And at last I see the light...

I found something today. An old SD card that held over 3000 photos. Photos I had thought were lost forever when my old laptop and external hard drive (and Paul's external too) all simultaneously crashed. I thanked God that I had never deleted the photos from that card and promptly copied them onto my MacBook. And that's when I saw it. The thumbnail of the first Rapunzel cake I made. It was for Ellie's 4th birthday. It looked nothing like this.

I laughed and thought about how much I've learned about making cakes... And thought of how much more I can improve my craft. 

Still, each time I make a character, I feel that I'm getting better. From getting the colors right, to finding the perfect mix of fondant and modeling chocolate, figuring out the best support system to keep the character upright, and finally understanding how to manipulate the fondant to make eyes, nose, and all the other facial features... 

I still don't always get it right. I made the head before the body, but when the body was finished, I realized the head was comically large. Back to square one. 

The second head worked great, though if I'm being honest, the chin of the first (larger) head was better. On the plus side, having two heads meant I could experiment with one to figure out the best way to paint the face. 

Have you ever noticed how detailed Rapunzel's dress is? Google image was my friend, and with every picture and angle, I noticed more details.

Then the body stood around for a day or two while I baked the cakes and made small details, like Pascal, whose own four  feet are holding him up, thanks to some drying time on my paint brushes. 

I covered the cakes in fondant... Ta-da!

And then bald Rapunzel got on her pedestal. I couldn't put her hair on her head until this stage because moving her with all that fondant draped around would have been a disaster! (I guess I could have made her hair brown like at the end of the movie, but that is NOT what my client wanted!)

So I worked late into the night to finish her hair, complete with sparkly luster dust. 

A few more details on the cake, and then it was done!

I like the name spelled out in hair. 

After dinner, Katie got to pick out our "wind-down" movie (the girls swam for hours this afternoon!), and she chose Tangled because of the cake. 

Emily invited my girls to her party, so I'm looking forward to seeing her tear into Rapunzel tomorrow. Happy Birthday to Emily!!!