All the world is birthday cake,...

...so take a piece, but not too much (George Harrison). Been thinking a lot about cake of late. Partly due to the fact that I am seriously cake deprived right now, and partly due to the fact that April/May is party central in this house and cake is on the menu (as always).

This year I decided I'd try and step things up some, and enrolled myself in a one-day course at Charles Darwin University to learn the art of decorating with fondant. That course was yesterday, and it was a GREAT course! The teacher, a lovely lady by the name of Hayley....is a fabulous cake-maker, and so much fun to learn from too. Check out her awesome creations on Facebook at Cake-a-Licious.

Now, in the interests of full-disclosure, my cake was supposed to have a bow on the top. But when it was all said and done my bow looked so dismal and icky I chucked it in the bin and went with a bright floral design instead. Here it is:

I can not take credit for the swoon-worthy chocolate mud cake. Hayley made those for us...and they are, well, I'm lost for words. I am not usually a mud cake fan, but this...it is scrumptious! I also believe it is completely calorie-free ;-). Hayley also made our yummy chocolate ganache. We then had to apply the ganache and make a perfectly cylindrical cake, before colouring and applying the fondant.

My mouth is watering just thinking about it! I don't think I did too bad a job for my very first try either :-).

Gotta go start dinner now (and stop thinking about the 5 kgs of iced cake sitting on my bench).

Have a good one,

Thomas the Tank Engine is a cake!

We had a little Thomas Party on the weekend for Master 2, complete with Thomas cake of course. Thomas was a wee bit wonky, but apparently that's because he was taking the bends on Sodor too quickly... always trying to be a useful engine is Thomas!

I believe that the birthday boy enjoyed himself some...

...and that he enjoyed the cake some too!

His sentence du jour is "pay nee nors, pay nee nors, peas?" Which translates to "Can I play with my Thomas trains, please?" He absolutely LOVES Thomas, and it is so cute!

PS. Thanks for your lovely comments on my last post. I really appreciate them :-).

Nature's Way of Telling us to EAT MORE CAKE!

That's what Birthdays are for...apparently. I didn't know this, but I feel duly enlightened, and will feel much better about eating cake in future. I thought I should share this on my blog too. In case you were feeling bad...about eating cake. Don't!

Enough rambling from me. As you might have guessed...I made cake on the weekend. Another hand picked delight from the Woman's Weekly Kids' Party Cake cookbook of course. The go-to book for cake in our house. Heaven help us if we ever lose that book.

Master 6 chose the dinosaur this year. He actually chose the T-Rex (I think his name was Danny), but I pleaded a case for Stella (the Stegosaurus)...a much friendlier looking dinosaur (and much easier to make according to my initial survey)...such a slacker!

Sorry about the dodgy light/colour. The hardest thing about this cake was cutting all those hard, sticky Mint Leaves in half (enter: knife-wielding hubby). The rest was a piece of cake....a ha, ha, ha. I crack myself up! The yummy looking chocolate 6 (covered in hundreds and thousands) is by freckleberry chocolate factory.

And here is a little dinosaur-themed Photoshop tinkering using more of Tracy Ann's beautiful digital art...

Think I'll have an early one tonight.

Party Fun

I mean't to explain the lack of papercrafting that's been going on in this neck of the woods. Well...the lack of blogged papercrafting, at any rate. I've had a lot on recently, but there has been some crafting going on in the background, just no time to blog it!

April/May is party central around here, and I've been dabbling with pretty clip art, digital scrapbook papers and Photoshop. I made some party place-name cards and party bag toppers with some beautiful goodies from Stockberry Studio on Etsy, and using a groovy new curves template by Rita of The Coffeeshop Blog (thanks so much Rita - you rock!!!)...

 I also managed to squeeze in a little birthday cake. Not one of my finer creations, but fun to make and well-received by the requester/birthday girl nonetheless...

Waaaaaay past my bedtime now, and tomorrow is another big day.

Blogged to: Hungry Town - Big Pig, Eagle Rock - Daddy Cool and True Faith 94 - New Order.

