Oh my! Where has the time gone? My day job keeps me pretty busy, but I have managed a wee bit of creative stuff (even if I haven’t managed to reopen my online shop)
I am still in love with miniature work and have done a couple of Very Berry Handmade hoop and artist trading card swaps…as well as a gift of some really minute embroidered brooches.
I love embroidering animals – particularly birds and this kingfisher was one of my favourites.
There have been a few cards and pet portraits…
…and the days when I wake up with an image in my head and just want to give it a go!
A couple of my friends have had babies…which always calls for turning soft gloves in to cats and dogs!
However, the outstanding memory will be my ‘Summer of Cakes’. I only make cakes for friends and family – not a business – but there have been quite a few this Summer. I have been decorating cakes since I was a child; my first wedding cake being my sister’s wedding cake when I was 16.
This Summer’s wedding cakes called for modelling…both in fondant…
…and in paper.
And now? Well now it is full steam ahead towards Christmas!
I have been making and decorating cakes almost as long as I remember, but most particularly since I decorated my sister’s wedding cake (30 years ago this year!). My kitchen is not suitable for a cake-making business – too small and no suitable storage – but I like to make them for friends and family, and well they are craft of a sort.
This weekend is Mark’s mum and dad’s golden wedding anniversary, so I made a cake for the party. A little under-stated number with just a hint of gold lustre spray, edible gold leaf and an icing flower or two…
congratulations on 50 golden years!edible gold leaf on icing butterflygilded butterflygolden 50
As I have cake on my mind (and edible glitter everywhere!) I thought I would pick a few favourites from the hundreds of cakes I have made over the years to share with you.
a gallery of cakes
I made this one for my colleague’s dad’s birthday – it’s made of sponge cake covered with fondant icing, with marzipan head and hands.
StanStan
Nemo for our old receptionist’s grand daughter – nobody wanted to cut this one.
Nemo
..and he looked so cute peeping out of the cake box!
Pleeeeease don’t eat me!
My ‘speciality’ is modelling people from sponge cake – these two are old work colleagues.
Mr Vboss’s 50th
Sometimes I paint straight on to fondant icing with food colouring:
leaving to have a baby cakeQueen’s jubileedog cake
Sometimes I model in marzipan, which I then paint with food colouring:
Tiggerpiglet and pooh
I sometimes make wedding cakes – plenty of icing roses and I model the bride and groom from paper (not edible paper as it dissolves too easily)
rose wedding cakeNicki’s top tier
This one was for a fellow quilter.
quilting cake
The penguin slide is my most requested Christmas cake design:
penguin slide
You can’t go wrong with a few icing flowers.
Anne’s 70th
Finally I sometimes make cupcakes too – these spaghetti and meatballs (ferrero rocher chocolates in strawberry jam with grated white chocolate) were for comic relief.
spaghetti and meatballs cupcakes
and these garden cupcakes were for my brother in law’s birthday a few years’ back.
garden cup cakes
I think I should stop now; after all too much cake is not good for you!