Happy New Year!

2010 - what a year it has been! 

Every year of my life holds some uncharted territories, something different, new and exciting or just plain scary.  A roller coaster ride at times and a beautiful, peaceful sunset other days.

But among the excitement and change and good times and bad, there is some things that are a constant every year and every day. The first one being God's faithfulness!  He is a constant!  Always there for me, He always got my back and He is there when I think I can do it on my own and fail. I never look into His eyes and see condemnation but only love and acceptance.

 He splashes beautiful sunsets across the sky year after year and with the beauty of the sunset He shows me His colors of love for me and His creativity.  He is bigger than me and as I trust Him he does not disappoint.

He also knows what next year holds for me and so I can rest in His arms as once again I face a year of unknowns and questions.  Some stretching is sure to happen in the new year.  Growing pains too!  God's faithfulness thru those times?  100% absolute!

He is my rock, He is my strength, He is my everything!  And I am HIS PRECIOUS DAUGHTER!  I am blessed!

Another thing that hasn't changed is that my favorite season is still SUMMER!

SWEET TREATS

Its a known fact that I have a SWEET tooth, imagine having a sweet tooth and making cakes, well you might say that I have found my niche.  What more could a girl with a sweet tooth want than to create what makes her smile.  (It makes my dentist smile too!  All those college loans are being paid off by those of us that love sweets.)

But not all of my sweet tooth cravings are edible and so every once in awhile I will share some sweets that are non-edible.  A little about who I am and what I love. 

One thing that says SWEET TREAT to me is cupcake wrappers. 

Not only can I envision the little beauties filled with yummy cake and decorated for another party, but there is something about those little paper cups that just make me want to buy a pack.  So as we browsed through all the clearance Christmas stuff yesterday, I was immediately drawn to the baking supplies.  In a short time I had 3 packs of cupcake papers, which contained more than 100 paper cups.  But instead of Wilton, they had my name all over them!

When cupcake papers are on clearance they are often cheaper than the plain, pastel ones that you can find at the grocery store and so my theory is that if you have enough of the clearance ones on hand your cupcakes will always be looking just lovely in their little stylish "coat."

Have a SWEET day!
~Rose

Christmas Blessings!

I am sitting here in my cozy creamy sweater with a red scarf for added warmth, with a cup of steaming coffee and a sugar cookie and I am thinking (dangereous, I know.)    While the wind outside is howling I am feeling blessed.

We had a delightful weekend celebrating Jesus.  He is why we celebrate and I am grateful that He chose me!  I consider His love for me the greatest of all my blessings!

Christmas Joy to you!

Happy Birthday Jesus!!

 

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.  Luke 2 :14

Tennessee Wedding

When you promise a wedding cake for a friend in another state, 10 hours away, you have a few alot of things to decide.  Would it be better to take all the ingredients and make the cake when we arrive -or- bake the cakes and assemble them in TN?  How well does cake travel?  Will the roses that I spent hours making be in a million pieces till we get there? The list goes on and on but I will not continue to bore you with the details.

I decided that baking the cakes here and taking them unassembled to the reception was my best option and so the only thing I had to worry about is making sure that I had all my supplies along to take ordinary round cakes of 14", 10" and 6" to a beautiful wedding cake.

So off we went to TN and when we were about 3 hrs from our destination, I remembered what I forgot!  Not a big deal but it sure would be missed, my turntable.  Yup, you heard right, a turntable can make a cake decoraters job so much easier. 

After spending 16 hours driving because of icy roads and traffic jams we finally arrived in TN and I got right to work on cakes.  My therapy for sure, and I needed something relaxing after traveling in less than perfect conditions!



Decorating cakes is what I enjoy doing and making Becca and Benton's cake was so fun!  The roses survived the trip and the cake too, thanks to my man and my assistant cake artist.





After the cake reception at the church we headed over to a beautiful decorated lodge for the reception and celebration!  A fun night for our family!







Dancing with Dad!



Edible roses!

Sugar roses!?  Can I really pull that off?  With a bit of uncertainty and little excitement and a love of a challenge this is what I came up with, my first fondant/gum paste rose!  Let the bouquet begin!

Cake pictures coming soon!

In the midst of the craziness we call "life" may you find PEACE this season!

Girlie birthday cake.

This is a cake I made for our neighbor Kevin. He is a champion Junior Dragster race car driver. His car is painted with lots of details and amazing artwork done by his dad. So when it came to making his birthday cake I was a little overwhelmed with all the details. But when I saw a picture of the dragster from the front I decided that I would attempt to make a 2-D version. Here is what I came up with and I have a new appreciation for his dad's talent. Happy 11th Birthday, Kevin!! And the little girlie cake above is for a friend who will be at the party too.

We are blessed to have amazing neighbors!

As he walked in the door from school he excitedly yelled - Its a rip-stick ( and I am doing the sigh of relief that he knew what it was.) I little later he opened his gift and got a real rip-stik!
And by the end of the night he was rip-stiking around grandma's basement.

And this young man just turned 7!! My baby is growing up. Its hard to believe it is 7 years already. When I think about the day when he was born and the craziness that followed, I remember all those feelings of uncertainty. Following the ambulance to Hershey medical where they were moving him because of his low blood - oxygen level, left us feeling so helpless and scared. But the prayers of so many friends and family got us thru the next couple days while his levels came up and we could take him home with us. And we brought him home in a snowstorm to our cozy house. We love you, Cody-man!

