23 days and counting....

Until the LSU football season, that is. If you are like most from around these parts, you knew that already.

Here is a cake we recently did for a young boy.

The football is made out of rice cereal treats and covered in fondant. We also gave our cricut a good workout with this cake. It cut the tiger stripes, tiger eyes and the lettering.

Hope you had a great birthday Ryan!



Eli Eli O

Last month, Eli turned two! Where has the time gone? We celebrated his birthday with a "farm" themed party. His first babysitter would always sing Eli Eli O to him and that, of course, got us thinking... what a cute idea for a party!

I ordered the invitation here.  She has a lot of adorable things and was able to customize the invitation to read Eli Eli O instead of the normal E I E I O.

For the back drop, we refinished a room divider screen by painting it black and cutting and sewing cow print fabric for the panels.

The cake was designed completely from the invitation. The barn is hard to see but it is a fondant mock up of the barn on the invite. 

K's signature cookies that matched the theme perfectly!

Next up... stick horses! To me, this was the cutest and most fun thing to put together. We made 17 stick horses as favors for our little guests. All of the horses came from scrap fabric that I have been saving over the years. We loved watching them come to life and seeing their different personalities. We may or may not have been a little sad to watch them leave the party!  

The birthday banner was made by cutting burlap squares. I used the cricut to cut out my letter templates and then painted on the letters to each square. I love the way it turned out!



 For the menu we had corn dogs, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, veggie cups, chips and of course corn on the cob.  The birthday boy really enjoyed the corn!

Here he is with his stallion. 

The kids enjoying the stick horses. 



Happy Birthday Eli! We love you more than you'll ever know!



Chunky Monkey

When a friend at work asked me to bake for her son's first birthday I was honored.  A first birthday?  Wow, this is a memento occasion!  Sure I said, what's the theme?  Well she had to think on that and came back a few days later with a "monkey" theme.  She said that they call him "chunky monkey" so that would be fitting.  Then she supplied me with pictures she had downloaded.  A cake, smash cake and cupcake toppers.  I thought, "oh boy, this is a big order to fill".  Not to mention the cookies I had always promised her I would donate for his first birthday.  The cake - a ten inch round with a gum  paste monkey on top surrounded by many, many gum paste bananas.  The smash cake - a banana shaped cake,  and the cupcake toppers - twenty-four little fondant monkey faces.  What did I get myself into?  Well I did say yes, so buckle down and get busy.  My first task was to create a fondant monkey for the cake topper.  To test my skills I first made one from modeling clay.  I loved the outcome so then I proceeded to duplicate him in fondant.  Again, I was pleased with the little monkey and decided I was done with that task. 

 Next, bake cookies and decide what cookie cutter to use.  I have a monkey face but decided not to use it. Instead I opted for a circle cutter.  Flood the cookies in green and add yellow polka dots (since these were two of the colors chosen for the party theme).  Next, make monkey faces to go on top using the royal icing transfer method.  I really loved the look of these. 







Now the biggie .... The Cake.  Really this was the easy part.  Once I had it baked and leveled.  To apply the icing and get it really smooth did not take as long as anticipated. 

Then on to the gum paste bananas.  This too was a really quick task.  I just had to make very many of them to get the look I was going for.  Once complete it was time to put it all together.

Then on to the smash cake.  I took a ten inch round cake and cut the shape of a banana from it. Covered it in chocolate butter cream icing.  Rolled out my yellow fondant and applied it to the banana shaped cake.  This worked well and made a clean banana shaped cake.

Smash Cake

Last, the monkey face cupcake toppers.  These were made of fondant dyed in two shades of brown.  Then using an edible food marker I drew the eyes and mouths.  Again, not difficult just time consuming.

Whew ... job complete!  But I hear Drew had a wonderful 1st birthday and that he really enjoyed his smash cake.  He ate the entire "banana" cake.  That makes it all so well worth the work!

Here's wishing for warmer days...