Easter Bag Tags {some bunny loves you!}

Easter is just around the corner and it's my daughter's last day of school tomorrow! Both my children are very giving and have a naturally generous nature (almost all of the time!), which I like and is why I couldn't say no when Caitlin asked could she make something to give out to her little classmates tomorrow.  She chose the colours and picked out the peeking bunny herself for the bag tags, I think they turned out really cute!

Next up she bagged her chocolate frogs and lollipops and wrote a message on the back of all 25 bagtags...that takes quite some time when your a six year old! She then tied the first two bags and said 'I think you can do the rest mummy' so of course I tied the rest and whipped up an extra 12 bags for William to take to Kindy tomorrow.

only 4 more sleeps until the bunny comes!!!

{Alana} Cupcake Tower

These cupcakes were requested for a friend's 30th birthday party or was it her 21st hmmm I just can't remember ;)  Lana wanted something pretty and with some purple and maybe a bit funky, this tower has been re-created a few times now and is named Alana in my collection!

 

Christening Cake ~ Savannah

Here is a lovely little girls christening cake, safely transported all the way to Brisbane by her loving Grandmother!  This was a fun one to make, I really enjoyed modelling the little baby topper and the building blocks with the childs name on it are really popular at the moment for christenings and first birthday cakes. 

Here is the back view, finished off with a pink satin bow.

I failed to get a good close up photo of this little topper, this is the best one I had!  I put a  bit of lustre dust on the frills of her nappy and a little around the frill of the bonnet for a bit of extra sparkle.

Funky {Loopy Bow} Topper!

Here is the two tiered chocolate mud cake I made for my niece Charlee on her tenth birthday.  She didn't request anything in particular but she was into pink, purple and black colours and she has a special little brown teddy bear that her Nanny Kennedy gave her so this is what I came up with. The little bear is made of fondant and the only non-edible part is the (wire) string on the little balloon. 

This was also a first attempt at a loopy bow which I was quite happy with the end result and the zebra pattern on the top tier made it a little bit funky! There are many ways of making the loopy bows, I've seen beautiful patterned ones, mixing up the 'ribbon' sizes and combining a few different bright colours also looks really effective on an otherwise plain cake.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear...{Cookie} Monday!

Tasty double chocolate chip cookies on a stick! These were a real hit with the kids and would be great for party favours instead of the usual treat bags.

Here are some packaged up and ready to go!

Peace Roses

My Mum is a great gardener and she grows beautiful roses {one of my favourite flowers} I just had to share these ones she cut today for my father's grave. These will be a good reference for some fondant roses I will be making next month!

Whimsical Roses & Gingham Bows {cupcake bouquet}

Here are the pink ribbon roses I made to top some of the cupcakes for my sister-in-laws birthday cupcake bouquet.

                                      

The rest were topped with pink and white gingham bows,

and for the top cupcake I added a little glittery butterfly on a spiral green wire,

to finish it off one of my personalised party circles reading

'happy birthday Carolyn'

Carolyn enjoys patchwork so I was going for a bit of a whimsical look for this cupcake bouquet...

My brother organised a lovely bbq for her with family and friends and plenty of good food, wine and laughs we had a great night!

Baby Shower Cupcakes & Toppers!

Another busy weekend for cupcakes, here are 3 of the 24 chocolate cupcakes

for a friends baby shower I did, all with personalised toppers! I also have my sister-in-law's

cupcake tower ready to go for tonight, I will post something on that later and some cute little

choc chip teddy bear cookies on a stick....my kids LOVED these so I had to make

extra's! I will share those with you on {COOKIE} Monday.  Next week I will be looking for idea's

for my daughter's birthday she has changed her mind sooo many times on what cake she would like...

today she was thinking we should have a mad hatters tea party! I liked that idea, maybe a teapot cake

or something any ideas??? 

Purple Disco Cake

Being "Purple Day" I thought I would post this {purple} disco themed cake I made for my niece Georgia. She celebrated with a disco party complete with a disco ball and a prize for the best disco outfit...groovy!!

PURPLE DAY! Join in...

Today our little school 'St Francis De Sales" in Clifton are wearing purple ribbons to help promote awareness about epilepsy, I must admit I hadn't heard of PURPLE DAY until now and I thought I would post a little bit about it for you.

ABOUT PURPLE DAY


Purple Day is a grassroots effort dedicated to increasing awareness about epilepsy worldwide. On Friday 26 March, people from around the globe are asked to wear purple and spread the word about epilepsy.


