Dora birthday cake

Look what I completed today, this lovely Dora cake for a 3yr old girl called Rebecca. Its a double stacked Butter sponge cake filled with strawberry buttercream (yum!!) and covered in white chocolate fondant (flavoured strawberry). I have to say I love this cake, it was so much fun to make.

That doesn't mean there weren't a few hiccups on the way, no-sir-ee I had a heck of a time sculpting good-ole Dora. After 3 attempts I finally managed to get her right, you won't realise till you actually make her that she's got a BIG head, with funny shaped eyes and a funny mouth. In the end I started with her feet and made her legs then shorts then waist then neck before lastly making her head. Boots wasn't too bad to make, just his tail gave me grief (kept breaking).

This is the back of Dora, see, I even made her backpack lol

Anya and Liandra's bedroom makeover

Finally a bit of sunshine meant I could take some photo's of the bedroom makeover, so here it is, ta-da....... Six months of collecting, buying and making items and this is the final result (please note that I rent, so I couldn't change any of the wall colours or make any structural changes) In the above photo you can see Liandra's bed (my youngest daughter), the quilt was made from various aqua and red fabrics from the fabulous Kerri at Sew Deerly Loved, while the quilt was handmade with love by fantastic Marcie at Got scraps (Marcie does the most AMAZING quilts, every detail is perfect, please visit her shop to see for yourself) The red polka dot canvas is just a white canvas with polka dot fabric stappled around the frame. The print on the back wall is from Belle and Boo, I LOVE their paintings.

Marcie also did matching/contrasting quilt for Anya's (my eldest) bed (seen above), isn't it beautiful? Both Anya and I love it to bits. The aqua and red crochet blankets and cusshions are from thecomfortsofhome, I love the colours and the homemade feel, they are also super warm and cosy, a must have here in winter. The fabric bunting, ribbon mobile, fabric letter A and felt birdies (ontop of the cupboard) was handmade by me. Wooden tree and cupboard were bought from Ebay.

This corner isn't finished yet as I am looking for a vintage drawer unit or perhaps a storage seat, but for now I've stolen a drawer set from my room. Print in the aqua frame is from the fabulously talented Tasha at a little sweetness, I've bought several items in the favourite dress range but alas its for another project (boo-hoo) The big print in the red frame is from The little Humbugs and I covered an old hatbox in spotty fabric to match.

The above photo is another angle of Liandra's bed, she LOVES the red birdie decals (removable) on her wall and every day runs inside her room to show them to me ;-)

Anya's 10th birthday polka dot party

Phew, my very 1st lolly/dessert table is complete! I can finally kick back and appreciate all the hard work that went into Anya's polkadot party today. Six months of planning, collecting and crafting has paid off and the day was a huge success, its not every day my daughter bursts into tears because she's so happy ;-) Seeing her happy face made it all worth it. My inspiration as always, came from the fabulous AMY ATLAS (I LOVE her work!!) and Sharnel Dollar (amazingly talented lady!) Hats off to both these ladies for always pulling off the perfect party because it sure is hard work.

Most of the goodies were made by me with a lot of help from my girls, so its not perfect but I like it this way, we had fun doing those projects together.

The birthday cake was a 2 tier caramel fudge mudcake with caramel fudge buttercream icing.

My 1st macarons, don't think I'll be makng these again in a hurry, I found it very fidly lol My eldest wrote out all the label tags since my handwriting is BAD ;-)

These were made by Anya, we melted some white chocolate, coloured some blue and red and Anya piped the red and blue into a baking dish, then poured over the white chocolate and used a kebab stick to make some swirls. She then popped some smarties, peanut M&M's and sprinkles ontop to set. Once set we broke the chocolate into pieces.

We used some leftover fabric (sew deerly loved)to make these lolly bag tags, the girls then filled the bags with lollies and stapled the tag into place.

Another project I did with the girls, they piped blue chocolate into picnic spoons and then used various smarties and sprinkles to decorate the spoons. It went well with our polkadot theme.

These lovely vanilla cupcakes were entirely baked and decorated by my 10yr old daughter, I only helped mix the icing for her and she then piped it on the cupcakes and popped on the toppers. Cupcake wrappers are by The cupcake wrapper co, aren't they cute? They can be wiped clean and best of all they don't get greasy from icing mixtures. It was very hard work to pull together but everyone had a fab day.

