Christmas Storage

I can't believe it's been three full months since my last cake... I'm so excited to be using my new kitchen with actual countertops of space I can use to decorate! I don't have all of my cake supplies in their proper home yet (still working on unpacking and building storage). I cheated a little bit and bought wilton colored fondant because my right arm and elbow have been hurting, likely due to the many house projects of late... I just couldn't think about how my arm would feel after kneading four different colors of fondant. I found this cake idea on cakecentral.com. It took about a day and a half to make from start to finish. The bottom layer is a chocolate, chocolate chip cake. The christmas balls are french vanilla made in a Wilton mini-ball pan. The "box" is brown colored gum paste that I rolled thinly with the help of the pasta machine, the best invention ever...

For those of you that know me well, are you surprised I lined up the colored balls? I swear I did try to arrange them in a random way but they just didn't look right... :)

Here are some assembly pictures:

Prior to Box assembly- the gum paste drying

Ornament toppers, molded on top of a corn cob holder and added slash lines with a knife.

Fondant covered mini-balls...

I really liked the way the tree came out... as well as the Shellaway, although the name is so long I barely could fit it! My cousin Jason asked "can we shellac the shellaway ball and hang it on the tree?"

This is the cake ready for transport. I added the "box" sides when I got to my aunts house. I don't think it would have survived my driving ;)

One side of my awesome family.... We are missing one set of cousins & 2nd cousins... which would add 10 more...