I went to Michaels Crafts and purchased a block of wood from a tree which still had the bark on it and that was going to be the base for the cake….then I planned to use burlap around each layer of cake….and the cake itself was white cake with raspberry filling for 2 of the layers and one with Red Velvet cake and everything iced in Buttercream. I also did all the flowers too, which was so much fun, since I always love working with flowers. I also made the decorations for the reception too and had a blast working with burlap, and chalkboard paint on different surfaces.

I will share pics of the wedding with ya so you can see some of my creations…..

We did Choc dipped Pretzels for the wedding favors, we made these look like a tux and a wedding dress and put them in cellophane with a sticker thanking the guests for joining us for the wedding.

Brides Bouquet

Bridesmaids Bouquets

These are the bulk flowers I ordered from http://www.samsclub.com. They were delivered 2 days before the wedding I put them in buckets and then made table arrangements, bouquets and so on. I would so use same club for bulk flowers AGAIN they were beautiful flowers and I kept them alive for over a week after the wedding…great way to save money!!

The table all set up

The cake I made for the wedding

I created this for the kids

My son and daughter in law….they look so cute!!

There is nothing like a great cupcake, and even better there is nothing like a great Oreo Cupcake so I decided to bake up some easy, quick cupcakes that everyone will love.

Start off with your favorite cake recipe, or your can even use a cake mix from a box such as those made by Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines or Pillsbury.

Prepare your cake mix as directed…..I am using a Duncan Hines White Cake Mix

You will need some oreo cookies, you can get the regular sized cookies or the little mini’s which I must say are just too cute. Those who know me, know that I LOVE, LOVE anything that is mini in size…..I have all sorts of collections that are mini in size such as all those cute little Tupperware mini’s, omg I just love them…..hehe can you tell I love mini’s?? If you don’t know what Tupperware mini’s are I will post a pic here which is very off topic but since I love them I will share the pic of them I got off of ebay……most are keychains and are too cute, I have some like these but just noticed there are many I don’t have as of yet…..hmmm may need to do a little ebaying later, anyway back to whats important CUPCAKES! Sorry I got off topic!!!

Now as I said you need some Oreo Cookies……….Regular sized cookies or the mini’s it does not matter we are going to crush them up.

Place a handful of the mini cookies in a sandwich baggie (if your using the large cookies I would use about 6 of them) and place a cloth on top of the baggie then use a hammer to crush the cookies. Its up to you how small you want the cookie pieces to be I like to leave small chunks since this will be placed into the cake batter.

Pour your crushed cookies into your cake batter and fold them into the batter as not to mix too much.

This is what your batter should look like once you fold the cookies into your batter. You can see some of the small chunks which will taste so good when biting into the cupcake…..yummm!

Place your cupcake liner papers into a cupcake pan and spoon your batter into the cupcake papers.

Looking into my oven my cupcakes are baking nicely and beginning to rise….ohh I cannot wait to taste them!

Cupcakes are cooling….I usually wait a few hours before I ice them!

I am using my favorite Buttercream Icing Recipe for these cupcakes which can be found here…..

Here is my Buttercream Icing all set to go….Now its time to add some icing to my Oreo Cupcakes!

I used a wilton bag and icing tip number 6B which is a large icing tip….I like to just pop it inside the bottom of the icing bag since I will not be changing tips…..if you were going to change tips then you would also use a large coupler in the bottom of your icing bag.

I just do a simple swirl on top of the cupcake, nothing major…..its all about being simple here!

Once iced, pop a mini oreo on top of the cupcake to finish off the look, if you used the regular sized oreos then use a half of the cookie to put on the top of your cupcake.

Now its time to sit and enjoy one of these awesome Oreo Cupcakes, ohhh soo good if I don’t say so myself!

Here is a cake that I did last fall for my cousin Tanya, her daughter was having a girl so I was excited to be able to do a girly cake. I do apologize the photo quality is not the best to say the least. I had forgotten to take a photo before I placed the cake covering lid on it.

 The cake was a half sheet (9 X 13) covered in buttercream icing.
Several years ago I took a baby’s sun dress and created a template to use for making fondant dresses on cakes, there have been times the template has been too large for the size of the cake I was doing, in that situation I just modified the size of the template to fit the cake. I now have 3 different sized baby dress templates. I use these templates to create the baby dress out of fondant and the put some embellishments on the dress. Honestly this is one of those quick cake ideas that you can literally throw together when you get that last minute order or a family member needs a cake. Since the shoes take the most time you could use something else instead of adding them to the cake to save time. A great idea is to use some lollipop molds made for babies to make some fondant decorations to add to the cake, maybe a baby rattle or some other little toy to complete the look of this quick baby shower cake.  The baby shoes were made out of gumpaste which works much better since I needed them to really harden and setup. Using fondant for the baby shoes would not have worked so well since it does not harden up as well as gumpaste does of course!

I have also used spray pam which I spray the pan on my fondant and I give it time to soak in a bit then wipe it evenly with a papertowel to get an even look on my cakes, and on my pieces too. Now there are other products on the market that work great at adding a shine to your fondant work with great results and I wanted to share this info with those of you who ask me all the time how to make their fondant cakes and creations shiny……Below are links and info on the lastest products that I am using to accomplish this.

I use is a product called confectioners glaze which comes in a bottle and can be applied with a paintbrush, and now they also have an edible glaze in a spray can by PME which is SOO nice to use and very simple to apply especially on my figurines, fondant covered cakes as well as any other pieces you may want a shine on!