Gooey Green Cake

After making our little Thumper a punch art turtle card for his first birthday, I thought a fun matchy, matchy turtle cake might be in order too. So I scoured my trusty 'Woman's Weekly Kids' Party Cakes' book and found Tommy Turtle...who I thought fit the bill perfectly!

I had two little helpers lending me a hand (or four) at various stages throughout the making of this cake...it always makes the whole process that much more fun!

And the final verdict....?

Thumper likey! This photo of our little man enjoying his birthday cake has been edited in Photoshop using the Velvet Peach Action created by Rita of The Coffeeshop Blog. Thanks for another great Photoshop Action Rita!

ETA: I just wanted to show you another action that Rita has recently added to her blog...the Instant ColorBar Action! It is so much fun to play with, and what a great way to pick colour combos for cardmaking, scrapping etc!

Nightie, night now!

I feel like a mile-high, pastrami on rye, on the fly from the deli in the sky!

Got your attention? Let me start by saying this blog post has nothing to do with pastrami on rye. If, however, you feel like checking out some delicious, beautifully decorated chocolate mud cake...this is the post for you...just read on!

Remember at the end of my last post, the tragic tale of cake woe and retail disappointment, I mentioned that I had a GOOD cake story to relate too...well, this is it.

Behold a rooley, trooley, super dooper skamooley...beautiful cake! One that was custom made, looked fabulous, tasted even more fabulouser (while I'm making up words here I may as well go all out), was made on time, was worth every penny and one whose creator (Sarah of Little Miss Cupcake) was a real pleasure to deal with...

 

Sarah, we loved the cake! The kids were rapt by the design (Miss 7 especially!!), and we really enjoyed eating it too. It was super moist and delicious, and I may even have gone back for seconds (this is just between you, me and the gate-post....and is significant because I don't usually like chocolate mud cake at all).

I can highly recommend Sarah's amazing creations, and we'll be ordering again if she can fit us in! If you live in the ACT, check out Little Miss Cupcake...even if you don't live here (your loss...hehehe) check out the photo gallery of kids cakes here (there is one of Sponge Bob Squarepants in there...oh no AVERT YOUR EYES! ;-).

My apologies for the over abundance of pics above (couldn't help myself) and the bodgy lighting too. It was indoors on a partially overcast day...and there was me not wanting to traipse outside with the cake in hand and have it pooped on by a passing Magpie, made off with by a rabid dog or have some other highly unlikely disaster befall it...that'd be WAY more than I could have handled at that point!

Just quickly...I also made some party bags...

List of Ingredients:

Cardstock: Riding Hood Red (Textured), Marigold Morning and Whisper White (all SU)
Ink: Tuxedo Black Memento (Tsukineko)
Stamps: Wild About You (SU)
Accessories: Aluminium Metal Edge Tags (SU), 1 1/4" Circle Punch (SU), Limitless Layers 1 3/4" Circle Collection Dies (PTI), Washi Tape (Pretty Tape on Etsy), Dimensionals (SU) and Tombow Mono Adhesive (Penwa).

Sigh...more beautiful Washi Tapes here! Check them out on Etsy...from Pretty Tape, Sugar B. Supplies, UGUiSU and Washimatta.

PS. Thanks for all the comments on my last post. I needed a few sympathetic ears. You guys are awesome!

Sponge Bob Squarepants is NOT Bob the Builder...got that?

Sorry for the long absence! First off, I had two birthday parties to prepare for last weekend (one of which was a slumber party for five seven year old girls...yes I may well need my head looked at). Then I managed to leave my laptop up in Sydney last Tuesday...so I've been pretty much incommunicado since then :-(. I have my laptop back now...I missed it sorely.

It is probably a good thing that I left my laptop up there, because it has given me time to calm down about an incident that left my blood boiling! I will now calmly explain the bizarre title I used for this post!

