I Love My Family

I wanted to show this technique that I learned. To cook your cake evenly, insert the rose nail that you could find in a cake decorating kit.

Grease it so it comes out easily.

This prevents your cake from dropping in the middle after taking it out of the oven. LOVE it!!!

I also tried this marbling effect for the first time as well. It went so well with my "wood grain" on Georgia's cake that Jade had the thought of doing the bottom layer with this. Making it look like water.

OOOOooooh SO Pretty!

Had to keep the left overs and make stuff out of it. It was just so cool. I'm glad I made these snowflakes. I used them on the cake.

Happy little helper. Of course!

My igloo was hollow inside and HAD to add a fire inside! L.O.V.E. IT!

Each penguin is a person in this family. This is the 'teenager'.

Ashton's football friend Devan.

The fish "daddy" is trying to catch in secret. You'll see later.

SWEET young Jaylyn. (Sp?) I just love this girl. Always so sweet! And what says sweet better than a bundle of flowers.

The little one. CUTE! I was going to make a truck but I wasn't confidant enough to pull it off. SO blocks and a ball was used instead.

This shot is of mom and dad with their "arms" around each other. But dad has a hold of the pole with the other.

Snowflake...

Such a happy little family.

Finished igloo

TaDa~!~

The END~

Happy Birthday Jaymie!!!

Jared has a cousin that is studying photography and since I was making Dawn a cake while we were in St. George, she wanted to come over and snap away. So be aware, there are a few extra pictures than normal. (ok, not really, I'm all about pictures when I lack the words)

I had asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she said, "surprise me". Sometimes when I'm feeling creative, I don't mind that sort of response but I wasn't feeling creative at that moment. So I stewed over it for a good 2 weeks.

Good thing I asked that far in advance. (Normally I wait till the last minute. Who doesn't?)

She is they type of person that L.O.V.E.S.! Christmas. The lights, the villages, the decorations, the SMELLS! EVERYTHING Christmas. I toyed with making a "village" but the thoughts of making fondant houses were unappealing to the very max. (LOTS of WORK!)

I did have this super cute snowflake cutter and wanted to use it. And I wanted to do a Christmas/winter cake anyways. I also had tiny gingerbread people cutters as well. So I just decided to do a few things related to said Holiday.

I went online to cheat just a TINY bit! I needed something for the background of the small tier. I found this candy cane pattern and thought how freaking cute that was. And SUPER easy to duplicate.

ADORBABLE!

Next were my g~~inge~~r fondant people. Little boys and girls. Just makes you want to toss one in your mouth. I wanted to be a little more ambitious and make real gingerbread, but I was lacking in the ambitious department during the prep time.

Next, I made Holly leaves. Some had sparkles, some were left dull. (On purpose of course)

And then I made "poinsettas". I think they turned out rather adorable as well. (Normally, poinsettas have an odd number of petals -it was researched, but not mine. They're all even. And happy that way.)

For the bottom layer, the goal was to make SNOW. Or a sparkly snow drifty looking layer. I cut another piece of fondant just a little bit bigger than the top of the cake and cut squiggly lines down each side. I then brushed that with water to make it sticky and sprinkled cake sparkles on.

Like so....

Then applied the "snow drift"

Next, the snowflakes

For these trees, I cut out a bunch and then half of those I sliced down the middle. After they were dried, I iced white royal icing down the bottom parts of the branches for the "snowed upon" look. After THAT dried, I "glued" the halves to each side of a full flat tree to get the 3D effect. I was proud of myself for coming up with that one.

And we're done!

Oh wait, no we're not. I forgot! The "arrangement" on the front bottom of the cake. I've seen this on other cakes (and did it to my frog cake) and really like the look. I'll probably do it with more of my cakes.

NOW....we're done!

Another shot of the "kids". CUTE!

Jared and I have this thing where we lead Dawn to believe things that aren't true. (Some call that lying, but whatever). For example, "We can't come down to St. George for thanksgiving, Jared has to work." But in acutality, we were already half way there.

So for her cake, I had made an extra layer of each size thinking I was going to need it. After I made the cake, the thought of cutting into it just made me a little sick. So I slopped left over frosting onto it and placed a few leftover preps on and displayed that one instead. The one above was in the fridge. SO Jared calls her to tell her that the boys knocked the cake over (Always blame the kids. More believable that way). And that we broke a new rake we had gotten her as well. (Jared really did break that one.)

When she got home from work, she saw the broken rake and thought that we really weren't "lying". Then She walks in the house and sees the crappy cake sitting there and crumbs galore from the pieces I had cut to level the cakes. I'm sure her stomach dropped at that point and really tried to pull on the happy face and be happy with what was sitting there. About 5 minutes later, I walk in with the real one and she lit right up. I'm sure my payback will come when my kids are old enough to fool me that well.

She loved it so much that she refused to cut it that night. We ate the crappy one instead. And even today, still refuses to cut it. She wished she could somehow preserve it so she could display it all season. I told her she could refrigerate it during the night and then display it while she was home. Who knows how long she'll be able to get away with doing that.

I certainly don't mind her wanting to hang onto it a little longer.