Bumblebee (Transformers) Cake

My friend Heather asked me to make a cake for her son JJ - he wanted a Bumblebee cake.  JJ is an awesome kid.  He is a total riot to be around, and has pretty impressive comedic timing for a kindergartner.  Needless to say, I was very happy to put a smile on his face for his Birthday!

Old Age Prank Cake

When Jen contacted me about making a Birthday cake for her friend Amy, I believe she said things like "Make it as cruel as possible!" and "She has a really great sense of humor, so don't hold back!"  We made this FUNNY cake for her as she continues her drive on the road of life...I will leave it up to you to decide if 40 is over the hill or not!

Big Top Circus Cake with Popcorn cupcakes

My neighbor Deanna loves celebrating with family and awesome cakes to go along with those gatherings.  Her and her daughter, Brittani, asked me to make a cake and coordinating cupcakes for a circus themed party for her grandson, Gavin.  We came up with a really fun cake that looked like a Big Top.  We also created little cupcakes with striped wrappers to look like popcorn cups. I gave each one a spray of yellow to give it that buttery look.

Corvette Cake!

My friend Lynn wanted a special cake to celebrate her father's 65th Birthday.  We decided on a Corvette theme.  I piped an authentic logo on the top.

 Added the Happy Birthday message....

And of course, had to find a way to include a checker pattern!   Dean loved the carrot cake as much as he loves Corvettes!

Flower Cupcake Arrangement

You can have fun with cupcakes as an arrangement.  Here I used them to make large daisy groupings.

Spring Cake

I realize by the title of this post I am terribly, horribly, behind in blogging.  Let's say I took the summer (and half the fall) off...which is ironic, because this cake is for a small business woman I very much admire, and I have truthfully asked her advice on how she does such a great job of blogging her work.  Of course I am speaking of my friend Jen Honeycutt, who takes beautiful photographs, including this one, just last month, of my family:

But onto the cake.  Jen called me because she was having a Spring party / get together, and wanted a cake for the occasion.  I love it when people chose cake for dessert, even if it's not anyone's birthday!  So I got to use some cute little spring fondant cutters that I had just purchased impulsively about 3 weeks earlier.  Funny how things can work out so perfectly sometimes.

Here's some photos of the cake!

Sheriff Callie Cake

My dear friend Janice asked me to make a Sheriff Callie Cake for her daughter's 4th  birthday.  I came up with a cake as fun as Ashling herself.  The bottom layer has a silhouette of Sparky, and a pink bandanna.  There is a metallic gold sheriff's badge with Ashling's name, and a pink cowboy hat on top.

I love delivering cakes to this family because I always get a very enthusiastic and excited reaction from Ashling when I bring in her cake.  You can see her 3rd birthday cake here.

Star Wars Cake

Fondant light sabers and authentic logo

Iron Man Cake

Last year, I made this Thomas the Train cake for Elijah:  http://pinknteal.blogspot.com/2013/04/thomas-friends-train-cake.html

This year, he was all fired up for an Iron Man cake.  How fast our kids grow up!

Gymnastics Birthday Sugar Cookie

A 12" Sugar Cookie is a yummy alternative to cake.  Decorated with buttercream and fondant.

The Lorax Birthday Cake

I made this special cake for my friend Jill, who was celebrating her little cutie Finnley's first birthday.  The Lorax is a favorite book of my daughters', too, so I really enjoyed re-creating the cover of the book in frosting for him.

This is a 9x13 layer cake, done entirely in buttercream.

Nerf Cake

I was asked  to make a cake for Clayton's Nerf Birthday Party.  We came up with a cake that is covered with the famous foam darts.  I also added some targets, and a version of the logo with Clayton's name.

Mermaid Cake with Cupcakes

My friend and wonderful customer Julie had known her daughter wanted a mermaid birthday cake for sometime.  I feel like Katelyn was telling me she wanted a mermaid cake last summer!  So once the time came, I needed to make something special.

She gave me her own Ariel doll to use for the main cake.  

I made a dozen ocean cupcakes to go with the cake. 

Oregon Ducks Cake

My friend Jona and her husband are huge Oregon Ducks fan.  If you know her, you know this about her!  So when she showed me a Duck Cake idea for her husband's birthday it was pretty obvious that it would be the perfect cake for him.

I made an 8" cake and added a dollop of extra buttercream to shape into the tail.  The head was a couple cupcakes skewered and iced.  The beak was made of gumpaste and skewered into the head.

St. Patrick's Day Sheet Cake

Lily's 5th Birthday Cake!!! (Rainbow Unicorns)

Early this year, a four year old that I am very fond of decided she was going to have a unicorn birthday when she turned five.  It had to be Rainbow Unicorns. Oh, and her name is Lily, she's also my Official Batter Removal Specialist.