As I was getting ready for the two parties, with my 8 week old baby in tow, I decided that this year I would out-source the whole cake making circus. I ordered one cake from a local cake-maker that I found via the internet, and the other through a well-known cake store chain. Mr almost 5 was having the cake store cake, and earlier in the week we hiked up to the shopping centre and spent a while looking through their cake design cards (and ordering their very-expensive-for-what-it-was cake...[almost $50]). Mr almost-five settled on Bob The Builder, and the store assistant took my deposit and asked me to carefully read through the order notes (which I did)...you can see where this sad tale is going, can't you?! ANYWAY...on Friday, I rocked up to the aforementioned cake store outlet and requested my Bob the Builder cake. Off they went, to find the cake and eventually returned and opened the box with a flourish for my inspection. I was gobsmacked! If it didn't actually say Happy Birthday XXXXX (insert my son's name), I would have just indicated that they'd picked up the wrong box...but NO...his name was staring back at me in not-very-neat black lettering, alongside a large picture of Sponge Bob Squarepants. I was lost for words. The only thing I could say was "NO. No, no, no....that is NOT our cake". I then managed to squeak out "Bob the Builder....we ordered Bob the Builder!!!!!!!".

At this point the store assistant consulted her notes (which I could see clearly from my side of the counter, and which clearly stated BOB THE BUILDER...NOT Sponge Bob Squarepants). She excused herself and went around the corner of the shop (maybe for a few deep breaths...something I needed desperately), and then returned and apologised, and told me the baker had made an error...with all the sympathy of a 'talk-to-the-hand' type gesture.

The manager then came out and repeated a similar story with more talk-to-the-hand attitude. Obviously they had not made an error, it was the Baker!!! I am only hearing 'DOLLY DID IT' going through my head and started to hyper-ventilate. I managed to explain that this cake was for a five year old, who had hand-picked his birthday design...and the fact that the 'baker did it,' wouldn't really cut it (I was also feeling immensely guilty for having tried to outsource the cake in the first place now...this was my punishment for my poor parenting sins). The manager kinda shrugged and proceeded to tell me that I could buy one of his other cakes instead if I liked. GOBSMACKED does not adequately explain my feelings at this point. This guy really took the cake!!! I told him "NOOOOOOOOOOO, NO...I would not be buying another one of his cakes" ( I was thinking he'd be lucky if I EVER purchased anything from his crumby store again...I'm like an elephant this way...I will NEVER forget ;-).

I held myself together and in no uncertain terms told him to "GIVE ME MY DEPOSIT NOW...PLEASE!". He looked at me calmly and said, but then you won't have a cake...at which point I almost yelled hysterically "NO, NO I WILL NOT...AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT!" Didn't he know?....you don't mess with the breastfeeding mother of an 8 week old baby, who was sleeping peacefully through this whole farsical episode, warming himself up to be awake for 90% of the night...AGAIN?!

Deposit in hand I left the counter in a hurry, walked for a few minutes, found one of those seats in the middle of a busy walk way, say down and promptly burst in to tears. I've never seen so many horrified looking shoppers in my life! I almost burst out laughing as they all studiously watched their shoes as they walked past the sobbing mother with 8 week old baby in tow. I tried to call my husband at work to vent, but he...QUITE INCONSIDERATELY was off at lunch, and I got his assistant instead who sounded quite worried about me (I was probably still sobbing at the time).

That night hubby and I knuckled down to the business of cake making. He did some last minute running around purchasing the bits and pieces while I baked and shaped the cake, then he helped me ice it. In the end, it was a good thing that cake store outlet stuffed up....our cake was MUCH nicer than theirs, and it was the cake Mr Almost-five had originally wanted (before I gently let him know I wouldn't have time to make it for him).

WOW...if you made it this far...thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Here are some pics of our cake:

We used the Wally Whale cake from the Australian Women's Weekly Kids' Party Cakes book (our cake-making bible for the last seven years) as our inspiration. We re-drew the template though, as theirs was way too big for our needs. My kids ADORE this book. They will literally lie on the lounge room floor for HOURS choosing what cake they will have for their next birthday. I love it!

It was my husband's idea to crack out some of my coloured cardstock and make waves and sky for the background! Isn't he a clever cookie? I think I ended up using Brilliant Blue, Tempting Turquoise and Soft Sky (all SU).

Here are a couple of pics of the party bags too. Because Master 5 had originally wanted a whale cake, I went with the whale theme and cracked out my lovely Fox and Friends stamp set again. It is getting a good work-out Di...thanks again!