Here are links for you to find these products that I am talking about……..

PME Edible Spray Glaze http://www.globalsugarart.com/cat.php?cid=815&s&name=PME+SUGARCRAFT%2FPME+Luster+Sprays
This spray is great since I can just spray and even layer on a fondant covered cake that I want to be shiny, I use it on my figures and other fondant work that I need to be shiny.

Confectioners Glaze which is edible it comes in a bottle and is applied with a paintbrush…..This product is very sticky so it is a great idea to also purchase the thinner that they have available too…..the confectioners glaze leaves a beautiful shine on your fondant pieces as well as sugar flowers and many other things! http://www.jenniferdontz.com/Confectioners-Glaze_p_435.html   

Then out of left field my older son was making plans of his own that I had no clue about, until the hubby comes to me and says, you know that Ryan is looking at apartments and planning on moving out very soon….you could have knocked me over with a feather, I was just floored by that news. I know that there are lots of parents that look forward to the day that their kids leave the nest but I have never been one of those people. I guess maybe I am one of those Mom’s who would bribe them by adding a wing on to the house so that they would never leave me. As you can imagine I have been bombarded with sooo many different emotions. Good and Bad!  On one hand we raised him to be able to go out and make it in this world, but on the other hand you just pray that the dreaded day never comes for a long time. HOWEVER that time has come and I must deal with it whether I want to or not since he just found out he and his fiance got the apartment…..NOOOOOO!!!  I am soo very proud of him, he has done everything that me and his dad taught him and now the time has come for him to leave the nest which I honestly understand but it is NOT going to be easy for me and I plan to take out some stock in tissues since I seem to be using lots of them lately….lol I guess you could say there is alot of crying in my icing going on in my world. I know that I will be fine but I realize this is the beginning of change for me and my oldest son. I trust that he is ready to get a place on his own, but It will take me some getting used to.

The only way that I will be able to deal with all these changes going on is to make more cakes and sugar flowers, when the going gets tough for me I immerse myself in what I do best and that is cake decorating. On top of all this my little buddy Teddy,  a 7 yr old Chihuahua who is my world started having alot of seizures, and some other issues so I had to take him in for lots of tests and they found that he has a bad disc in his lower neck and degenerative disc disease in his lower back so he is in pain. Thankfully he has responded well to pain meds and the seizures we have come to figure out are due to an allergy to cheese, so no more cheese for Teddy! I thought I would share a photo of  Teddy, he is soo adorable!!

Teddy

Then finally, things began to settle so I thought, hahaha……..Until I started getting these blisters on my back and with them came some ugly pain. I did not understand what all this was so after a trip to the doctor I found out that I had Shingles, my doctor asked, ” have you been under alot of stress lately” and I told her well I guess that is the statement of the day for sure.  I had people in my life over the yrs who had shingles and never really understood what it truly meant well now I have a totally different view and feel for anyone who ever has to endure such pain, it is something that you never forget that is for sure! So I am now focusing on being stress free and getting better. I hope that all of you out there in the cake world are doing well and that you are enjoying the summer months along with taking the time to make some great memories with those you love!

I wish you all my best and hope that you are trying some new cake decorating techniques!

If you want to call in for the show and do not want to register as a member of talkshoe…..call the number(724) 444-7444 then enter my call id 118935 then put in 1#. Thats all there is to it.

I took a Styrofoam ball and cut it in half then covered it  in fondant as well as both side of the cardboard….if you would like for the cap to be edible, you can use rice krispy treats formed into a half ball shape instead of using Styrofoam.

Here is the Graduation Cap all assembled….to glue the pieces together, just use a paint brush with water……

This is the play doh fun factory which is an easy way to create the tassel for the graduation cap…...

There are soo many who love making figures but have many issues so I have decided to start a show where you can call in a chat with me live and ask me cake decorating or figure making questions. Hopefully this will be of help to all of those who email me and are having soo many issues with their fondant, gumpaste and so on. The live call in chat will be on March 21st, 2012 at 6pm eastern time here in the United States.  I will answer any questions that I can, please know that I do not know everything but will do my best to help all those I can. The show will be 2 hrs long so that I can help as many as possible. I plan to do these chats with the public once a month. I am very excited to be able to do this for everyone….

I have had many ask if there was any way that I would ever do a chat so they can ask questions and finally I have everything figured out and found a great way to be able to do this. I am sure the first few times we start this it will be a little confusing but I know that things will smooth out and we will get used to how things work pretty quick! I look forward to talking with you and hope that you will be able to join me.

FYI….To make things as fair as possible we will need to limit the questions to one question per caller, so please have your question ready so that things will flow as smooth as possible. After your question has been answered you can get back in the que to ask another question, but be aware that we will stop promptly after 2 hrs which would be 8pm eastern time in the United States.

 March 21st, 2012 at 6pm eastern time here in the United States

We will be holding the chat over at a site called Talkshoe I have provided the link for you below!

I will do my best to get to as many peoples questions as possible during the call!!

The chat will be held at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/118935

Call 1-724-444-7444 the day and time of the chat and enter my show ID which is 118935 and then press the # key

If you do want to ask a question you will have to press 8 and the * key to put yourself in line to ask a question

You can now purchase my new tutorial which will take you through the steps to create Fuzzy the Bear. This tutorial has color photos detailing each step, as well as some great info on fondant, gumpaste and so on. the price is $12.99 until Jan 1st 2012 and then it will go back to $14.99. For more info go to http://www.gumpastefigurine.com