We took the cake and some ice cream and headed over to Grandma's house because she invited us for homemade pumpkin pie. After blowing out the candles we dug into pie and cake and ice cream. Yummy!

One end of the cake was chocolate cake with the fudge filling (my favorite) and the other was vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. I will be having a piece of that shortly because there are left overs!

This delightful cake was for a wonderful Mommy of two little boys. The inspiration for this cake comes from her blog header http://mapleleavessycamoretrees.blogspot.com. Happy Birthday Kat!

As I am posting this I am realizing that I made two 40th birthday cakes in one week and didn't even think about it until now. This Phillies jersey was a marble cake with a fudge filling - and I heard she loved the cake and the taste too. Happy 40th Donna!

Even though my older brother lives about 5 hours away and we couldn't celebrate his birthday with him in October, I decided that Thanksgiving was close enough to his birthday to celebrate when the family was all together. The only job I ever remember my brother having was being a carpenter and now he owns his own carpentry business. Happy 40th Rodney!

This paper snowflake is my little distraction from cakes...fun and simple to make. Thanks to threeredapples.blogspot.com for the tutorial.

Here is another purse cake. It was fun painting the with food coloring to make the giraffe print cake. My apologies to all giraffes for not giving your spots a true representations. =)

Every cake has its story...

This cake I made for my sister's 3o-something birthday. Its not that she doesn't want me to post her age, its just that I have a hard time even remembering how old I am and so trying to figure out her age just didn't happen - after all its just a number!!!

The inspiration for this design came from an unlikely place - a pillow on the set of a talk show. I know, its kind of weird but it is amazing how many things around you can inspire you if you are looking and sometimes when you are not looking. And you know I said I have trouble remembering, still true for this. I needed to hit pulse and draw the picture for later use.

And my sister who received this cake was worth the time it took to draw it and then make a cake out of it. Happy Birthday to you my sister, my friend!

A new design and a new recipe. Carmel Pistachio Cardamon cake with cream cheese frosting and fondant.
And the story on this cake is a bit painful! So my daughter had a volleyball team party and this was what I made for the party. So after I had set the cake down (thankfully) and entered the gym where there were lots of volleyballs flying around, a volleyball that was hit with quite a bit of force , somehow found my face and my glasses just so happened to be in between my face and the ball. Gravity then took over and the ball and my glasses which were in a few pieces fell to the ground and I saw stars or maybe more like black dots!! I am fine but in a bit of pain and I can't decide if the dark circles under my eyes are from the impact or if I just need more sleep!!

It wasn't until the next morning that I remembered the part of the design that I totally forgot to put on the cake, the volleyball net. Chocolate cake with peanut butter cup filling and fondant.

This cake was for a sweet sixteen birthday girl's surprise party. So like most sixteen year old girls who think they couldn't surprise her, she was sadly mistaken. They surprised her real good and the cake was a big hit. Happy 16th Birthday, Katie!!

Vanilla cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream and fondant.

This is a birthday cake for my sis-in-law and as I was deciding what kind of cake she would enjoy, I posted on my FB status "What is your favorite cake?" I got a response from her as well as many others and then I remembered that I could use her comment for her cake. She was hungry for a Red Velvet cake and so that is what she got!! Happy Birthday, dear friend!

Just one not about this post. If for some reason it doesn't make sense or something is spelled wrong, it has to do with the fact that I don't have glasses and I have a permanent headache till I get some. =)

Water Bottles.

Sometimes it is the little things that make me smile. These cool colored water bottles were the kids surprise at the end of their scavenger hunt!

My dad-in-law turned 80 last week and this is his birthday cake. Not alot of time to make this cake but I got it done with the help of my chefs in training. They each made one mouse for grandpa's cake.

It was layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with a layer of chocolate fudge filling and a layer of strawberry filling. We all enjoyed the cake!

Lukas is a lucky little boy, a big John Deere cake and a cap just for him. This cake was fun but took a lot of time. The boots on top are molded out of rice krispie treats.

Having kids in school means that a party is in order when their teacher has a birthday. Here is a cake for a teacher that enjoys gardening.

This cake was for an adoption celebration!

A birthday cake for a grandmother who turned 76 years old, a fun cake to make.

It was a birthday cake kind of week.

Got Cake!

Here is a cute little porker that I made for a lady that collects pigs and they tell me her response was priceless! That is always good to hear! She has 4 kids, and that is what the little piggies represent. Fun cake!

Today started with me in the kitchen baking my very first cake for competition. This one was not about the decorations but it was all about HERSHEY'S COCOA. A chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

So I got out my favorite chocolate cake recipe and chocolate fudge frosting recipe. 4 hours later I had a cake ready to take to the local fair for the contest.

So off we went to the fair and registered the cake in the competition and then the waiting began. After two hours the judges had made their decision. And I got second place!!! I was super excited, my first competition and I got 2nd place along with a $20 prize.

I can now say I make wedding cakes. This was my very first wedding cake and all went well. I am thankful for a family that is supportive because I couldn't have done this without them.

There was chocolate cake, marble cake and white cake. Some with buttercream and raspberry filling and some just buttercream. All were covered with fondant!