List of Ingredients:

Cardstock: Baja Breeze, Whisper White and Vintage Violet (all SU)
Ink: Vintage Violet Classic Ink (SU)
Stamps: Fox and Friends (SU)
Accessories: Scallop Circle Punch (SU), 1 3/8" Circle Punch (SU), 1 1/4" Circle Punch (SU), Black Polka Dot Washi Tape (Pretty Tape on Etsy), Dimensionals (SU), Large Cello Bags (SU), and Tombow Mono Adhesive (Penwa).

Japanese Washi Tape is my new LOVE. Beautiful, colourful designs, easy to apply and reapply and reapply again and easy to tear off. Check out some of the beautiful designs at Pretty Tape on Etsy!

I have another cake story to relate...but that one is a 100% positive story, so I'll post it separately!
Thanks for visiting,

(Blogged to: Ça Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand).

Let Them Eat Cake!

After Miss 6 had her lion birthday cake...Mr now-four put in a custom order for a tiger cake (don't mind me...I just do what I'm told ;-).

It really wasn't very hard to make and I am pleased with how he turned out. I did have some difficulty cutting out the tiger stripes. The Woman's Weekly Cookbook said to use your pinking shears...and I did. I am not sure if they will ever work on cardstock again...but the stripes looked good! I also tried the 'quick freezing of the cake' method to reduce the crumbs in the icing. It worked well.

In other news...we spent the weekend in Sydney and went out on the Harbour on Saturday to help welcome Jessica Watson back after her 210 day, solo, non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation. It was a fabulous day...one I won't forget for some time to come.

Congratulations Jesse!

(Blogged to: Beautiful Day - U2 and Johnny Come Home - Fine Young Cannibals).

Long time no post...again!

I know, you've heard it all before...suffice to say I am a slack blogger! We have a wee project underfoot here, and it is taking up pretty much all of our time (it even has its own blog...and I've been spending a fair amount of time there....even hubby is in on that gig, and he has never blogged a day in his life).

I do want to thank and apologise to all of those wonderful blogging buddies who commented on my last post, and to whom I have not responded. Also, big thanks to Jocelyn and Karen for the blog awards too. I am very honoured to have received these!

I have had very little crafting time here...but have managed to get a few projects done over time. Here is another lampwork bracelet that I recently made. These magnificent glass focal beads are also by Sari of Gaialai on Etsy - love them to bits Sari!

The beads remind me of fabulous pieces of smooth marble encrusted with pods of turquoise (not that that would happen in real life). I studied Geology at uni so rocks and gems are never very far from my mind...even though I am not involved in anything remotely geological any more. The large blue crystal charm is a Swarovski Cosmic crystal in a very groovy blue called Indicolite...which happens to match the focal beads perfectly. If I'd had some more, smaller ones I would have used them as spacers too.

I've also been doing a bit of cake making....this one was a custom order for Miss just-turned-six!

It is straight from the Woman's Weekly kids party cake book...but I had to downsize and cut it out freehand because I didn't need a cake for seven thousand (their cakes are ginormous...and I always end up throwing some out because we just can't finish them). Master about-to-turn-four has put in an order for a Tiger. Hope that one is as easy as this one was!

Last, but not least, I was moved to try my hand at quilting again. I bought a simple quilt kit from my local quilting store, addictedtofabric and gave it a go. It looks very nice on the front, but is a bit wrinkly on the back (so I won't show you that side ;-)...

FYI: The focal panel, with the individual print frames is a single piece of fabric...my quilting skills do not stretch to that level just yet ;-).

Anyway, I hope you will forgive my blog neglect. I've also had a bit on my mind of late. I have decided to give up being a Stampin' Up! demo. I was not very happy about the changes introduced in the IDA last year, and finally decided that it was best if I quit. I miss it, but think it was the best thing to do for me.

Hope you are all well, and enjoying some Autumn sun! :-)

(Blogged to: Love Generation - Bob Sinclair and Gary Pine and School's Out - Alice Cooper).

PS. I also mean't to show you a pic of the bracelet that I made for Susy for her blog candy win:

It ended up almost exactly the same as mine...I still love how it reminds me of the surf.