Holy Communion cupcakes and cake set

The weekend of the 24th July was very busy for me, not only was it my eldest daughters birthday (think 24 cupcakes for the whole class) but I also had two Communion projects to complete. One was for a lovely girl called Bronte, I made her the set of cupcakes above in pink, yellow and blue, while the other set was for a boy called Nicholas.

Please excuse the terrible photo's, I had one of my chocolate panels break at the eleventh hour and went into a mad panic rush to make another one before delivery time. So instead of getting lovely clear and unhuried pics at 4pm I got these done in a rush at 6pm on my kitchen bench. The cake was a 2 tier baked New York cheesecake surrounded by chocolate panels, the cupcakes were plain vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

Here is a close up of the figurine I made, I am very happy of how he turned out, he's my very 1st "suited" figurine, and very 1st standing figurine.

Sneak peak to bedroom "reno"

Ok, not REALLY a renovation since we are renting, but I am doing up the bedroom and this is the fabrics I've used. Since my eldest and youngest share a birthday in July they will also be sharing a bedroom come 23rd July and as a combined gift from us I am doing up their room. Its actually the same fabric and colour pallett I am using for Anya's party and to keep costs down I've used it in the bedroom makeover.

Fabrics are

- Cosmo Cricket, Snorkel RED and Aqua Polka Dots on White
- Michael Miller, Minnie Ta Dots, Red
- Simply Sweet, Quilt Soup, Barbara Jones, BJ Red dots on aqua
- Michael Miller, Ta Dots in ocean
- Couple of Monaluna, Mingle, Red and Aqua range fabrics

Now to hurry up and finish all my projects, two weeks to reveal day, eeeeeeek!

Hip hop Spotti dotti birthday invites

So all the invites (done by The English Pea)for my eldest 10th birthday party was handed out yesterday, no turning back now, come what may this party WILL happen. Theme will be aqua and red polka dots since Anya is now "too old" for fairy/princess parties, we will be playing games such as twister, musical dots, spot the difference and join the dots. I started prepping and collecting for this party in January since I knew it would take awhile to collect all the fabric and blue and red items required to decorate her party. I am quietly having a panic attack, but probably more so because I am simultaniously doing up her room as a surprise which will be "revealed" the week before the party, on her actual birthday. I need more time, but then again if 6 months isn't enough time to do her room and plan her party then no amount of time will be enough. So watch this space!

Sewing 80th birthday cake

Look at what I delivered to the reception centre this morning, isn't it quirky? The birthday lady used to be a seamstress, specialising in wedding dresses and her daughter and son had this cake made (to feed 70 people) as a surprise. The main elements that had to be present on the cake was the mannequin with wedding dress, scissors, tape measure, pin cusshion, spool of thread and buttons + thimble. Everything on this cake is edible, even the pins you see. The main cake was a orange citrus double tier cake filled with orange and white chocolate ganache, yummmm!

I was stressed the most by having to cover the cakes in fondant but surprisingly I had no hiccups covering the 10' and 8' inch cakes. No creases and no lumps, mainly due to a neat trick "Planet Cake's book by Paris Cutter" has taught me, to ganache the outside of your cakes, let it set and then run a hot knife along the outside to smooth out bumps and creases. The cakes ended up very smooth (yay). Everything on the cake was made from scratch, only the sewing machine and scissors were made using a candy mould.

I loved the sewing machine the best, I used a candy mould to get the shape of the machine (grease the mould with some vegetable fat, pop in some fondant (Pettinice) then wack it out onto your table and let it set before moving or touching it) and used edible pastes to "paint" on the details.

The pin cusshion was made using a medium circle cutter, I cut out the green paste first, pressed the top into my mesh icing sugar shaker (to get the pattern) then used the circle cutter to cut out some grey paste, stuck them toghter and painted the base using edible silver paste. Pins were made from No 3 spaghettini (Angel hair) painted silver (edible) and topped with a coloured fondant "pinhead". All up a very time consuming project, but fun to do. I spent 3 weeks on making all the fondant items (so they could dry properly) and the last week I spent baking, assembling and covering the cakes.