Anyway....I promised photos of Jesse's third birthday including his cake (my very first 3D cake ever btw) and the outfit I made to make his party theme, so here we go. :)
My son loves the Disney movie Cars so we went with a Cars theme this year, which turned out to be really fun. He was very much into the entire process helping me pick out party ware at Party City in Little Rock. Everything was "Wighning MaGween" LOL I heard it everywhere every single time he saw that little red car on anything! He wanted his "MaGween Pardy" everwhere we went. For days he'd come to me (several times a day in fact) and ask "MaGween Pardy?" This lasted even after the party because every time someone opened the fridge he'd see his cake in there and he'd start asking for a party again, lol. Think maybe he liked his party?
So, I made him his own special McQueen outfit complete with shorts and an appliqued t-shirt to match. They turned out really cute.
After posting this on Facebook, I had a friend ask me to make a set for her son and had a few comments from people when I'd run into them in person so I decided to list it in my Etsy store. If you'd like one for your own little munchkin, you can find them here.
I didn't manage to get a picture of the entire outfit on him. That boy of mine is one active little booger so most pictures wound up too blurry to use even when using the sports setting. I am going to have to find some time to learn how to use the manual settings so I can get better action shots. I did manage to snap this picture before the festivities officially began.
And this one after he opened one of his presents.
For every birthday, I search the internet for pictures of cakes in the theme of the party or, in my older girl's cases, the colors they want their party. Of course, I found all sorts of Cars cakes. In my search I ran into a blog that gave a tutorial on how to do a Cars cake in the shape of the car. I must say that it looked rather intimidating to me, but we love to go above and beyond for our little squirts so I decided I would give it a go. Honestly, I thought several times of coping out just going with something more simple simply because doing this cake intimidated me so much. I had already posted a photo of the proposed birthday cake on Facebook, however, so I couldn't very well back out, lol. Gotta show 'em I can do it, right? ;)This cake took one 9x13 cake pan and one 8x8 pan. The first hurdle was to sculpt the cake by cutting pieces of here and there and then adding cake to spots to get the basic shape of the car. I thought this part was going to make me pull out my hair, but I made it!
So, now I had to cream coat the entire thing and put it in the fridge to chill. After that I covered the entire thing in red fondant. I decided to make my life a little easier and get already made and colored fondant and I ended up using some buttercream fondant by Duff from Ace of Cakes. While fondant is not known for its flavor, I must say that this fondant was much better than the Wilton fondant I have used in the past. Of course, fondant isn't used so much for its flavor as it is for its visual appeal (imho). So, here we are after the fondant has been applied.
Now, fondant isn't the cheapest stuff in the world by any means when you are buying already made stuff so I opted for using buttercream to do the detail work. I still have a lot of my cake decorating things in Arkadelphia so I didn't have all of my bags and things and naturally didn't think about this until after I had been to three different stores to get everything I needed and was back at home - figures. So, i had one bag, ring and couplet which meant I could only ice with one color at a time. I also didn't have any vodka handy to use with my gel color so that I could paint the color onto the lightning bolt and the numbers, so mine looked more striped instead of fading from one color to the other, but no one seemed to mind (except me of course). Also, if you noticed in the first photo, the wheels fit beautifully. Umm...not so much after the fondant was put on the car and the wheels, lol. Oh well, the birthday boy loved it so I can live with that. ;)
I must say that for my first 3D cake I managed to impress myself, lol. It's far from perfect but I managed to keep my cool during the whole process, which is a miracle all its own (just ask my husband, lol). I think after doing this one, I can actually do one of those topsy turvy cakes I've wanted to do for a few years but have just been too intimidated to try. Thanks to The Fabulous Cake Lady for posting the tutorial for this on her blog. If you want to make one of these, you can find her instructions here.
In keeping with the Cars theme, I took a break from making things for customers and for my shop and made a quilt and pair of pillows for my son. Since he is quite a bit bigger than he was when I made his last set of blankets I decided he needed something much bigger that he could use for a while. Sure his baby blankets still cover him, but only if he stays perfectly still, lol.
Here is side one of his new pillows
And side two
And here is his new quilt/blanket. The back is a solid piece of black minky dimple dot so it's super soft and cuddly. (oh, and these pics are taken after it has already been washed twice)
To give you a better idea of size (it's roughly 50x60 inches), here is a picture of my son on his blanket. He's 40.5 inches tall.
Well, that is the post for today. My plan is to be back tomorrow with some more new items in the store and a new pillowcase dress I made yesterday. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day!
No comments:
Post a Comment