Post-Surgery-- Get it?

I haven't posted in what feels like a million years! I underwent surgery on July 9 for a torn bicep tendon and to have a bone spur scraped down in my left shoulder. Surgery went well but my recovery time has been much longer than I anticipated... not longer than the doctor or physical therapist have intended however so I am headed in the right direction. In the meantime, I have tons of photos to post!

More Babies

One of the cakes I created this weekend was a ladybug baby shower cake.  The mom-to-be purchased her bed linens at JCPenney.  I don't think it was a perfect match but it turned out well.

Babes and Babies

Two fun cakes this weekend, one for a lingerie shower and one for a baby shower.

For the lingerie shower, I made both a cake and cookies  There was an overall them of hearts but not the cutesy, lovey ones!  I used hearts as the base shape for the cake and the cookies but both we transformed into lingerie as evidenced by the pictures.  I had a fabulous time making these and will do so again in a heartbeat!

The second cake this weekend was for a baby shower. The host was very specific as to what she needed so there was not a lot of room for creativity.  The baby is a boy so green, blue and yellow were used.

Weekend's Work

I only made one cake last week and I didn't have the time to post it until now.  I made a wedding shower cake for friends Liz and Jason.  They are getting married on June 21 and I am making the wedding cake as well.  This was the first time that I had experimented with edible pearls and the cake was pretty good.

This weekend, I had a few different events going on.  The first cake I made was a baby shower cake shaped like a baby bottle.  It was a simple cake but it was cute!  My friend Shawna was hosting a baby shower for her friend of Lea and asked me to make the cake.  I had given her some baby shower favors to use that were shaped like bottles so I think bottles ended up being the theme.

Saturday was also graduation for Bentonville High School and I had two graduation cakes to make.  The first was for my friend Debbie's daughter.  They had pored over some pictures and had some pretty specific ideas of what they wanted in the cake.  I think I did a pretty good job in capturing their "vision". They also ordered 4 dozen chocolate dipped strawberries.

My second graduation cake was very similar, especially considering the fact that each client brought me a different picture!  I was able to incorporate some of the design elements from one into the other so both turned out better than their pictures!  The second cake was for my friend Angela's son Ryan.  He was having a pretty big party so I just added a book to the stack of books topped with a graduation cap.

Believe it or not, at my husband's birthday party on Sunday, there was NO CAKE!  I always make the joke that doctor's wives die young, shoemaker's wives go barefoot and baker's husbands get no treats!  But no cake on his birthday was his choice-- he asked for brownies, apple pie and ice cream.

My final "weekend" cake was a Harley cake for a 2 year old's birthday party.  I iced the cake in orange and then airbrushed flames on the sides of the 10" and 12" stacked tiers.  I then made a butter cream transfer of the Harley logo and put that on top of the cake.  The woman whose son I made it for cried when she saw it so I think it was pretty successful.

Mother's Day

Last week, I had a brilliant idea!  I asked some of my "regular" cake customers if they wanted to order Mother's Day cakes for their wives.  I was going to make the same cake for everyone so I knew it would be an easy thing.  I ended up with orders for 5 cakes.  They were all different sizes but identical flavors.  The cake was a strawberry cake with vanilla bean cream cheese icing and sliced strawberries between the layers.  The whole thing was iced and decorated with more vanilla bean cream cheese and topped with fresh whole strawberries.  They were a HUGE hit!

An Apple a Day

This past week was National Teacher's Week.  My friend Katie's daughter is autistic and has really benefited from the extra attention her teachers have paid her.  Katie has always been good about thanking them on a regular basis but she asked me to put together a special treat for them.  I asked Katie to get some cupcake boxes and she found the hot pink stripes box at Hobby Lobby.  Wednesday night I had to make two other cakes so I found myself making cupcake "apples" at around 2 AM.  They were SO cute! (Sorry if you think they look like cherries, Ranee-- they are definitely apples!)  Katie and Kaia liked them and they are the only ones who really counted!

I forgot to take pics of the other two cakes I made... one was a Steeler's good-bye cake for my friend in Pharmacy.  The other was a chocolate ganache cake with chocolate covered strawberries!

First Communions

It has been a week of communions!  The first was for the son of a friend from work and they were not having a big party-- in fact, Brady doesn't even like cake!  But the parents felt it was a tradition they needed to keep-- plus, they LOVE cake!  It is SO difficult to come up with a design that is NOT feminine but I did the best I could with this small cake.

The second party was for Jonathan, my boss's son and they were planning on a big party.  I'd been thinking of a design for awhile so I had plenty of time (and cake!) to make it unique!  I made a three-tiered stacked cake with borders of variegated blue squares.  It was a mosaic-style design and I topped it with a Wilton cross topper