It’s that time of year again!

Alright, time for a post… in fact, it’s long past time!!!!

So last year I participated in the Redditgifts.com Secret Santa exchange.
It was my very first of many exchanges on the site. It was not actually all that I hoped and dreamed it would be.

I was soooo crazy excited. I made my match this cake. I sent him that along with a bunch of other stuff. Some comics, some local candy, some star trek toys… I was so pleased that I had done such a good job putting together his gift.

I sent it out and I waited. And I waited. And… I waited.
Two weeks after I knew he received it… I finally got the email! My giftee confirmed receiving my gift! Usually people post photos and post glorious thank you notes. I’d been dreaming of this day! I open the page and staring back at me is just one sentence. Not even really a full sentence. “Got a box of cool stuff.”

*blink* F5… nope, still the same.

Sooo my giftee wasn’t as crazy appreciative as I had hoped. Ah well.
I signed up to rematch someone who’s gifter didn’t send them anything. And she was thrilled when I made her a Jaws pillow. So that was great! Since then, I think I’ve participated in about a dozen exchanges! Overall, my experiences have been wonderful.
I’ve given and received some really great stuff.

THAT SAID… this year my match was really cool! She loves colorful things and tie dye things and she even likes to bake! And she has a sweet tooth!

So, of course, I had to go for a round two on the cake!

I knew right away I was going to make her a wonderful colorful striped cake. And I wanted to direct her to this blog so that she can see that I’m a cake decorator and not just some random crazy internet person who could be sending her some poisoned food lol.

I knew right away I wanted to pick some wild colors. I went with blue, green, pink and orange. So much fun!!!

Some photos of the layering. I used the zebra cake technique. Two table spoons of each color alternating in the center…

I apologize for the sorry state of these photos. My phone cameras are pretty messed up right now and I plan on replacing them :p

Home made buttercream… sooo yummy!

Home made fondant. I wore rubber gloves to protect my lovely Star Trek manicure… but that’s a whole other story…

Filled and covered with the delicious buttercream!

All done!

Packaged up to be shipped off to my lovely giftee!!!

I sent this off with a box packed full of some other things I made just for her and a few other trinkets. I hope she loves everything!

When your friends turn 40…

So, this guy, Tony… he’s awesome. He turned 40 this year and put together a super cool fling for himself.
I was to do the cake and I knew I needed to make something very cool for this very cool guy.

I think I delivered. His party was on the roof top of a very cool building downtown with a great view!

Hey! I can see my apartment from here!

I covered the cake board with a fancy placemat and decided this cake needed to be TWO cakes haha.
I brainstormed and came up with some ideas. I mean what do you make a super hip guy with tons of interests?!
I settled on a few things. I made a plank of sushi for the large cake which was strawberry flavored.
Then I made a saucer and a mug of coffee which was chocolate espresso flavored cake! And a little fondant cassette tape.

Everything turned out fantastically!

Birthday boy:

A Very Scary Birthday Cake!

Okay, so sometimes you get to make a cake and you know it’s going to be one of the coolest thing ever before you even start rolling out the fondant…

Hands down one of the coolest things I’ve had the privilege of making.
Challenge #1 was that this was a glutton free cake. I’ve not made one, so I hope it tasted good. I was told it was good :)
Again, I’m hella behind on posting, so I made this a while back.

Anyhow this birthday cake was for Joel Robinson of artpusher.net. He seems to be a very rad dude and I feel lucky to have been able to make this cake!

First I had to recreate his logo in sugar. I’ll tell you, his website at the time didn’t have the full logo, so I kind of had to make it up in photo shop haha.

I filled the cake with a blood red strawberry reduction I made. (I could have just eaten it all with a spoon it was so good. I made the cake black velvet.

The bones I made with candy melt. I made and cooled tons and lined the entire cake with them. Black chocolate fondant covered the cake.

The skulls were from a mold and the knife I hand made a mold for using one of my kitchen knives. I hand painted that.

His wife asked for a horror themed cake! I think I delivered!
Seriously, one of the coolest cakes I’ve ever done!