A camera cake for the photographer!

Wait a minute. I haven't thought about this until now but.. Adriane seems to be getting me most of my business. With her step-father's cake, Ella's Turtle Cake, and now this work of art. I was asked to make this cake for a man that was a photographer for The Capital Gazette for 28 years! I actually had a lot of fun with this cake. It was a lot of work! Lots of small details, and little things to pay close attention to. I ended up finishing the cake at 4am, and finally stepping away from it.. and hating it! The desk and the camera were made of cake. The lens of the camera I tried making out of cake, but that didn't work out so well. I then tried to make it just of fondant. Again, bad idea. I let it sit over night, came to work the next day, and beat myself up thinking about it for hours! Finally, I decided to use Styrofoam. Now before you freak out, many people that make big cakes that start becoming heavy in certain areas do use Styrofoam. When I heard this the first time I was like "Oh my. Never! Not my cakes!" Yeah well. That didn't last long. These things get heavy! It ended up working out perfectly! Exactly how I wanted it to look. AGAIN, my camera decided to continue it's dormant state of broken slumber. These are from Adriane's camera at the Federal House in Annapolis. Love that place!

I think I might be getting a little better at this! :-)

Ella Smella's Birthday!

This turtle had one hell of a drive! It was made here, and transported all the way to NY all in one piece. THANK GOD! I get so nervous when they travel outside of my kitchen. So, my camera bit the dust, and I couldn't take any photo's of this cake. I must say, great photography skills with the Blackberry Adriane! A++!

She smudged the writing, and now it looks silly. But the turtle is still uber cute!

He has a smiley face if you can't see.

I was going to make more of a real life type turtle, but that's no fun for someone just turning 4! So, I threw some fun colors and flowers in there too. Just something different and fun.

Julie's Raven's Party

Everyone had to bring something to the big Raven's playoff party. So, naturally, I offered my cake sevices! And in leu of the big occasion, I made a # 5 Flacco jersey! I thought it looked pretty cool! Not a perfect representation of a real football jersey but hey! I'm gettin the hang of things!

#5!

Too bad they lost, but the cake was delicious!

Aloha & Happy Birthday Mark!

Well! This was a fun cake to do! My best friend Adriane came to me and asked me to make a cake for her step-father's birthday. Well of course! They were leaving for Hawaii about a week later, so what a better theme then a Hawaiian "Tommy Bahama" shirt to celebrate a birthday and send off! We made the lei out of "kona beans" instead of flowers because well, let's face it, that would have been a little too girlie!

Just little cupcakes to go with the theme of the cake. They were mini cupcakes. This picture does them no justice to how CUTE they were!

The colors were amazing!

Welcome Home Uncle Eric!

This is possibly my favorite cake that I have done so far. Granted, I've only really made 10 professional one's so far... I can still have a favorite! Uncle Eric came home from being over seas in the Navy for what felt like forever! Uncle Eric isn't really my uncle, but he sure does feel like it. I love him as if he were my family. The Chamberlain's were throwing a welcome home party, so I quickly volunteered for the job! He sure seemed to love it! I hope so, because I certainly did! This is a french vanilla cake with butter cream icing, covered in marshmellow fondant. The "camo cupcakes" are triple chocolate with butter cream icing.

A side shot of how tall this thing was!

I will be blogging about my frustrations on my crappy photo's of my cakes at a later date, but.. this is just blurry and horrible! ANYWAY, I made him a name tag on the bottom of the cake, with the infamous last name of CHAMBERLAIN of course!

My little set up to take pictures. Can't wait to get my new camera. Maybe my pictures won't look like they were taken by a 5 year old.

So I play around with at least one of my cake pictures in photo shop. This was my favorite cake, and my favorite picture of this cake! The others don't give the colors of the cake justice!

This cake taught me a lot about becoming more patient with my cakes, and the time it takes for them to look exactly how I want them to look. And most importantly, trust my gut. I always second guess myself about a certain color, or placement of this or that, or some little detail, but I just need to go with it! The FIRST time it crosses my mind.

Josh's Mom's Birthday!

Ok ok. So I'm not AMAZING at this.. yet. But here was my attempt at a little rose garden for Josh's mom's birthday cake. All of the roses were hand made from 3 different colored fondants. I could have make more to fill in those spaces, but my fingers might have fallen off! I though it turned out pretty cute. The more cakes I do, the more I learn. So I guess I'm doing exactly what I should be! It was yummy, so I guess I didn't go too wrong. :-)

I thought the roses looked great! They were a little too sweet to eat, but who would want to eat something that pretty anyway? ;-)

Christi's baby shower!

Look at those toes! AH! CUTE!

Fondant babies, and baby butt topper!

Another amazing cake by Patty, with the help of my fondant talent. I will have to ask her for a picture of the cake, but I made more babies, and a fondant baby butt as her cake topper! It's just too cute!

Just for fun..

The cherry blossom tree cake. Or something like it.

My ghetto flowers that didn't turn out the way I thought they would.

Before it was smoothed and decorated.

This cake was just for fun. I was playing with colors and flowers. I can tell you this, I learned A LOT about flowers after this. It's all about making it, eating it, and learning more about it!

It's a babyshower!

It's finished!

Patty picked the perfect color blue!

Budda baby front and center.

I made one baby fatter then the others and dubbed it "Budda Baby." See him?

Making little fondant babies! 5 hours later!

First time with fondant. Wasn't as easy as I thought...

I dream of cakes..

Well, now that I've turned my kitchen into one of the biggest disasters this Earth has ever seen, I guess I should start showing off the things that come about me being wide eyed and bushy tailed at 4am making cakes! Although it's A LOT of work, and the poor kitchen looks like a deserted battlefield dropped with bombs of sugar and icing and blown up with countless grenades of cake batter and crumbs, I actually love every minute. The kitchen is the one place that I seem to find peace. I find my creative abilities endless, and time infinite. I could actually sit in front of a cake for hours, before deciding just the right color, or decoration, or theme. There is so much more to it than just cake and icing. Pshht. There's a lot more to it! But I seem to have found something that I'm quite gifted at, and something that I actually love to do. Who knew that was even possible! So, here's my little blog, for my little cakes, for my little talent that I hope one day can all grow into something fantastic!

Check back with updates of pictures and stories on all of my cakes, recipes, and fun adventures in the kitchen!