An Apple a Day!

When I think of apples I associate them with fall and . . . teachers! So when I was in need of a clever gift idea for my kids to give their teachers at the end of the year, I knew this was it!! This past Christmas I got a super cute calendar done by the people that do the "Hello Cupcake" books. And I knew there was an apple cupcake in there somewhere. =) Unfortunately, the calendar doesn't give exact instructions on how to prepare the cupcakes, just a labeled picture of the cupcake. For the most part, the pic was sufficient.

I opted to use spice cake and a cream cheese butterecream. Seemed the most appropriate. =) The top of the apple is actually half of a mini donut cut horizontially. This was where I wish the picture had given me a bit more information. My first attempt looked ridiculous because I didn't realize you needed to cut the donut. I chose to use plain donuts so that it didn't distract or clash with the flavor of the cupcake itself. The stem, as well as the seeds, are pieces of tootsie rolls. And the leaves I made with fondant. The ones in the calendar were made with a fruit roll-up but I happened to have a small amount of green fondant leftover from a previous cake.

These cupcakes were overall, very easy to make. The ones with the little bites obviously took a little more time but they wern't difficult. And most importantly, the teachers thought they were great!

Cuddle Time!

My brother recently had his first baby. What better to give to them as a gift, than blanket? So first things first . . . pick out a pattern. This was actually fairly time consuming. I didn't have anything in mind and this was my first blanket so I didn't want anything too tricky. But as soon as I saw a picture of this pattern I knew it was the one. Next step, the yarn. I would have thought this was going to be a much easier task. We knew the baby was a boy so obviously a shade of blue would be necessary, but what shade? And what colors should I put with it? I easily spent an hour in the yarn isle staring at and debating all the possible color combinations. I had no idea what the crib bedding or the room decor looked like so I didn't even have that as a potential help. I finally settled on my choices though and headed home to get started. I debated weather to follow the pattern exactly (SHOCKER!) In the end I decided to change the thickness of the stripes a bit (BIGGER SHOCKER!) I also chose to add a trim to the edges.
Now is probably a good time to say, I had NO IDEA that this project would take me as long as it did! As of now, i'm officially out of the blanket/afghan business. I'm just too impatient. Who knew. =) Hats. Hats are good. They take me one MAYBE two days depending on the pattern and my gumption. This blanket however, took me the length of a trimester! (approx. 92 hours of crochet time) UGH! I thought I would never finish! I even had a couple people tell me I wasn't going to make it in time for the birth . . . well HA! Just to prove them wrong I crocheted like a crazy person those last couple weeks. I thought my fingers were gonna fall off! (Lucky for me that nephew of mine showed up only ONE day early.) =)
Needless to say, the blanket made it on time . . . barely . . . and even though it haunted and hurt me for months I was very happy with the finished product. =) And I don't regret for one minute the blood, sweat and tears that I put into it. I live 500+ miles away from my newest family member, so I hope it serves as a reminder for years to come how much his Aunt Brandi loves him. =)

Much thanks to Greetingarts blog for a wonderful pattern! Here is the link to the original pattern I used for this afghan.

http://greetingarts.typepad.com/greetingarts/2010/05/neopolitan-ripple.html

Going WILD!

I finally had an opportunity to make an animal print cake! A good friend of mine requested one for her birthday. I always get nervous when I'm trying something for the first time. This was no exception. All those stripes and spots . . . and making BLACK fondant! Oye vey!

First for the cake. The tiers were 8" and 6" of yellow deliciousness. The filling was a simple cream cheese buttercream which I also used as the crumb coat before the fondant. So far, easy peasy. Time to cover it. Now I generally like working with fondant, but this particular batch was being a royal pain in my hiney! I got both the tiers covered, and then stacked. At this point in the process I decided that this was gonna be the ugliest cake I had ever made. For starters, bubbles galore. That's ok, I can handle it. I pulled out my giant sewing needle and started popping. Unfortunately once all the bubbles were taken care of it just looked lumpy and saggy! I honostly don't know what the problem was. But so help me I was determined to make this cake purty! Next, time to tint the fondant black. I've tried making black butterceam in the past and couldn't seem to get past the dark gray stage so I was anticipating a similar problem. Good news for me, it actually wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. The fondant was much easier to color than the buttercream. Granted, my hands turned a lovely shade of purple for about three days but I had BLACK fondant! So now onto the fun part, the actual decorating. Luckily with all the stripes and spots I was able to "hide" the imperfections from the original covering of the cake. Ahh, looks much better now! All it needed was a super fun "topper" (which I just happened to have.) =) and TA-DA! My favorite animal print cake so far. Oh wait, it's my only animal print cake. Oh well, still my favorite!

