Thursday, September 30, 2010

Just a little more sweetness...

September didn't come with alot of cake.  But the few cakes that were made were pretty spectacular if I do say so myself.  I tried out some new cake flavors and some new recipes: simply red velvet, lemon, and almond cream cheese pound cake.  The new flavors were a huge hit at the party.  Other than that they don't need much introduction.

I helped a friend design and decorate a wedding cake.  It was tremendous fun.  I sneaked a little heart in the design...

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For the same wedding I decorated the "extra" cake.

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Red tipped pink buttercream roses.

The same weekend as our first wedding cake, grooms cake, and chocolate cupcakes I also created a sunflower with a ladybug cupcake and a smash cake for a special little's 1st birthday.

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The last cake for of this post was for a surprise anniversary party for my parents.  My brother, the chef, made some super tasty food while I organized the party, decorations, and obviously I designed and made the cake.  The bottom layer: simply red velvet with cream cheese icing, middle layer:  lemon cake with chocolate buttercream icing, top layer: almond cream cheese pound cake with almond buttercream icing.

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Hmmmm, enjoy!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

There's a first for everything...

September brought us our very first 4 tiered cake, a wedding cake to be exact!  For the two weeks prior I made tons of royal icing daisies, teal and lavender.  The week of the wedding I baked for hours and hours and hours.  Not only did we have 8 cakes for the 4 tiers of the layered wedding cake, we had a two layer grooms cake, and another order of 3 dozen chocolate cupcakes.  So, 21 lbs of confectioners sugar, 3 dozen eggs, a whole bottle of oil, and 5 pounds of crisco later we created our very first wedding cake.

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Carla, hard at work adding thousands of icing dots.
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Bottom half, complete.
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I made the topper out of fresh daisies.
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Each daisy had luster dust on it to make it shimmer, its kind of hard to see in this picture, but its there!


Groom's cake.  Yellow cake with chocolate buttercream icing.

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 Our two cakes together.

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We learned tons about cake making the week of our first wedding cake.  Lessons learned, advice taken, and alot of cake to be enjoyed.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sling Time

So the past month or so I have been in a sewing frenzy.  Well, maybe not a frenzy, but I have sewn quite a bit.  No new designs, just new patterns for new littles!  I also got in a new order of rings with assorted colors.  The rings are hollow aluminum, so they don't bulk down the sling like other rings and, even better, they won't ding your dryer.  The different colors are not painted on, they are anodized onto the aluminum which means the color won't chip or fade and it is safe for tiny mouths.  Here is the testing and safety information from the website I order my rings from:  Sling Rings Testing

Now, onto the good stuff.  Here are all the ring colors available.
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Red, pink, green, teal, blue, purple, silver, graphite, gold, bronze, black.
Here are some some ring slings that were made in the last month or so.

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I used black rings for this pink and black sling.

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Another sling for a mommy who won't know if the baby is a boy or girl until he or she is born!

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Made with gold rings.

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A set of slings for a set of twins (black rings on both).

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A polka dot ring sling (green rings) and a matching counterpart, child size pouch sling, for a little one who recently gained another sibling.

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I also made two sets of coordinating pouch slings and burp cloths, one for a boy and one for a girl.

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The last little package set to show is a combination of all the different types of baby items we have.  There is a single sided ring sling with a block of pattern on the tail (bronze rings), a matching child sized pouch sling, and a set of coordinating burp cloths.

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If you are interested in any of these type of slings or burp cloths you can email us at sweetlysimple7@aol.com .  Thanks!




Monday, August 23, 2010

August in Cakes

The month of August has brought on some new challenges in the cake department.  We revel in challenges and in learning new techniques.  We helped celebrate the end of a softball season, a new little baby girl's baptism, an impending wedding, and a surprise birthday party.  We made mistakes, had major beef with the humidity affecting our icing, and found ourselves at odds over the thickness of a cake.  This month has been a month of learning and growing and CAKE!

Here is a cake sample for someone who was interested in our new little business.  
White cake, buttercream icing.
I tried out a new piping technique with the icing roses.  I think it turned out quite nicely.

To end a season of softball on a sweet note we made a softball jersey.

White cake with buttercream icing colored to match a similar counterpart.
Which one is real? :)



Our next project was for a sweet little one's baby baptism.
You will have to humor me with the amount of pictures of this cake.  It was definitely a favorite of mine!  The bottom layer was chocolate and the top was yellow cake.  Simple pink colored buttercream with buttercream border and pearls.
Fondant cross with fondant flowers.

We fell in love with pearl luster dust, coating the flowers and the cross and even the buttercream pearls!
Here you can see why we have beef with the humidity.  Thankfully, with some very gentle hands, we straightened out this little crease. 

Our next project is pretty self explanatory.  It was someone's birthday.  Guess her age...

Dark fudge chocolate cake (yum!) and almond icing (extra yum!).

Now these are some fabulous birthday colors!
Our last cake of the month was for a bridal shower.  Just beachy...

White cake with buttercream icing and white chocolate shells with a special trick (brown sugar) for sand.
Our fancy "shell border".  I know this is probably not funny to anyone but me, but I cracked up the whole time while applying these little chocolate shells.  I did a shell border out of icing for the top and a "shell border" out of real shells.  Come on now, its funny right?
Best tasting sand you will ever find.
This bridal shower cake is even more exciting because we are also doing their wedding cake in just 2 weeks!!  We are both thrilled to be able to help celebrate their marriage.  

Tip of the day:  My Gilmore Girls education has taught me to say congratulations to the groom and best wishes to the bride.  Now don't forget it!

I hope August has found each of you well and I hope your week starts out sweetly simple!