Purple Day was founded in 2008, by nine-year-old Cassidy Megan of Nova Scotia, Canada. Motivated by her own struggles with epilepsy, Cassidy started Purple Day in an effort to get people talking about the disorder and inform those with seizures that they are not alone. She named the day Purple Day after the internationally recognised colour for epilepsy, lavender.
 
Epilepsy Queensland is proud to be the official Australian partner of Purple Day and has joined up with other epilepsy organisations from across the globe including Canada, USA, UK and South Africa to make Purple Day 2010 even bigger.
To find out more or how you can help visit  http://www.epilepsyqueensland.com.au/site/purpleday

Mum's {Happy Birthday} cupcakes

My Mum celebrated her birthday {fifty something!} last Friday so here are the cupcakes I made to have after dinner, I bought some rainbow dust or edible glitter for some wedding cupcakes I made recently and I love it! I'm using it on everything especially good on cookies...my camera doesn't pick it up very well, much more sparkle than the picture shows, this colour is hologram.

Lady Bug Cupcakes

These turned out so cute in the little red & white polka dot cupcake liners {by Robert Gordon}

When you order my cupcake toppers you can choose all the same design or three different designs such as these ones, the trend is usually theme, age/name or initial/monogram and occasion.

Cupcake Toppers

There are lots of cupcake toppers popping up everywhere I look, I too am making my own personalised cupcake toppers which are really taking off! hence the name Top That! They cost $15 for a set of 12 and  an additional $3 to package them up and post them out.  They are great for any occasion from birthdays to baby showers the possibilities are endless!

William's toolbox with {Handy Manny} tools!

My son's third birthday cake...he just couldn't decide what he would like when I asked what cake he wanted for our little family party so he finished up asking for a toolbox with tools, a bobcat and a digger! Of course I made all three! This is the toolbox cake with hand modelled tools, Willy loves the Handy Manny cartoon show and I think the tools are so cute so I decided to make them, I was going to cheat and buy the plastic ones but none of the stores in Warwick or Toowoomba had any so I had to make them! I'm glad I did because I learnt alot of other little useful tips while researching modelling with fondant. I will post the other two when I come across the photos.

Hello Fondant!

I have delved into the world of fondant and I love it, you have endless decorating possibilities especially with fondant modelling and flower making.  I have a great book which helped me alot called Planet Cake by Paris Cutler, you can buy this in Toowoomba at House (Grand Central shopping centre)  I will be attempting a handbag cake soon, I love this one on the cover!

Mickey's Motorbike

Inspiration for older boy's cakes was hard to come by, this is what I came up with for my nephew's 12th birthday a couple of years ago, the motorbike came from the toy shop and was a replica of one of his own bikes.

Georgia's Horse

My niece just love's horses so of course her first cake request was a horse, I was not feeling too confident about this one but it turned out looking like a horse and she smiled quite widely upon seeing it... so I was happy with that!

Elmo and Bob the Builder...

Next up was my little son's first birthday, I really wanted to do Elmo and once I realised how hard it was to turn the icing red the design had to be changed from a full body Elmo to an Elmo head!! but hey he still loved it and he recognised that it was Elmo so that was satisfaction enough for me!

Bob the Builder, can we bake it, YES WE CAN (ha ha!!) 

William loved this Bob cake for his second birthday and was reluctant to cut it up and share it,

I also found some cute little candles that were tools (from Rolly's lolly shop in Warwick),

a hammer, screwdriver etc. what little boy wouldn't love those!

Dorothy the Dinosaur...success!

Next up was the birthday party with the birthday girl requesting Dorothy the Dinosaur!  Caitlin's reaction to this one was priceless and this inspired me to try and make the next one even better.

My {first ever} attempt at cake decorating!

My obsession with cakes began four years ago, it was my beautiful daughters second birthday and I had ordered a lovely cake from the local bakery earlier in the week...with a half hour to go before the party started I rushed down to pick up the cake, only to be told the order had been misplaced and there was no cake for me! My heart sank thinking of the disappointed little girl when I arrived home without a spectacular birthday cake, from that day on I vowed to attempt making my own cakes. Armed with a copy of The Women's Weekly Children's Party Cakes I started studying! Here is a picture of my very first cake, Caitlin just loved my little pony at the time and I made this one to take to playgroup as a bit of a test to see if the kids liked it (before I made another one for the party!).  Much to my relief Caitlin loved it and so did all her little playgroup friends, I was even more delighted when a few of the Mum's asked if I would make cakes for them!