Katie's Octonauts Cake

Katie finally (yes, finally... it seemed like she would be three forever!) turned four, so we celebrated with an Octonauts-themed pool party, which was a lot of fun, and has yielded a lazy pajama day today to recover from the weekend. Not to mention the fact that I started working on the components of this cake several weeks before the party (and then made another large cake at the same time). So I have been living, breathing, and, yes, eating cake for a long time now. But the outcome was so very worth the effort.

Like I said, I started several weeks ago with just a bunch of drawings and a little Tunip.

Then I made little tiny furniture.

I poured gelatin repeatedly over silicone domes (and a metal ball pan) to make the "glass" for the pods. I am still amazed that gelatin will dry completely hard like this!

Then it was time to put the little pods together. Here's Tunip's garden. I forgot to take a close-up picture of the games room. Oops.

And here are the bedrooms of the Octo-crew. Barnacles and Kwazii share a pod, and Dashi and Peso share another. Making all the tiny furniture reminded me of our gingerbread house from last Christmas.

Next up, the HQ.

And Professor Inkling.

The small details are the most fun to make.

Once the furniture and contents of the pods were done, it was time to focus on the characters: Barnacles, Kwazii, and Peso!

I let everything sit and dry for a few days, and I went to work on another cake before coming back to the Octonauts.

Paul helped me with the structure again. We used the same board as the wine cake, but it had a thicker center post and additional supports for the arms.

Paul also helped by making sea creatures with a silicone mold.

He got creative and made a few without the mold too... totally awesome. He always likes contributing to our kids' cakes in whatever way he can.

I airbrushed waves onto the bottom cake and then covered the bottom and the center with rice crispy treats. Then I used candy melts to get a smooth surface before covering the whole thing in fondant.

This took a lot of fondant to cover!

I added the characters, sea creatures, and the final details to the Octopod and finally finished around 1:00am. 

Katie saw it first thing when she woke up, and I heard her exclaim "Thank you Kwazii! Thank you Peso!"

She was so happy, and THIS is why I make cakes. 

Happy Birthday to my Katie!

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!!!

Under the Sea

The design for this cake is so cool that I wish I could take credit for it. But my client actually found a picture of it and asked if I could do it. 

I really like cakes with lots of little details going all around... Especially ones that create a scene (like this one and Katie's Winnie the Pooh cake). 

I added the rock with the number to the design, but it's not attached. Candles could go there easily too. 

I hope the water-loving birthday girl enjoys her cake!

La-la la-la!

Whenever I make character cakes, I have the habit of humming or singing or whistling the theme song to the show of the character I'm working on. So "Elmo's World" and the "Sesame Street" theme could be heard in my kitchen as I made this cake. 

Italian meringue buttercream on a chocolate chip cake (same as the pink petal cake) and fondant to decorate and cover. 

The sign was the most labor-intensive part. I even took the time to make a paper template to make it perfect, and my exacto knife was my best friend. I think it looks great. 

Once the cake was covered, Elmo's nose needed some support as it dried onto the cake. 

I initially attached the eyes with some space between them, but it just didn't look right, and after browsing some images on Google, I realized that Elmo's eyes are together... Ta-da!

One of my goals this year was to sell 3 cakes. One down, two more to go!

It's cloudy outside today, but I hope Vivienne has a wonderful birthday celebration, and may her Two-Year-old year be filled with "Sunny Days, sweepin' the clouds away!"

Anthony's Construction Party

We only had a small family dinner for Anthony's 2nd birthday, but that didn't mean I wouldn't decorate and have fun with the party theme. 

The Decor

The groundhog "photo booth" made its reappearance. Last year he wore a sombrero... This year a construction hat, of course!

Paul was the decorating committee, and I think he did great!

The Food

The Birthday Boy (he ended up with 3 of those shirts by the end of the night).

The Fun

I wrapped empty boxes in brown packaging paper, and the build/destroy games were endless. Who needs toys when you have cardboard boxes?!

The Gift Opening

The Cake & Singing

He was so happy to finally get to take a bite out of his dumpy.

Now it's time to brace ourselves for the Terrible Twos!