Just call me Martha

Polkadot and balloon 1st birthday party

2012-02-07T14:42:00.005+11:00

This weeks adorable cake and sweets was requested for a girls 1st birthday party. The theme was balloons and polkadots and the brief was simple, minimalistic with lots of white and a hint of pink. The cake was a lovely fresh raspberry buttercake and complimented with mini vanilla cupcakes.

I also made some matching balloon shaped white sprinkle pops, flavour Oreo and raspberry swirls.

The miniature balloon cookies were simply embossed with a letter T or a number 1.

For the favour bags I created these cute but very simple polkadot balloon cookies. The polkadot image was printed on edible paper and then applied to the cookie surface.

I enjoyed making these simple but sweet treats, sometimes less is more :-)

Happy New Year

2012-01-25T13:00:00.002+11:00

Happy new year everyone!!

Next week all the kiddies go back to school and I'll be back to crafting, baking and styling again. Some exciting things in the pipeline for Just call me Martha this year and hopefull I'll be able to share some of the goodies with you as they happen in the 1st part of the year.

So far in 2011 I've completed my 1st goal and that is to have my kitchen registered. So as of this month I am an officially registered kitchen yay..... I still have a lot of things I want to do and my list is as long as my arm but one step at a time I say :-)

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled as I will be posting some lovely blog posts over the next few weeks.

xxxxxx
Leoni

Ginger spice cookie house recipe

2011-12-20T12:07:00.009+11:00

Ginger spice cookie houses

200g butter softened
200g brown sugar
1 egg lightly beaten
400g plain flour sifted
1 tablespoon crushed ginger (I use the ones from the jar)
2 tsps of All spice (or you can mix some cinnamon and clove together to make up 2 tsps)
1 tablespoon Golden syrup
Template for the house can be found on Torie Jayne's blog

1) Cream butter and sugar untill mixed and creamy but do not overbeat.

2) add egg untill combined and then sift in the flour, ginger and All Spice.

3) mix with your hands till a dough forms, if its a little dry add the 1 tablespoon of syrup. Gather into a ball, wrap in clingwrap and pop in the fridge for atleast 1 hour.

4) Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius

5) Roll out dough to about 5mm thick and cut out gingerbread house shapes. Template can be found on Torie Jayne's blog, its still by far the cutest and easiest template to make and use :-)

6) Pop on a tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 12-15 minutes (my oven is gas and it took 15 min)

This yields 2 small houses or 1 big house. Its more a ginger spice cookie recipe rather than a proper gingerbread recipe as I find it is sturdier than the standard gingerbread recipe. I found it easier to use with less breakage when handeling the different walls and roof pieces. It also remains flat and won't spread while baking.

Oreo pops I made for Kindy

2 packets of Oreo cookies
3/4 packet cream cheese
1 bag of Nestle milk chocolate buttons
1 bag of pretzels, broken in half to form antlers
1 bag of mini m&m's
50g of white fondant (for the eyes)
22 x lollypop sticks
1 x styrofoam dummy cake (for pops to dry on)
black edible texta

1) In a food processor mix the 2 packets of Oreos untill it resembles fine crumbs

2) add softened 3/4 packet cream cheese and mix into the Oreo crumbs till a soft dough forms

3) roll round balls the size of a standard walnut and pop them on some greaseproof paper and pop them in the fridge for 10 minutes.

4) Remove your Oreo balls from the fridge and set aside. Melt bag of nestle choc buttons in a medium bowl (make sure its clean and dry)

5) Now dip each lollypop stick in the melted chocolate and then pop them into each Oreo ball. Leave to harden for 5 minutes.

6) Dip each Oreo pop in the melted chocolate and gently tap on the side of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. While the chocolate is still soft (but not dripping) pop a mini m&m for the nose, place the pop upright in a styrofoam dummy cake and gently press in some pretzel antlers.

7) Let the pop dry completely.

8) Once dry, roll out tiny balls of white fondant and stick 2 balls onto each pop with some sugar glue to form the eyes. Use a toothpick to indent the pupil, I also used a toothpick dipped in black food colouring to emphasise each pupil.

9) Using a black edible texta draw each mouth on the pops.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE :-)

xxx

Leoni

Merry Christmas - Delftware luncheon

2011-12-09T17:11:00.013+11:00

Theme: Baby Hugo’s first Christmas – Delft blue

*********As featured by Amy Atlas Events ***********

Styled by:
Louisa and Melissa from The Little Big Company http://www.tlbc.com.au/
Lilian from Lily Chic Event http://www.shoppewithlily.com.au/
Leoni from Just call me Martha http://www.justcallmemarthaa.blogspot.com/

What do you get when Little big Company, Lily Chic Events and Just call me Martha collaborate? A lot of fun and laughter and this lovely Christmas lunch created for baby Hugo who will be celebrating his first Christmas with his parents this year.The inspiration for the Christmas lunch came from the blue and white pottery called Delftware (Delft pottery) which is made in and around Delft in the Netherlands, since baby Hugo’s mum was born there. The luncheon was very intimate and fun with each guest bringing along a homemade favourite family recipe to share at the party.

Close up of the gingerbread house on top of the main cake.

Double stacked Christmas fruit cake with ginger bread house with hand painted details, the first time I've tried to paint details like this onto a cake. Not easy!! lol

Gorgeous Liandra holding some vintage baubles. Dress by Itchykoo.

Mini Christmas cake parcels.

Some of the food on the table was mini Fruit cake parcels, Spice cookie baubles (traditional Dutch cookie recipe), ginger cookie Delft baubles, lamington pops (a nod at baby Hugo’s Australian heritage), coconut snow cupcakes, passion fruit Cheesecake, cherry & fig Christmas pudding, vanilla bean and caramel eggnog and the show stopper cake, a double stacked Christmas fruit cake with ginger bread house with hand painted details! Yumm!

