For the love of Penguins

After seeing the adorable picture of a cutie penguin sent to me by my client as a visual to work off of, I've noticed that there are a number of adorable penguin characters in my kid's favorite movies and shows and I've fallen in love with their cuteness!

This is the penguin from the Backyardigans:

Image from Google Images

This is Wheezy from Toy Story 2, who broke my heart when he said that "mom" told Andy she'd taken him to the store to get his voice fixed, but instead hid him on the dusty shelf that made him even more wheezy! (TEARS!!!) 

Image from Google Images

And I feel you just don't have a heart if you don't think these real life penguins are the cutest little things you've ever seen!!

Image from Google Images

For my client's girlfriend's birthday he wanted to get her a penguin cake as she is in love with all things penguin (I hear ya sister!) haha! Here's my rendition of the penguin picture he sent over...I feel like this little guy is doing the "Walk Like an Egyptian" dance...yes I was a child of the 80's!!!

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Tara

Ladybug Baby Shower

This ladybug cake topper and matching cupcakes were made for a baby shower in December. Such an adorable theme for a baby shower - and the little ladybugs were so fun to make!

The party colors were lavender and pink, so the cake, cupcake toppers and cookies were made to match.   Each ladybug sits on top of it's own little branch!

I also made sugar cookies to match the theme for the party favor.  Each cookie was covered and then handpainted in a copper edible luster dust!

I look at these ladybugs and think SPRING!!! When will you be here!?!?  My fingers are crossed for SOON! :)

Tara

ps - my apologies for the not so great pictures - i took them at night and don't have the best lighting! Working on that issue for the future though! :)

"& Hearts"

So many people on Facebook write "& Hearts" at the end of their status updates...I am so out of the loop on slang and online abbreviations...I still refuse to write 'LOL"!! I don't know why! :) If someone could tell me what "& hearts" means, I'd appreciate the lesson! Hahaha! (see?!?!)

For Valentine's Day, I was so excited to hear from Kate of The Shopping Mama fame who was the winner of a giveaway I took part in last year on an awesome website A Few of My Favorite Things by Danielle, also a mom of twins!  Kate decided to use her prize to order Valentine's Day cookies for her son to bring into school and share with his classmats...how SWEET!!

She showed me the adorable dinosaur heart prints she was going have screened onto little bags (see pic here and become a fan if you aren't already! Facebook Shopping Mama) so we decided to use the colors in the prints on the cookies...blue and green, with some red accents. A perfect boy version of Valentine's hearts!!

I wish my camera had been able to pick up on the edible disco dust - it gave the cookies a sparkle!

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day celebrating the friends and family that you love!! & Hearts (did I use that correctly?!?) haha!

Love to you all!!

Tara

A Baby is born

This adorable crib cake was ordered for a mom-to-be...who is now officially a MOM!! Baby Kyla joined us on this earth today!! Happy Birthday to Kyla! And congrats to mom and dad!! :)

The cake was inspired by a GORGEOUS creation by Andrea Dozier who is an amazing photographer, but also happens to have a background decorating cakes...her version of this cake is a KNOCKOUT!!  The client found a picture of her cake and asked for a similar cake, with a few variations and for it to serve a larger number of people...

The rails were made out of gumpaste and were SUPER-delicate...I didn't feel comfortable driving the cake with them attached, so I put them on when I got there!

The cake itself was yellow cake with a layer of nutella filling and another layer of cannoli cream. (I was super sad to find out later that my cannoli cream sank into the cake, so there was really no filling in that section of the cake!! It's such a finicky filling! But I was really glad they told me so that I could work on getting it right - I've since found an amazing cannoli cream recipe and adapted it to be my own. It got great reviews when I used it, so I feel much better about it now!!)

Details...

Wishing all the best to Anna & Catalin on the birth of their daughter Kyla...god bless!! :)

Tara

"ooh-weeeeeee, ooh-weee-eee, a-weee bum bum buh-wayyyy!"

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...."

I've been DYING to make a safari animal cake basically since I started making cakes because I think fondant animals are just the cutest things ever...so when Jen asked me to make the 1st birthday cake for her adorable son Andrew, I was THRILLED! Here it is - 3 tiers of sweet safari goodness!!

Here's a closeup of the elephant and the hippo peeking his head out of the pond...

The zebra...

The monkey...who, for some reason, I thought would look extra cute doing the "Home Alone" hands on the face thing...hahaha...

The king of the jungle and the cutie giraffe peeking through the leaf canopy!

For favors, Jen asked me to make sugar cookies with animal faces on them...here they are! The lion, the monkey and the elephant were wrapped individually for guests to take home with them...

Jen is one of my most frequent and awesome client's - I had the pleasure of making her wedding cake, baby shower cupcakes, Andrew's christening cake and now his 1st birthday...being along for the ride as this family grows together makes me so happy to be a cake decorator!! :) Congrats to you guys!! ;)

Love,

Tara

Princess 1st Birthday

This cake was made for a super sweet little girl who was turning one! Her mom threw her a princess party and ordered this cake (and a mini version of it too for a smash cake!) as well as cupcakes with princess crowns on top...I LOVE the bright colors on this cake!!
Here is the big cake:

With a smash cake to match...

And sweet little red velvet cupcakes with princess crown fondant toppers to accompany the cakes!

This sweet mom sent me some pictures of her sweet little munchkin before the smash cake and after...one of the BEST I've ever seen!! This little one went NUTS on her smash cake - as it should be! - and looked SO HAPPY to be covered in cake!! I LOVE it!!

Happy Birthday to this sweet little girl and many more to come! :)

Tara