Castle Cake

Just before summer ended, a good friend of mine had a birthday and I told her I'd make her a cake, as I do for some of my really good friends. She LOVES pink, and castles and is a school teacher and I laugh with her a lot, so we decided to go with a pink castle cake for her birthday. I had just made one of these for my niece's birthday and had a few ideas of how I wanted to change it, so here is the finished product:

As you can see, there is grass and a moat and a bridge....this is not all frosting, because that would be a LOT of frosting, I used 2 cake mixes and filled the castle cake pan that I borrowed from my Sister-in-law (who is AWESOME! Thanks for letting me use it!) and then I took what was left and poured it into a 9x13 pan and baked that as well. When everything was cooled, I got to work frosting it. The windows are made of pink starburst candies as well as the flags. The candles had different colored flames, though I am not terribly impressed with them...I liked the star topped candles best, and they fit in best with the scene any way.

My friend LOVED her cake, and I had so much fun making it! I also made these cute little cupcakes for another friends birthday and had sooo much fun figuring out how best to make the design and the everything for it to work out so well!

And as I am posting this on the first weekend in September, I thought I'd add this to Beck's LOOK WHAT I MADE!!! Share the love link party!!!! Enjoy!!!

Its Fancy, Its Nancy, IT'S FANCY NANCY!!!!

For her birthday last year, a good friend of mine requested a Hello Kitty cake. It turned out fabulous and I was soooo freaking proud of that cake! Man, it was beautiful. So, this year when I asked her what she wanted, she had to think about it. How do you top THAT cake? I mean really. It was a work of art. And then, she said two words that first sent me scrambling, but I recovered and came up with something BRILLIANT! Those two words were: FANCY NANCY. I had heard of the books, though never read through any of them. Sad, I know, but I have since remedied that. My friend said that the first one was her favorite, so I took that as my main inspiration and then went from there. Here is the end result:

Beautiful, no? I think so! I am so proud of how this cake turned out! Its a 6" cake of funfetti goodness that I decorated entirely in pink. I googled Fancy Nancy pictures, printed them out, lamenated them and then put them on toothpicks so they would stand up on the cake. GENIUS! Thank you to my sister and sister in law for their help! I don't know what I would do without my good friends that are constantly inspiring me!



And, since it is the first Friday of July, I am linking this post in with Becky's link party!!! Heck yes, so much fun!!

Share the Love

So...ever since the middle of May I knew that I wanted to link up with my ultra crafty friend Becky's blog. Every first Friday she has a link up party and I keep forgetting...but in the past month I have made two items I am SUPER proud of and wanted to share them both with you. So, without further ado, here we go!





     First of all, about 8 years ago I embarked on what I thought would be a quick little adventure in quilting. I should have realized when a pattern calls for 200 2 inch x 2 inch squares, the only little thing about it is the size! However, give me 8 years and losing the quilt top about 3 times and voila! here it is!
    This was originally going to be given to one of my siblings when it was done (and I honestly don't remember which one...it was going to be a surprise) but once I started it I knew that there was no way I was going to give it away! Then, as I was about half way done with the top I realized that with all the work that was going in to this quilt, no child would ever touch it either! Ha ha...I guess we'll see when I finish quilting it. The top is completely done and now I just need to add the batting and the back and then tie it or quilt it (haven't decided which yet) and then bind it and I'm done! It will be finished before I actually have a kid, which I wasn't sure would happen! HOORAY!!!


     Ok, on to the second project....I just blogged about this one, so forgive me for repeating, but I am really quite proud of it. Its Digger's birthday cake. I mean that cake was AMAZING. It was a three layer white cake with a strawberry/pastry cream/whipped cream filling, alternating between layers, and then topped with chocolate covered strawberries and a chocolate Happy Birthday Digger!! sign. MASTERPIECE. I am so very proud of that cake!
     The cake itself was probably about 10 inches around. I baked two 9inch cakes and then made them into 3 layers. The frosting is a whipped cream frosting instead of a butter cream type. And surrounding the entire cake is those chocolate pirouette cookies, alternating between milk chocolate and white chocolate. Is your mouth watering yet? I was told by a good friend of mine (who doesn't generally like cake) that when she saw a picture of this cake she wanted some. Apparently I can make non desert lovers want desert....I think that's a little bit awesome. After seeing this cake, many of my friends from church kept telling me how I should open a bakery and how I would be a fantastic baker...which is a dream that I have one day in the future. We'll see what happens. It was funny, even Digger commented about his cake, he said something to the effect of, "Soozee, do you realize how much you could sell that cake for? Oh my gosh, its amazing!" yes Digger, yes it is. And, just an FYI, if I was ever commissioned to make this cake for someone I would charge about $75.