A couple weeks before her birthday, we sat down together while baby sister was taking a very rare afternoon nap.  We talked about what her cake should look like.  We picked rainbow markers out and Lily drew up a plan:

She told me about the rainbow and clouds on the top cake.  The middle cake should have a unicorn with a rainbow stripe behind it.  The bottom layer (and the biggest) should be pink, and have her name in rainbow letters.    When I asked if we should put anything on the top, she drew a big 5 (we ran out of space on the top of the sheet, but it's there on the edge of the paper.)

So I took all of her vision and plugged it into this cake for my girl:

We even tinted the middle layer's vanilla cake to be rainbow colored.  This is the layer we served first at the party for the kids.  I also used this as a comprise to the birthday girl so that I could avoid that rainbow ribbon of fondant behind the unicorn. 

Another fun thing we did for Lily's birthday was make rainbow ice cream cone cupcakes.  Remember those from elementary school?  Lily helped me make them from start to finish and we took them for a special preschool birthday treat.  

I have to admit, I do go a bit over the top for my own kids cakes.  But they watch many cakes go out to other kiddos all year round, miss out on a little time with me through out the months, and always impress me (and give me great relief) that they know the dire consequences touching cakes that are for others.  So come birthday time, I try my best to give them the best cake I can!

Happy Birthday Lily, you are very loved by many :)

Uncharted Cake

I was challenged to do an Uncharted cake for Leigh's son, who is a fan of this game.  I wasn't familiar with the game, so I had to do a little research before I could get started!

Since the game is based on history and adventure, before icing the cake, I tinted the buttercream with a little ivory to give it a little bit of a rustic or parchment look.  A rope border along the bottom gave it a masculine feel, and I made Drake's ring out of Fondant sprayed metallic silver.     Along the sides of the cake, I piped some characters from the game.

Dinosaur Smash Cake

So as you may have noticed, there were a lot of little babies turning one in my life this past month!  I'll finish up my baby boom with this cute little smash cake for Peyton, the son of my dear friend Natalie.  This was a 4" round cake, iced in green with fondant feet, tail and dino head.

First Birthday Smash Cake

My friend Julie found this adorable birthday cake idea and shared it with me, for her little Andrew's 1st Birthday party.

Here's some photos of his perfectly blue and billowy cake.  On top of the cake is a jumbo-sized chocolate cupcake to be removed and used as his smash cake.

Andrew also had his first birthday pictures taken with a second smash "cupcake" I made.  You can check out the pictures here:  http://lifeoflilo.blogspot.com/2014/03/andrew-turns-one.html  He is such an adorable little guy, I love his hair and those perfect bottom middle teeth.  

Photo Credits: Lilo Photography  http://www.photolilo.com/

3-D Football sheet cake

I made another birthday cake for Joanna, this time for her son Alex, who wanted a Football theme:

The effect is a football "bursting" out of the sheet cake, which is a 1/4 sheet cake decorated to look like a football field.  The football was baked using Wilton's Football pan.  I also found the plastic goal posts at the cake supply store.

Even though this isn't a traditional tiered cake, it was assembled using dowel rods for support and stability- you always want to be sure that the sheet cake can hold the weight of the cake on top, also prevent sliding or movement of the cake on top.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This is a favorite children's book for many:


A friend of mine who lives in my neighborhood asked me to make a Hungry Caterpillar cake topper and a basic white smash cake for her little guy's first birthday.

I love the way Nicole picked The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a theme for the birthday party.  Babies don't always have a favorite toy, animal, color, or ( hopefully) cartoon yet- but I'm sure almost all of them have a book that Mom and Dad love reading to them the most.  Such a special theme for a First Birthday party!

Black Belt Celebration Cake

My Uncle Gary made a trip to Colorado recently to attend his grandson's Black Belt ceremony.  He asked me to make a special cake to surprise him!  I contacted his grandson's instructor and got the logo to use for the cake.  It was a very detailed logo, so I captured it as well as I could in buttercream and a little bit of sugar paper for the black border:

Valentine's Day Sheet Cake

Here is a simple 1/4 sheet cake for a Valentine's Day office party:

First Birthday Cake - Pink and Yellow Ombre Cake

I was asked by Joanna to make her sweet little Emme's first birthday cake for her party, and also a matching smash cake for her one-year old pictures.  Joanna had picked out pastel pinks and yellows and wanted to incorporate the colors into an ombre-style ruffle cake.  I loved this cake so much, it turned out so pretty and extremely girly.   Click here to visit the photographer's site and to see all the gorgeous photos.




I also took some of my own photos of the matching cake set I created for Emme's actual birthday party.

But for some reason my pictures are just lacking something, so I will close with a couple more shots of the BEST part about cake:  eating it.  Happy Birthday Emme!

Thanks again to Sharon Arnoldi for these great photos and allowing me to use them here.
You can visit Sharon's photography blog here:  http://sharonsphoto.blogspot.com/