More Than Meets The Eye

Michelle is one of my wonderful new neighbors and in one of our first conversations, I informed her that I make cakes.  God Bless her, she ordered one for her son, Evan, on the spot and told me that he really likes Transformers.  I asked if he had a favorite and she said that he liked all of them.  Okay.  I thought I had enough to go on.  I'd do some research and look into some Transformers and figure out which one was most inspiring to me.  

 Michelle wanted lots of fun colors and I thought primary colors would be great.  Red, blue, yellow...I've seen Transformers with those colors, right?   How hard could this be?  Then the night before Evan's party, I was finally beginning to do my decorating and I just happened to run my ideas past my husband and he was horrified.  I felt "this big."  Dudes.  I was going to mix Bumblebee with Optimus Prime.   I WAS GOING TO MIX BUMBLEBEE WITH OPTIMUS PRIME!!!!!!  Boy, my husband SAVED me on THAT!!  I was about to look like a person who had NO IDEA about Transformers!!!  

I figured Michelle wouldn't have cared, but her son, Evan, just MAY have.  So, I took a shot and because I had my yellow frosting already made, I went with it.  Here's the inspiration for the cake:  

This is the Transformers Logo:

And here's "Bumblebee":

Evan's cake is a chocolate cake with buttercream filling and frosting.  I made the Transformers logo out of fondant and added some metallic detailing with silver luster dust.

Michelle also ordered a dozen vanilla cupcakes for those guests who didn't want chocolate.  I added little "E's" on the top for Evan.  ;)

And here's the complete set:  

 Happy Birthday, Evan!!!  I hope you had a great, fun day!!  I'm happy I got to be a part of it!!  ;)

Hello Belen!

Belen wanted a pink Hello Kitty cake.  And that is what I gave her.  Plus some additional flowers and stripes.  I hope she was okay with that!

Quick Hello Kitty fact:  Did you know that her real name is Kitty White?   Interesting...  So I guess it's more accurate to say, "Hello Kitty White."  

The cake is a yellow cake with pink buttercream frosting inside and out.  I topped it with a fondant Hello Kitty and fondant flowers and stripes.

Happy Birthday, Belen!!  I hope it was a great birthday celebration!!!

Christian's Toy Story Cake

Christian wanted a Toy Story cake for his 2nd birthday.  He's a huge fan of the movie, which he refers to as the Woody/Buzz movie!!  What a cutie!!  Well, I had a good time with this cake.   Just this last week, my family and I took a trip to Chicago for a few days and we were fortunate enough to stop in a Disney Store.  After spending too much time there, (far too much time there), I scored the cake toppers for Christian's cake.  Perfect size, perfect characters (Buzz Lightyear was not included in the set).  But I love how the cake turned out! 

This cake is a yellow cake with raspberry preserve filling and lots and lots of buttercream, topped with fondant and Toy Story toys.

By the way, did you happen to see this?  Andy's mom's "alleged" true identity?  Check this out!!!

Cool, eh?!!!

Happiest of birthdays to you, Christian!!  I hope you had a wonderful party!

Orange Is The New Black Viewing Party

Well, I know that I'm not the only one who's watching the Netflix show, Orange Is The New Black.  And I was thrilled to be invited to a viewing party of the season 2 opener.  Everyone brought a dish (or two) to pass, but the goal was to have it themed to the show.  I know what you're thinking.  This looks an awful lot like Halloween.  That's what you get when you eat only orange and black foods. 

(Special thanks to Erin D. for this fabulous montage...)

Chocolate cake, orange frosting.  Of course.

 

My friend Erin special ordered these M & M's!!!

Don't forget about the orange and black cake pops!!

Everything was delicious, the season opener was fantastic and the viewing party was hysterical.  Can't wait to binge watch the rest of the season!

Polka Dots for Lola

Melanie's daughter, Lola, was turning two and to celebrate, she was going to have a super girly polka dot party.  I loved the idea of polka dots with lots of colors and couldn't wait to get started.

Melanie really liked the ombre' cakes and requested at least one of the tiers to be a purple ombre' cake.  I made that one the bottom tier and it went from dark lavender in color to the vanilla cake color, filled with buttercream.  The top tier is my chocolate cake because it's just so good.  

I covered the cake with my creamy vanilla bean buttercream.  If you look closely, you can see the flecks of the vanilla bean.  Yummy!!

I made the border a light purple because I figured purple was a pretty important color, per Melanie's request.  :)

The flowers came at the very end.  It just needed a little something more.  My daughter is the one who recommended putting the different color polka dots in the center of each of the flowers.  I really like how they turned out!

I hope that Lola had a wonderful birthday celebration!  Welcome to the two's, Lola!!!

Silly Sully

Kate ordered a cake from me for her daughter's 2nd birthday.  Her daughter is in love with Sully from Monster's University.    If you don't know who I'm talking about, here he is!  

In searching for ideas, I came across one that looked like Sully's fur and I thought it was one of the cutest things I'd seen.  I used tip 233 and piped lots of fur on the cake to make it look like this:

The cake itself is a vanilla cake with raspberry preserve filling and lots of yummy buttercream.

Happy Birthday!!!

Josie's Rockin' Dance Party

This last weekend, my oldest daughter, Josie, celebrated her 7th birthday.  I can't believe it's been 7 years since she was just tiny little baby!  Those days really do seem like they were yesterday.  Josie is truly 7 going on 16 and she's wise beyond her years.  She's kind, compassionate and one of the silliest people I know.  Her laugh is absolutely contagious!

This year, we decided to have a Dance Party for her.  She loves her music and absolutely loves to dance and I couldn't think of a better way for her to celebrate with her friends.  All said and done, we called this her "Rockin' Dance Party."  She made a mix CD that included her favorite music to dance to and all of her friends got a copy of it in their gift bags.  But before I get into the party, here's her cake:

Josie approved.  ;)

After we burned the CDs, Josie was able to decorate the labels with her Grandma Marcia.  Rainbows were a must!  And this mix was ROCKIN'!

Here are the giftbags...

The contents included her CD, an inflatable guitar (no one was going to get hurt at the party...), fun glasses, a microphone, funky hair, Pop Rocks and Mamba candy. 

At the party, we served fruit, carrot sticks, cheese and crackers, Bugles, Pop Rocks, Rock Candy and bottled water.

Both tiers of this cake were Josie's favorite; Chocolate-Flecked Cake.  Mmmmm!

Danny blew up a bunch of balloons that we brought to her party destination, Jazzercise in Delafield.  

The girls are beginning to arrive.  Ann did a great job leading the party and got to know the girls while they stretched and warmed up.

Most of the girls are here now, so we're discussing the rules and stretching some more.

The girls all got their gift bags early and I asked them to put on all of their props.  I really wanted THIS picture!!  How awesome do they look?!!!

And then the dancing began...

These girls had a blast!

Free dancing!!!

Limbo time!

A quick break for snacks...

...and then a few more songs.  Josie got to be the leader for awhile too!

Lastly, it was time for cake and presents!  Josie had a BLAST!

Doing the birthday party at Jazzercise was AWESOME!!!!!!!  Ann took control of the party and lead the girls through all of Josie's favorite songs.  They had some structure and then Ann made sure to give them time to just be silly!  These girls danced and exercised for almost 2 hours straight.  They were beat by the end, but they all had a great time at this party!  I highly recommend it!

Special thanks to my Mom and Mother-in-Law who also helped out at the party!  Cake was a great reward!