Dooney and Bourke Giraffe Print Purse

My first attempt at a purse cake didn't go so well. In fact, it was down right horrible!! I wanted to try one, so without and planning or thought to it I just decided to wing it one day. Well, needless to say it wasn't my proudest moment where cakes are concerned. After making it and deciding it was the worst cake I have ever attempted, I went to go pout in the other room when I head a crash in the kitchen. My poor ugly cake completely fell over and made a lovely little mess all over my kitchen! haha!!

So when I got an email asking me to make a cake shaped like a purse for a birthday party I was a little more than nervous. But I decided I was going to go for it and that this one was going to turn out much better than my lousey first try. All I was told was that the birthday girl likes purple and likes to shop. So I went on a hunt for a fun purse with purple in it. When I came across the giraffe print bag by Dooney and Bourke I decided that I just had to make it! I thought the bag itself was super cute and was determined to make my cake replica just as cute! Here's the result of my second attempt at a purse cake:

As you might be able to tell, I am much happier with this try than my first one!!!

Check out the zipper detail!! I am really proud of this detail for some reason. I love the little pulley part with the ribbon (I am not sure if you can see the ribbon in this pic, it's hanging off the right side of the cake). This is my favorite cake that I have made yet, and loved that I got to paint most of the details directly onto the cake :o)

Trick or Treat!

My daughter's elemetary school (Horizon Elem. in Loudoun County) was having a bake sale and monster mash dance/party for Halloween. Since we are new to the area and I am trying to get Tinabelle's off the ground, I decided to donate a few cakes to the school to get some exposure. I've been told that the cakes were a huge hit and instead of selling hem as part of the bake sale the school decided to raffle them off. I am hoping that in edition to getting my name out, that the cakes were able to help the school bring in some money as well!



Here are the pics of the cakes I made for them:

Ghost family going trick or treating

Close up of the cute little ghosts

Isn't his monster the cutest? I want to make him my pet and keep him forever!!

Trick or treating Ghost. His pumpkin Pail is made of fondant, the candy corns are real.

I had such a fun time making these cakes! It was nice to be able to just be creative. I got a lot of the ideas for these cakes from http://www.cakecentral.com/ So thank you to everyone on that site who has posted pics to give me inspirations for these cakes :o)

Sweet Sixteen

Here's a sweet 16 cake for a girl who's birthday happens to fall close to Halloween. Instead of trying to combine both halloween and a 16th birthday, we chose to use the halloween colors orange, green, and purple to create a fun and festive sweet 16 cake. I am really happy with how it came out, and really love the color combo too!! The cake is vanilla with a dark chocolate buttercream.

Happy Halloween!

My little boy, who is 2, became obsessed with this cake. He has recently become obsessed with bugs. He claims any bug he see's as his pet and names each one spiderman (and no, none of his "pet" bugs have been allowed in the house). So he was very excited about a spiderman that was allowed in the house! He kept running into the kitchen to see it and to blow it kisses and say "aww it's spiderman!" Youhave to admit, the spider is pretty cute, right? haha!!

Again this cake resulted out of my post wisdom teeth boredom. I read a ton and figured I'd read a lot while I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth out, but the pain meds left me not really able to focus on the words in front of me, so a lot of baking happened instead!

This is another recipe I have been wanting to try for a while. It is an espresso cake with chocolate buttercream. I like to send new recipes to work with my husband so he can share it with his co-workers and I can get a lot of opinions on it. This recipe consisted of actual ground espresso beans in it, so it came out with a grainy texture that I wasn't expecting. Due to that and the fact that espresso isn't everyones favorite flavor it came back with mixed reviews. So I will be working this recipe. I already have some ideas in mind as to how to make it better and am excited to see how it turns out after I play with the recipe a bit.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

A friend of mine had her baby boy 4 weeks early, and was in the process of decorating his room in a Dr. Suess theme when the little guy decided to make his surprise appearence. I had also just had my wisdom teeth out and was bored out of my mind with nothing to do and had been dying to make a pumpkin spice cake. All these things combined resulted in this cake! I didn't want the design to be to crazy since one I was still recovering from my surgery, and two I was giving the cake away, but I still wanted to be able to make it fun and cute and try something new.

The hat is made out of gumpaste, and since I've never made a gumpaste sculpture that was this big before, or that stood on it's end, I wasn't expecting the weight of it to keep sinking into itself. I'd get it to look the way I wanted it to look, stand it up to dry and then when I'd go back to check on it it would be half the height and the bottom of it was 2 times thicker than the top! So needless to say, a project that I thought was going to be super quick and easy turned into something a little more challenging, but I am happy with how it came out.

The cake itself is a pumpkin spice cake with a cinnamon buttercream, which has become my new favorite cake! It is O so yummy!

