Have yourself a Merry little Christmas!

One of my favorite things to make...Christmas Cookies! and this year, I made A LOT! I love looking at other decorators creations this time of year and seeing what everyone comes up with. These Santa's were inspired by Sugarbelle's tutorial. She show you how to use a Thanksgiving turkey cookie cutter to make hers, but I just did these guys with my Santa cutter. Check out her blog for the "how to" here:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2013/11/decorated-santa-cookies/

Give Thanks

 

Happy Thanksgiving! I am so thankful for my customers...new and old! I made all these cookies and cakes to bring back to West Texas with me. I'm so glad I get to still see my old customers when I go visit back home : )

 

Down the Rabbit hole...

Topsy turvy Alice in Wonderland cake with gum paste tea cup. I love this cake..it was So much fun to make! This was my first time making a tea cup, so I found an awesome tutorial here:
http://sugarteachers.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-gumpaste-teacup.html

Tangled dress inspired cake

Golf birthday cake

Space cake

Camo shooter cake

Sugar and Spice baby shower cake for one of my best friends!! Can't wait to meet that sweet baby girl! : )

Western wedding cake

C

Carved wine bottle cake

Duh Nuh, Duh nuh......duh nuh duh nuh duh nuh duh!

Get it? Jaws music? Ok ok ..just ignore me! But check out this Sculpted Shark cake I did this weekend. I LOVE how it turned out!

Beach Theme wedding cake...and playing catch up

My first wedding cake I've done since moving to Rockwall! It's no secret that wedding cakes have always stressed me out (I've blogged about it a few time lol) I DO love being apart of someones wedding, of having them trust me with their special day. I think the problem was the size (and amount) of cakes I was doing. 250 serving wedding cakes = high stress levels for me. 75-125 serving wedding cakes=enjoyable!  I have vowed to only do smaller wedding cakes from now on...and I'm excited to offer wedding cakes again : )

Sesame Street first Birthday cake with purchased toppers

                                                                  

                          

          and my Daughter's 11th birthday cake! Lemon cake with rasberry filling Yum!

Summertime and the livin's easy....

I hope you are all enjoying your Summer so far! I have been keeping very busy with my kiddos and having tons of fun expolring our new town. I tend to get busy and forget to keep up with my blog...so here are a few orders I've done recently:

Princess cake with ruffles and sugar crown

Owl Birthday cake with fondant ruffles

Graduation cake

I took a trip back to West Texas this past weekend...and since I'm too scared to travel 6 hours with cakes for my old clients, I offer to take cookie orders instead. I used to not enjoy cookie decorating NEAR as much as cake decorating. It seemed to take Foreverrrrrr! I could knock out a 3 tier cake in the time it took me to do a few dozen cookies (ok maybe that's a tad exagerated!) It seems I've done more cookies lately since moving here, so I'm gettting faster and starting to dig it more. I used tutorials from SugarBelle on 2 of these..the Camo and the Tie Dyed. I posted links below

Mother's Day cookies

 I LOVE how these turned out! If someone were to get me Mother's Day cookies...I would want it to be these. Luckily, my Bestie, Miki, liked the idea of a mom style tattoo cookie for her order...so I got to make these! YAY

Tie Dye cookies
and here is the tutorial from Sugarbell:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2011/03/rainbow-tie-dye-cookies/

 Toy Story and Jessie style cookies

Camo Cookies
Tutorial by Sugarbelle here:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2011/05/how-to-make-camouflage-print-on-cookies-2/

Teacher Appreciation Week

It's that time of year again...time to tell the teachers in our lives just how much we appreciate them! This year, I have 11 teachers between my 4 kiddos to thank. This school year, my kids all started at new schools in our new town. We could NOT be happier with the schools and the teachers here! They all have such amazing, caring, teachers ...and I wanted to tell them all a big "Thank you!" I found these cute printable tags here:
http://sweetmetelmoments.blogspot.com/2012/05/free-printable-teacher-appreciation-one.html?m=1
and attached to small bags filled with decorated cookies for each teacher.

        Don't forget music, Art and other Specials teachers!

Cake Show Entry

This past weekend I went to the North Texas Cake show. It was my first time going to a big show like this. I had signed up to do another entry also in the cupcake catagory, but after having a severe allergic reaction last week and being hospitalized...I was just happy to be able to pull this one off the night before the show! There were so many amazing cakes there and such talented cake artist!

I've been wanting to try this billowing effects for awhile now. I found a great tutorial here http://thejoyofcake.shutterfly.com/tutorials/4

The ribbon flowers I just kinda figured out ...I may snap a few pics and post a tutorial on here soon.

                      Fondant billowed cake with ribbon flowers
                                                                       

And an order of Teacup cookies....made to match the design of the tea cups being used

I'm Back!!!

Howdy guys! Well, after being MIA for almost a year, I'm finally updating my blog. Wow...a whole year!! Just Doesn't seem possible. Let's see, after my last post in January of 2012, I got very sick. I had silent reflux mainly due to stress, followed by esophagus erosion, liquid diet, etc.. I was still taking on orders and working, but not able to do as many as I once could. Skip ahead to the Summer, and we found out we were moving from West Texas to the Dallas area! It had been in the works for awhile, and we were very excited about the move for our family. Although, I was super sad to leave my business that I had built up for 5 years, and all my wonderful friends and clients. I had spent every Saturday morning getting to visit with my customers as they came to pick up their cakes.  Some customers had been with me from the very begining, they had gotten their wedding, baby shower, first Birthday cake and beyond from me. All of that was very special and I loved my job dearly....but I had let myself get burnt out. It was affecting my health and my Family. This move to Rockwall was probably the only thing that would have pulled me out of it. I wasn't able to see that until we had moved, and I now had time to spend with my four kids. I wasn't always rushing or missing things at school because I "had cakes to finish" I wasn't always stressed. I honestly didn't think I would ever get back into "caking" and I was perfectly OK with that for about 6 months. I had a nice long break, my hands healed up ( all you decorators out there know what I'm talking about! You wouldn't think about cake-related injuries...but most of us cake peeps have horrible carpal tunnel ) but, I started missing it and I'm now back to decorating and baking! I'm doing it "on the side" this time. No more 6 cake weekends, or doubled up wedding cakes.I'm going to find a balance of the work that I love to do, and my family.  Anyhoo...I didn't mean to write a novel here, but wanted to explain my disappearance! I had always heard of the dreaded "burnout" amongst cake artist, but didn't think it would happen to me. A word of advice to other decorators...don't overdo it! Don't be afraid to say no. Take a break from it every once in a while if you need to. I'm excited to about starting over again here in the Dallas area and getting to meet new clients...and I'm very happy to be back to enjoying it again. : )

Here are a few pics to fill in for the year I was gone. Some are from back in Midland/Odessa and some are new orders here in Rockwall.  

Doctor cupcakes with fondant decorations

                                                     stacked heart cookies

                                       Valentines Cookies

                                     Nurse/Medical Cookies

                                               

                                        Toy Story cake with purchased toppers

                                  Gender reveal cake ( it was a boy!)

                                      Tea party cupcakes

                        3 tier white and blue wedding cake with bows

                            Western cake with fondant boots, buckle and bandana