my table looked like last night before I went to Mutual.  I had offered to make cupcakes for the activity and I also wanted to use the new silicon molds my mother in law sent me.  So I made a lot.  I also used the rest of the chocolate while backing.  I used the dark mint as well.  The tins in the upper left have the candies in them.  They aren't full.

 This was the counter that I worked on.  It was a mess.  That's just how it was.

Here are the cupcakes that I took to Young Women's with me.  They were yummy.  I finished frosting the last one right as I needed to head out the door.  They were fun to make but man was yesterday afternoon busy.

I still need to frost the molded cupcakes but that will happen a little later today.

Cake Decorating

Yesterday was going to be my last cake decorating class since I will be on vacation next week.  However, Yana was teething, had a fever of 101.2 and was very very cranky and I was not about to expect a babysitter to have to deal with that.  So I canceled my babysitter and I stayed home with my children.  My friend who did go to class will teach me everything when we get back from vacation and then I can show you what I learned from the last two classes.

So as you can see by now there are pictures of cupcakes.  I bought at the beginning of October this cute little pack of cupcake cups and it came with 24 cups and then 12 of the ghosts and pumpkins and 12 of the BOO! signs.  I just couldn't resist.  I thought they were adorable and I wanted them so as you can see I bought them.  Well I had it all planned out to send cupcakes with my husband to work this week and it just wasn't going to happen.  We leave on vacation Friday and I wasn't going to get to make my cute cupcakes. 

Very disappointing.

Well I was doing stuff around the house today and had this thought.  Yes, sometimes I have good ones that I give in to.  I could make the cupcakes and take some to Young Women's and share them and then share the rest with friends.
So here they are!!!

 I used a white cake mix and butter cream icing recipe.  I used vanilla flavoring and had a blast.

 That ghost was just too cute.

 I even used sprinkles.  I'm not usually a sprinkles person.  But this was fun.

So there they are.  I had a blast.  I told my husband I would save him one and the rest of are going to find good homes.  Have a good night.  I'm going to bed.

Cake decorating class

Tuesday night was the second class of this third course.  It will be the last course for a while.  I have enjoyed taking these classes.  This week we made a rose, a carnation, a calla lillie and leaves.  Take a look.

 Here is one of my roses.  My first one looked like a rose reject but the second one was better.

 The side view of my rose.  This was the rejected rose.  It really doesn't look too bad but I hope they get better with each one.

 Here is my carnation.  I really liked my carnation.  It looked pretty good if I do say so myself.

 She told me after I finished this that I could have made the leaves larger before placing it on the carnation so it would go up farther. 

 This is the calla lillie.  They are pretty small but she told us how to make bigger ones.  I really liked the calla lillie. 

 Here is the inside of the calla lillie.

 This is the outside of the calla lillie

After the flowers we started making leaves.  We tried a couple different styles and that is why they look different from each other.

It was a good class.  Next week we will learn how to cover cakes.  We wont be covering a cake but we will be covering a cardboard round board for practice.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Cake Decorating class Course 3 - Fondant and Gumpaste

Last night was the first class of course 3.  We will be working with Fondant and Gumpaste in this class.  Last night we started by making a bow and 3 different bases for 3 different flowers.  We will use the bases next week when we finish the 3 flowers.  Off the top of my head I don't remember which ones they are.  I think there will be a rose and a carnation.  I don't remember the third.

 We stuck 4 bases on macaroni noodles and then we stuck them in the Styrofoam cup to dry.

 These are the carnation bases.

 Here is the bow this morning after I took out the paper towels.  We put rolled up paper towels  in the loops in order to keep them from collapsing while it was drying.

That is the bow.  It was fun to make.  I still need to figure out how to make my own fondant that tastes good so I would want to eat it.

Next week we will finish the flowers from above.  I'm not sure what else we will be doing.  It has been fun.

Cake Decorating Class finished

I have thoroughly enjoyed taking these cake decorating classes.  Tonight I finished the last class of the second course.  In a couple of days I will sign up for the 3rd and final course.  There is another class I would like to take in November but it is only two days. 

In this course we worked mainly with royal icing.  We learned a few flowers this course and then tonight we had to bring an already iced cake.  We learned how to do the basket weave.  It was a lot of fun.  Went with a yellow cake, white butter cream almond flavored icing and brown icing for the basket weave.  It was a lot of fun.  I made a larger than normal cake because I have plans for this cake.  As you can see from the pictures I wrote "Happy Birthday" on it.  It is supposed to be for September and October birthday's but I decided not to put that on it.

My lines aren't perfectly straight but not bad for my first time...if I do say so myself.  I really like how the brown turned out.  When I was mixing in the color it wasn't turning out to my liking.  After it sat for a while it darkened and turned out better.

The next course starts a week from today.  It is a course where we work mainly with fondant and gum paste.  It should be fun.   We will learn how to work with it on a larger scale.  The button flowers from this course were just to give us a taste for it.

Well I hope you all had a good day.  Mine wasn't the most productive but it was a good day and I did get a lot done.

Cake Decorating week 3

Cake decorating class this week was a lot of fun.  We got to learn some of the flowers that I have been really excited for. 

 This is the lily that we learned in class. It was actually really easy.  It will definitely take practice to make them look better but it was relatively painless.

 Here is a close up of the lily.

 Here are all of them except the lily.  When I got home I made more.  I figured since I still had icing in the bags why not practice and make some more.

 This is the Wilton Rose.  We learned earlier how to make a different rose which was nice but I was really excited to learn how to make this one.  Some are better than others.

 Here is one of the daffodils that I made.  It was a fun flower but I never did get it to look the way I wanted.

Here is the violet.  It will take a lot more practice but not but for just learning.

It was a lot of fun.  Next week is the last class in this course and we are to bring a cake already iced and read to decorate.  We will be learning how to do the basket weave and then we will be placing already made flowers on them.  I'm really excited.  It should be a lot of fun.