Saturday, February 23, 2013

Hand Painted Wedding Cake

My Grandmother, Mother, and my brother were all painters, my brother loved illustrating, but I've never had the desire to put pen, pencil, or paintbrush to paper or any other medium until I stumbled upon Three Little Black Birds Bakery.  Then, she was featured on Craftsy's website with a hand painted cake tutorial, and I was hooked.  After watching the class and mixing lustre dust colors with airbrush sugar colors, I gave it a shot on the Lion King Cake.  Tedious, yes, intricate, definitely, right up my alley for sure.

Just the thought of transferring the patterns and illustrations in my head to a cake was fascinating.  Now, I am obsessed.

 
































I found the perfect opportunity with Melissa's cake.  A simple, small cutting cake for the bride and groom, turned into a hand painted project that consumed me for several hours, OK I admit it, a couple of  days.
The groom, Kenneth sent me his original outline of the couples' faces. A graphic designer, he had created this design himself for their wedding invitations. The open rosette design is a Frank Lloyd Wright design that I used to mimic the bride's gown, which featured an open rosette pattern on the skirt.  Painted with a silver, champagne, and white-on-white pattern, I covered three sides with the pattern.  A ruffled border and silver  finished the simple, elegant design, which is one of my favorites. Modern, retro and classic.


The cake pop stand, created by my wonderful husband, who puts up with way more than he should from me and my hair brainded ideas, was spectacular.  I love it! 120 cake pops, half were dark chocolate with peanut butter butter cream, and the other half were lemon with lemon curd and lemon butter cream.  Sparkly, elegant and smelled absolutely heavenly.  Thanks Melissa, for making me a special part of your day, we've been talking about it for so long, and today, you lived it!!  Hope you have a blast in Hawaii!!!


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Couture Birthday + Bridal Shower Gift Box

So every week seems to hold a new cake surprise, like the gift box bridal shower cake and the couture first birthday cake.  I had a slight plan, but realistically, this has been such a busy month so far, that I barely knew the plan for these two cake orders.  They just sort of unfolded throughout the evening and very early morning.  I slept in most of Saturday afternoon and evening, which seems to be the norm lately.

The bridal shower cake was for a beautiful bride to be that I have already been in touch with.  She is celebrating her wedding at The Wright House in Mesa next month.  A vintage with a twist of bling design led to this elegant gift box cake which happened to be gluten free and dairy free.  I know, skepticism mounts, right?  Can a cake with no regular wheat flour and no milk or butter really please a roomful of women?  Apparently, yes, as I got a text from the bride's aunt expressing her delight with the cake.  She actually said that it was amazing and everyone loved it.

And, across the valley, and still in the beginning phases of her soon to be amazing life....a little girl turning one had a couture first birthday party with a yummy chocolate and raspberry birthday cake.  I have been wanting to make a cake with this little ruffle, and the perfect opportunity came along.  Happy Birthday Ellie.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Bridal Shower + Another 1st Birthday

Another busy weekend of cakes, brides and birthdays.  A really fun Bridal shower cake inspired by BEES and a first birthday celebration inspired by The Lion King.

The Bridal Shower Cake for Melissa was gluten free Vanilla cake with fresh Lemon Curd and Vanilla Bean Butter Cream with a Blueberry filling....


And the Lion King cake was way overboard for the cost, but I really wanted to try a painting technique that I learned on Craftsy recently. The smash cake was an added bonus for a dairy free birthday boy,