Animals on the Dark Side of the Wall.

Back in the Summer I was approached by a colleague to make a cake for her boyfriend's dad's 50th birthday. Originally, as he is a Leeds United fan, the cake was going to be a football pitch with the Leeds United logo on the pitch. I had my design ready to go and was just waiting for the date to roll around.

Two weeks ago at work, said colleague came up to me and the conversation ran as follows.
L: Clare, do you know Pink Floyd?
Me: Yeah.
L: Do you like Pink Floyd?
Me: Yeah!
L: Do you think you could make the cake Pink Floyd instead?
Me: *nodding emphatically* YEAH!

By the time I got home that night the idea was already fully formed in my head, I got it down on paper and couldn't wait to get started. I also downloaded the "Floydian" font to my computer so that I could get the lettering just right when the time came.

My colleague picked up the cake today and she rang her boyfriend to describe it, she told me that she said it had a wall and he said "Yeah," and then the triangle in the middle and he sounded more excited, then when she told him about the pigs he said it was awesome and asked her to send a picture. When he got it he was very impressed, he and his Father went to Roger Waters' show this year and are both huge Pink Floyd fans so I think that's another very satisfied customer!

Avast!

I've just returned from a fab weekend away with my friend down in South Wales, where I delivered a cake for her niece on Saturday. The design wasn't perfect, I had some issues with the lid which ended up getting scrapped, but as you can see form the pictures below, the two Birthday girls were extremely happy with it!

New Cupcake designs

Had great fun yesterday afternoon greating an army of Rising Zombies and Cute Dragons, how adorable are these?





Dragons are £20 for a dozen due to the extra bits and bobs and the modelling time required. Zombies are still £15 for a dozen.

Homesense VIP Evening

I had fun at the VIP Evening last week, lots of people stopped by to watch what I was doing but only got one order (1 dozen Vampire Bite cupcakes for Halloween). A few people picked up my card so I'm staying hopeful.

I spent the evening practicing some sugar flowers and making fondant bows, you can see the results here.

Homesense Merry Hill VIP Evening

For any of my readers who live in the West Midlands (or nearby), I will be displaying some of my cakes at the Merry Hill Homesense VIP Shopping Evening, this Wednesday, the 5th of October, between 6 and 9pm.

Drop by, say hello and try a cupcake. Any orders placed on the night will recieve a 10% discount!

Too hot for a White Wedding

For the last several months, myself and the management team where I work have been counting down to a big day, the wedding of one of our team leaders, JJ, to his fiance Stacey. They asked me ages ago to make the cake for the 1st of October and I gladly agreed, never for a moment thinking I would have quite so many issues with it.

The week of the wedding rolled around and just happened to be the hottest week we have had all year, temperatures in the high 20's every day. Yes, you read that right, hottest week of the year...in September!

I had to get creative with my fondant as it kept sticking in the heat, and I had a serious panic towards the end of the week when the fondant just wouldn't harden off, but in the end the cake looked beautiful, the bride and groom loved it and it was great seeing all the reactions at the wedding reception.

A Unique Birthday Cake

A very good friend of mine got in touch recently and asked me to make her a cake for her upcoming 30th Birthday, she's a huge fan of music, and together this last year we have attended an awful lot of gigs together. She asked me to incorporate the logos of some of the acts she has seen this year into the cake and I was rubbing my hands together with glee at the thought of getting to grips with this one.

My idea was to have a gig ticket on the top that featured her birthday as the event, with the logos on a musical stave around the outside. I also added in a number of 5 pointed 'lone stars' as I know she has an affinity for them (and several tattooed on her!)

That was the greatest thing about this cake, the fact that since it was for someone I knew so well I could throw in that little detail, just to make it more personal.

The logos were the trickiest part of the cake, faithfully reproducing something that represents a band in such an iconic and instantly recognisable way was a real test of my skills, but I was extremely proud of the way they all turned out.










If you want to check out the bands that are represented here then they are (left to right, top to bottom) Deftone, Avenged Sevenfold, Skindred, Bring Me The Horizon (possibly the cutest thing ever right there), Good Charlotte, Framing Hanley, Corey Taylor (Slipknot), System of a Down, Alkaline Trio and Linkin Park.

