One of My Favorite Cake Decorating Techniques

I recently planned a baby shower for my little sister. We decided to do a woodland animals shower, which turned out so cute! The colors were coral and tan so we incorporated a lot of natural looking elements.

I decided to do an ombre cake in shades of coral. This is such an easy decorating technique that really takes no skill! All you need is a piping bag, circle tip, and a small spatula. I always make my starting point on the backside of the cake just to try to hide any unevenness. Start by piping a dot and then gently swiping it to the right with the flat side of your spatula. Make another dot just over the end of your swipe and swipe it again. Continue doing this all the way around the cake. Once you have completed the first row, start at the backside again and create your dots, touching the row beneath. Continue all the way up the sides. You can either leave the top plain or do the same design on the top, jut going in circles. This is so easy, but makes such a huge effect!

Paw Patrol Party

Maclayne loves to have parties based on characters that are pretty new! Last year it was Paw Patrol and this year it is Peppa Pig. Peppa Pig has been around for a while but it is really hard to find a lot of products here. So both last year and this year have required me to be pretty creative in decorating for her parties. This is where the silhouette comes in! It is so easy to find images online and use the print and cut feature to make custom decorations.

For the main wall, I created large pinwheels and put cut out images of each pup in the center of each one. I used a shape from the silhouette library and stretched it to the biggest size I could get with 12x12 paper. I really loved the effect this had and helped me break away from the traditional banners. I also used the same cut outs as centerpieces. I just put them on sticks, as well as number 3s, and put them in a bucket of similar colors.

For desserts I made puppy chow, pup cakes, and bone cookies. I always use the icing recipe from www.bakeat350.com for my cookies. They were super easy since they were only 1 color. Since there were so many little ones at the party, I decided to use plastic cups with lids for the drinks. Once again I used the print and cut feature to make stickers to put on the cups. Gotta love adhesive paper! The balloons really created a lot of shadows in my pics, but I think you can get the idea!

The party favors were little puppies that the guests could adopt. I put paw stamps on brown boxes, put cocoa puffs in little baggies as pup food, and scooby snacks as treats. Mackenzie wanted to make loom band collars for all of the puppies, which I thought was a great addition! 

I have started planning Maclayne's Peppa Pig party so I will post pics once the party is over. 

Disney World 2015 and the Silhouette Cameo

I love using my cameo to create things that I have seen online! Even though the machine is somewhat pricey upfront, it has saved me so much money over the past few years that I have owned it.

We are literally counting down the days until we leave for our trip to Disney World. We will be staying in a Royal Room at the Port Orleans Riverside. The girls are so excited about the hotel and getting to ride their favorite rides and see their favorite characters. Maclayne's 4th birthday is actually the day we will be heading back home, so we are planning to let her go on a shopping spree in Downtown Disney. She will be so excited!

I asked the girls to both decide on a character that they wanted for their countdown chain. They actually decided pretty quickly on Rapunzel (my favorite!). I found an image of Rapunzel that I liked online and copy and pasted it into my Silhouette program. Then I used one of the frame shapes that I had and placed it around the image. Then I added registration marks. I used the print and cut feature to print it out. After you select print, you place the image onto your mat and load it into the machine. Tell the program to detect registration marks automatically. Once it says they have been detected, press cut. It's really easy and is such a versatile feature! You could take the same frame that I used for the image and expand it to make a border around the image.

Voila! Super easy!

The girls really enjoyed making the paper chain and stapling it to the image. Mackenzie insisted we make the chain yellow to make it look like her hair, which was a great idea. It has made counting down fun for them and it's crazy to see the chain get smaller and smaller!

Monkey 1st Birthday Cake

I wanted to start out my blog by showing some of the cakes I have created in the past. Cake decorating is a hobby of mine and I usually get my ideas from a combination of things I have seen online. When my youngest daughter (who is now almost 4) turned 1, we decided to do a monkey theme for her party. I made most of the decorations an her invitations using my Silhouette Cameo.

I decided to do a 2 layer cake because we have a large extended family and I love the effect they have! I found a monkey cookie cutter that I used to create the monkey faces on the cake. I used a sharp knife to hand cut all of the facial features of the monkey. I only did a few monkeys so it did not take that long. I had a flower shaped cookie cutter that I used for the flower on the monkey. I just used a small circle cookie cutter to create the circles all over the cake. Cookie cutters were also used for the design and letter on top. The piping along the edges help hide any imperfections in the fondant and create a finished look. I also do this step last so that I don't bump it when I am working. I used a wilton tip to create the shell pattern. I always use Americolor gels to color my frosting and if I decide to color my own fondant. I have found that most people just take the fondant off without even trying it. I just buy the cheaper Wilton fondant instead of the pricier fondants because they work well for me and I don't worry about the taste. I made this cake the day before and the fondant held up very well! I think it also helped the cake hold the fondant because it firmed it up. Hope you like it!