A boy and his dinosaurs

My son recently celebrated his 7th birthday! The party theme this year . . . dinosaurs! SHOCKER! Although, I am pleased to report that the dino obsession is no longer his ONLY obsession. He has recently started playing flag football. And while he has always "liked" football, now that he's playing, it is making it's way up the ranks and giving dinosaurs a run for their money. But since he had a football party last year, it was a no brainer that the dino's would win the coveted "birthday party theme" award for the year.

My orders were for a cake with a dinosaur scene, including a volcano, as opposed to something carved in the shape of dinosaur. (Thank goodness . . . much less stressful on mommy.) But other than that I had completely creative control. YIPPEE! I love control! =) Haha, another SHOCKER!

So I started with an 11x15 base cake then added a 7" square, and on top of that a 6" round. I then carved the little river out. The volcano is cake as well, made with more stacked and carved 6" rounds. I made the boulders out of fondant and gumpaste and the small rocks are candies. I made some "sand," added a little dino egg nest and wrote his name accross the front. Then finally, I added the little plastic trees and dinosaurs. The cake was my white rasberry almond sour cream cake, filled and topped with chocolate buttercream.

This cake was so much fun to make and the birthday boy (and his friends) loved it. Although at one point I did have to question weather he was really MY son or not because while eating it, the words "too much chocolate" escaped his mouth. WHAT!!?? I have failed as a parent! Ho hum. I just took a deep breath and told him never, ever to repeat those words again. =)

I'm on Purple Overload!

First let me say i'm sorry for the poor quality and coloring of the photo. Bleh! A photographer I am not. =)

Anyway, it's been a very busy and very purply couple weeks for me. =) My daughter is a varsity cheerleader at Rocky Mountain High School. Which, if you've read some of my other posts, you possibly already know. Their colors . . . purple, white and black. This past weekend was their final competition of the cheer season, the Idaho State Championships! And before the big event I hosted a team lunch at our house. And for dessert, I went with cupcakes. I attempted to make the cupcakes look like pom-poms. Because really, is there anything more appropriate for cheerleaders? I also wanted to make them personal so I made little gumpaste pennants and put their names on them. It's hard to tell from the pics but they are also dusted with cake sparkles so that they would look shimmery. =)

And now the most important question . . . how did they do at State? Well, i'm glad you asked. Their squad took first in the stunt routine, first in the sideline routine and second in the show cheer. State champ is then awarded to the team with the most overall points. They ended up in second overall . . . by 2 POINTS! They were truly incredible. I was so proud.

So we had the lunch last Friday. State was then on Saturday. And last night was the end of the year banquet for which I was doing the cake. So more baking, and more PURPLE! I needed to make enough for approximately 130 people. So I opted for a smaller tiered cake and then supplimented with cupcakes. The cake was a white, rasberry almond sour cream cake with a chocolate mousse filling. I did a buttercream finish with fondant decorations. Then I added a gumpaste bow and swirlys. =) The cupcakes were both the white cake as well as a chocolate version with buttercream. It was a hit! Cute and tasty! And people actually commented that they liked my fondant, and that's always a good thing considering there are some mighty yucky versions out there.

A scarf for all seasons

I recently completed my second scarf. This one was a gift for my mommy. Technically it was suppose to be her Mother's Day present, but after I got it done I just couldn't wait to send it to her. :)

So since Mother's Day isn't until May, and since that's what the scarf was suppose to be for, I knew I needed to pick a yarn that was really light weight so that she could still get a little bit of Springtime use out of it. She lives in Northern California, so come May it's usually already plenty warm. Not exactly scarf weather. (Another reason I jumped the gun and sent it early.) =) I also wanted to make sure the colors were appropriate for spring and yet still neutral. So after lots of looking and debating I actually opted for "baby" yarn. (They were both by Baby Bee) It made for a super soft and lightweight scarf. Perfect! I made this scarf 8 feet long and I used a basketweave pattern which I achieved by alternating front and back post double crochets.

Flowers in bloom!!

While it can be completely frustrating, I love trying new things. For my nieces birthday my sister-in-law requested cupcakes that looked like flowers. She tried describing to me something she had seen on a tv show. Not sure if it was my brain, or her explaining but I didn't quite get her description. But I figured I could still make cupcakes look like flowers. And this is what I came up with. A sweet personalized flower pot filled with pretty spring blooms and topped off with pink fondant butterflies! I used tissue paper for the "leaves" but if I were to do this again I would probably go with a silk leaf instead. I opted for a dense white cupcake recipe so that they could handle the "post" through the center without ripping. And the frosting was a straight buttercream. I was really pleased with the result. And the birthday girl was happy as well, and that's really what counts. =)