Seascape Cake

I had so much fun with this cake!! I have spent most of my life living on the east coast and near the beach. The beach it is one of my favorite places to be, so I was very excited when I got an email from a friend who's wife had birthday coming up and wanted her love of the beach and seashells reflected in it. My favorite types of beaches are the ones left natural and mostly untouched, with sand dunes and fences and lots of shells to collect, so I tried to recreate that in cake. I was very happy with the results, as was the birthday girl!
Here is a close up of the adirondack chairs. They are made out of gumpaste adn really challenged my arcitectural skills (I have none! haha!). They came out great though. You can also see some of the seashells that are also made of gumpaste and hand painted. The sand is made out of 3 different types of brown sugar mixed together to give it the natural look of sand at the beach.

The cakes top tier is orange mango with vanilla buttercream and the bottom tier is a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.

It's R2D2!!

Hey look!! it's R2D2!! I am so happy that I had the opportunity to make this cake! It was for the 10th birthday for the son of a friend of mine. Their reaction when they saw it completed made my life! They were really happy with it, as was I. Halfway through this cake I thought I ruined it and wasn't going to be able to finish him on time. But I was able to fix it and keep going. And I think he turned out great! Next time I get and order for this cake I have a few tings I would change, but for my first attempt I am extremely happy with it. I can't wait to get the opportunity to do something like this again!

R2s legs are made out of molded rice krispies treats which wa fun to work with. The rest of him is cake. What a fun cake to make!!

I love how this cake came out! I haven't had much luck finding a good yellow cake or vanilla cake recipe. This cake was me experimenting with a new recipe (which I wasn't a big fan of actually). And for fun I decided to deocorate it and allow some of my young life friends to sample it as well and give me their opinions on it. I was very happy with how the cake turned out, although if you look really closely at the back of it you can see a spot that is darker blue than the rest of the cake. My little boy, he's 2, decided he didn't want to wait til it was finished to sample it and dug in for some yumminess! I was able to patch the cake, but couldn't match to color perfectly. Needless to say I was very happy that this was a practice cake and not for a customer!

Laptop Birthday Cake

I had a lot of fun with this cake, but was also pretty stressed throughout the entire process. I have never attempted a cake quite like this, so when I recieved the order I was both excited and scared to death. The first thing I had to figure out was how to get the screen to stand up. After considering many possible ways to do this, my husband ended up helping me create the screen out or cardboard and wooden dowels (my first cake with non cake elements in it!). Another challenge presented was that the cake only needed to feed a couple people. I didn't want to make a large cake knowing that most of it wasn't going to be eaten, but I also couldn't make it too small otherwise I wouldn't be able to fit in all the details. The cake ended up being 2 layers and 10in. by 7in. While there were a few minor flaws with the cake I was very pleased with how it came out and the birthday boy (Rod, whose wife surprised him with the cake) loved it. So all in all it was a great experience, and I am excited to try another one like it soon.

Gerber Daisy Cake

This cake was a lot of fun to make. I wanted to experiment with a new recipe (orange mango, yum yum) and decided to test it out by sending it to work with my husband. The recipe was a winner and I have added it to the list of cake flavors. I decided to keep the design of this cake pretty simple while still trying out a new technique. I was very happy with the results all around with this cake.

Potomac Falls High School Graduation Cake

This cake gave me some new challenges. I haven't had the opportunity to carve many cakes before, so attemping the leaning or topsy turvy look was a new experience. My first attempt at this cake failed miserably and fell into pieces! HA! Thankfully I achieved the look I was going for on my second attempt.

This a high school graduation cake. She didn't want it to look like a traditional graduation cake, but wanted the high schools colors represented (purple) and also asked for some "funky flowers".

Baby Shower Cake

Here is yet another baby shower cake. It is buttercream with fondant decorations. The cake itself is a cherry chocolate chip cake with white chocolate buttercream.

Penelope Baby Shower Cake

This baby shower cake was designed to match the bedding that the mommy-to-be chose for the babies crib.

The top picture is the front of the cake, middle is the side, and the bottom picture is the view from the back. The birds walked around the entire middle tier, and the details on each were hand painted.

You can look at a picture of the quilt it was designed after here: http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/nb15/index.cfm

Baby Shower Cake

Baby Shower Cake. The top picture is the finished cake, the middle picture is a close up of the gumpaste tennis shoes, and the bottom picture is a close up of the gumpaste baby keys.

Baby Shower Cake for a baby girl. The tennis shoes toppers are made out of gumpaste

Wedding Cake

This was a wedding cake for a spring time wedding in Washington DC. The Cherry Blossom theme went well not only with the cherry tree that bloom in DC that time of year, but also with the brides love for all things Japanese.

Birthday Cakes

Polka Dot Birthday Cake

"Old Dog Cake" struggling to blow out the candles

Puppy birthday cake

Puppies playing with bouncing balls

Striped Birthday Cake with Fondant Roses









Cinderella birthday cake.

Anniverdary Cake

A 25th wedding anniversary cake. Top layer is vanilla cake with milk chocolate buttercream icing, bottom layer is chocolate cake with milk chocolate buttercream icing

Holiday Cake

This was a holiday cake made for a family Christmas party. Red Velvet cake with vanilla buttercream icing