Kate was thrilled with the cake when I delivered it on Saturday and had absolutely no intention of letting any of her family anywhere near the logos. I think she's going to save them all!

A Lesson Learned

Remember this?

Well the lady in question got back in touch via twitter to say that her holiday was a go again as she had found someone to care for her pets. It was very short notice but I accepted the challenge and got started on the figures for her cupcakes. She had asked me for a dozen CSI: New York themed cupcakes and I had some great ideas. Tying into the American theme, and her love of summer fruits, I found a recipe for Red, White and Blueberry cupcakes that I decided to use.

As I was making the models I asked the client to get in touch as delivery was going to be very time sensitive, she was passing through a nearby train station on her way to London and we had agreed that I would deliver the cakes to her there. As time went on I got a little worried as I hadn't heard anything from her.



To cut a long story short the client didn't get in touch, and I learnt a valuable lesson. Taking an order over the internet, get payment up front.



Still, I got some more practice with figure modelling, and I think the finished result was extra cute. The other half and I are certainly enjoying eating them now too!

Rock and Toddle

I've just delivered the rocking cake for my colleague's little boy's 2nd birthday party this weekend.

The young man in question loves rock music, he'll rock out to Kerrang on television, and whenever he goes to visit his grandfather he tries to play his Gibson Les Paul. We decided to give him his very own guitar cake for his birthday, complete with the logo of one of his favourite bands, AC/DC, on the body.

What a shame

Sadly my first international commission has been cancelled. The client is no longer able to make it over to the UK for her trip, or for her cupcakes. I may still take the idea behind the cupcakes and play with it, perhaps using the details on a larger cake.

I also hope that my client will be able to re-schedule her trip for sometime in the near future so she can actually get her cupcakes.

Watch this space.

Two for August.

I've got two orders coming up for August.

First up is a cake for a rock music loving toddler's birthday in 2 weeks time. This young man loves his grandfather's Les Paul guitar so he's getting a replica for his birthday. I've been online and sketched up some ideas, can't wait to get the pictures up.

After that is my first international order. A young lady from Sweden who heard about my cakes is visiting the UK at the end of the month and asked me to make her some cupcakes to enjoy on her travels. Really excited about that but can't post anything until she has seen them as she doesn't want to ruin the surprise.

2 weeks, 2 wedding cakes!

Two of my very good friends got married this month and both asked me to make their wedding cakes.

First up was Zoe, remember, she of the Birthday Party/Baby shower and Alice in Wonderland cakes.

She had been umming and ahhing over whether to have a cake as they were arranging the wedding in a very short 6 weeks and on a very limited budget. Thankfully her wonderful godmother stepped in and offered to pay for it so Zoe got the cake she wanted. We got down to planning and settled on a simple design, white icing with mendhi tattoo style designs hand painted in silver. The bottom tier was limoncello with dark chocolate chunks and lemon buttercream (as chosen by the bride) and the top tier was coffee with coffee buttercream (for the groom). The whole cake was given a once over with pearl lustre spray and topped with a small posey of fresh flowers that matched the colour scheme of the wedding.





As soon as that wedding was out of the way I packed up my car and headed for the Highlands. My other friend Jayne got married the following Saturday and rather than attempt to transport the cake from Malvern to Aberdeen (9 hour drive give or take weather and traffic) I decided to stay with my mother in Nairn and make the cake there.

The bride's request was simple and summed her up perfectly, a 3 tier chocolate sponge cake, decorated in cow print with purple sugar roses!!





For the geeky among you, yes, that's Faith's dagger from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the happy couple are using to cut the cake!

(My mother spent the week complaining that her house was full of cake but she wasn't allowed to eat any, so she ended up getting her own, personal, 8 inch carrot cake once I was finished with the wedding cake!)

Random cake-age

A few bits and bobs I've done here and there since my last update, let's see.

There was the first attempt at the logo for one of my favourite bands (Avenged Sevenfold) aka The Deathbat. Needs work, looks too happy, should be more scary, but for a first try I was pretty pleased with it.




Then I was having a look at the Charm City Cakes website and their new stock cakes section, decided to have a go at one of the simpler designs, the Harlequin, myself and this is how it came out.



Finally, it was the first birthday of the shop where I work at the end of May so the boss asked me to make some cupcakes for the staff. Homesense colours (green, cream and brown), they were a resounding success!