Water Color Cake

I found this beautiful cake and tutorial from Half Baked and wanted to try to recreate it.  It was much easier then I thought it would be. I can see myself trying something like this again once I learn how to make a few more buttercream flowers...

 Made a few cupcakes too...

April Orange madness...

I have been victorious in my struggle with my neighborhood squirrels... This is the first time in three years I've managed to grow tulips from bulbs. Chicken wire is my new best friend... I have the most beautiful orange tulip blooming in my flower bed. That flower inspired my icing color choice for the two birthday cakes I made this weekend. 

 Happy Birthday to my sister and my boyfriend's mom!  Hope you had a great birthday!

Pop Pop is starting them out early...

August Babies

There are 5 family birthdays this week including my own. I've been wanting to make this blue flower cake for a while and decided to attempt it for my birthday. I found the idea on cakecentral, there are so many talented decorators out there. I'm glad to borrow their creative cake ideas.
This a chocolate cake covered in buttercream. I made the flowers on a flower nail and then froze them to make them easier to get on the cake. I had a few placement issues but covered them up with extra icing.
I made a second cake for a party on Sunday. I used the leftover pansies and chocolate butterflies I made earlier in the week with Michelle's help. Overall, another cute cake...

Happy birthday to Mom, Katie, Nicole, Luke & Me!!

Roses ready to go into the freezer


Pansies awaiting the freezer as well


Start of the assembly. I moved the roses around a little and covered the mistakes with extra icing.


Adding the pansies

40 years of Marital Bliss

My parents have been married for 40 years... and to celebrate they are going to Aruba... Sounds like fun times, doesn't it? I mean Aruba, not marriage :)


How cute are they cutting the cake?

Cake is vanilla with buttercream icing. Used tip 3 to write and added piping gel to the icing to make it thinner, Roses are tip 104 and leaves are 68. Top shell boarder is tip 16, bottom border is Tip 21 with Tip 104 sweet pea's between every thirds shell. Added smalled dots with tip 2 to finish it off the top of the cake.

Diane's Farewell

A Victorian Tea Garden (or something like that...)
Naked Cakes :)

Another co-worker is leaving... Diane is moving on to bigger and better things in the " MW" that's Mid-West for those not in the know... :)

Diane is one of those people in your life that makes you feel richer just for knowing her. Not monetary rich but rich in friendship and life. I don't want to get too sad but I'm going to miss her positive spirit in the office and in the lunch room...

I wasn't able to attend the work party they had for Diane today but I wanted to contribute. Diane likes her caffeine. The theme of the party was Tea or most things caffeinated, so I made some cupcakes for the tea party...

The cake flavor is strawberry ( added 10oz pureed fresh strawberries, 1/2 c. applesauce, 2 eggs and a little bit of water to a box of white cake mix). Made mini and regular sized cupcakes and covered them with buttercream flowers. The inspiration came from Janek on cakecentral. I have issues with roses and this attempt was just as frustrating as previous attempts. The buttercream I was using wasn't stiff enough. The centers kept falling over when I was adding the leaves. A few fell off the nail as I was making them... I've been playing with fondant a lot recently and haven't really made a lot of buttercream flowers. I'm hoping to change this... I found a few new videos on Utube and will be practicing on future cakes.