Close up of the spice cookies with delft edible image. I loved how they turned out.

To keep cost down the crackers on the dining table were home made using craft toilet rolls, fabric and scrapbook paper. We also used a Christmas printable set created by Ham and Pea Design & Paperie to embellish the crackers and dress up the dessert and main table.

See this party in print in the Peekaboo magazine please visit website for subscription details or where you can pick up a copy of the magazine.

Photography by Clair Bremner http://www.clairbremner.com/

Vendor list:
Styling/stock and food by
The Little Big Company
Lily Chic Events
Just call me Martha
Photography: Clair Bremner – See be Art
Printables: Ham and Pea Design & Paperie
Felt items: My Sweet Tashie
Christmas dress: Itchykoo

Advent tutorial - recycled tins

2011-12-09T16:33:00.010+11:00

For the past 4 years we have been doing advent calendars in my household, each year we choose a different theme and holder. We've had the traditional mini santa stockings, we've done mis-matching socks on pegs, we've done mini boxes and this year recycled tins. In fact, with 4 young children I find it challenging to come up with something big enough each year that will hold 4 x lollies on some of the advent days. Our advent is also different in that it doesn't contain lollies for each day, this is purely out of neccesity as the advent use to sag with the weigh of 4 x lollies x 24 days lol. Instead, each year, half the days contain notes and the other half lollies, it is all mixed up so my girls never know which day will be a note or which day will be a lolly.

The notes usually contain activities such as:
- See the Christmas lights
- Have a picnic dinner in the garden or on the living room floor
- You choose what's for dinner
- ice cream sundae for dessert tonight
- day at the beach today
- day at the pool today
- Make a gingerbread house today
- make Christmas cookies
- choose a gift for the poor from the wishing tree today
- $5 Kriss Kringle, you choose the gift and then swap with your sister
- Pick a movie to watch (can be a new DVD to rent or at the movie hall)
- Put up the Christmas tree, each child has to make an ornament for the tree
- Go to the zoo

Here is a cute tutorial of this years advent calendar, its very simple and costs little to no money and is environmentally friendly :-)

Step 1:
Gather your supplies, you will need
24 x empty, clean cans with labels removed.
Some fabric scraps
Some ribbon and lace scraps
Elastic bands
Scissors
Glue
2” inch round scallop cutter
Some paper
Pencil
Step 2: Pop your tin on some paper and draw a border around the shape of your tin which is 2”inch wider than your tin.
Cut out your paper circle as this will now be your template for cutting your fabrics.

Step 3 : Iron your fabric scrap and pin your circle template to the fabric and cut around the circle. You will need 24 circles, one for each tin.

Step 4: On your computer create the numbers 1 to 24 in fancy font and print out on an A4 sheet. Using your scallop cutter, cut out each number for each tin.

Step 5: Fill your tin with a treat or a secret memo (such as “tonight we will visit and see the Christmas lights”), then place the circle fabric over the opening of the tin and secure with a thin elastic.
Tie a pretty ribbon into a bow around the tin and elastic to hide it. Stick down your scallop paper with number and tie some pretty lace or ric rac around the bottom of each tin.

Step 6: Stack your tins into the shape of a Christmas tree, with no 1 on the top and the numbers 18 – 24 on the bottom.

Aqua and orange cake + dollhouse goodies

2011-11-11T06:51:00.006+11:00

Here are a few things that have kept me busy these past few weeks. A gorgeous bright 50th birthday cake for a close friend of mine. Her party was on ladies Oak's day so I wanted something showy and bright as a topper so made a bright orange magnolia with peacock feathers as accent. Cake was white choc mud filled with strawberry buttercream.

Close up of the magnolia, yes I know they don't come in this colour ;-)

Next some rainbow cookies........

and some doll pops for a dollhouse party styled by Little Big Company. Lou and Mel had the party featured on Amy Atlas this week, well done ladies :-)

and this is the dollhouse cake I made for the dollhouse party. White mudcake, raspberry buttercream and white choc fondant, it ended up being one HEAVY cake!!

Photography by Casamento Photography.

Gorgeous rainbow party by Inviteme

2011-10-31T19:19:00.009+11:00

A couple of months ago I shared with you Inviteme's Snow white party which I thought was super cute with some very clever ideas. Today I wanted to show you the rainbow party Simone from Inviteme created for her daughter. I particularly love this party because it can easily be re-created by anyone without having to spend thousands of dollars on props. Mind you if you did want some party props to go along with the printables, Inviteme has a lovely selection to choose from :-)

How gorgeous is this cake! I love how lollies was used as accent to create the rainbow colours on this cake. No fancy fondant work, no hoity-toity modelled flower, just scrummy cake and lollies. Simplicity at its best!

Love these cute drinks, I know my daughter would love to drink from rainbow coloured bottles.

Another cute idea, heavenly marshmallows, makes me want to dive right in. Yummm (psssst, might sneakily file this away to make myself one day).

All up a fantastic party Simone :-) I love what you created for your daughter and I bet she loved it too.

xxx

Cake, cake and MORE cake - Kikki K party

2011-10-23T17:20:00.009+11:00

Well its been another busy few weeks in our household, school holidays came and went, a visit from MIL, hubby was home for 4 weeks and then plenty of cakes to make. Last week I had the honor of making Kikki K's 10 year anniversary cake, it wasn't only a massive challenge but a lot of fun. Today I was lucky enough to spot this article in The Sunday Age about my cake. How exciting!

I was asked to create edible stationary for a desk that would be on display at the main entrance of the venue. So I proceeded to make some folders, magazine holder, storage boxes, pens, scissors, to-do-list, rubber stamps, 3 am book and calculator. All up I was busy for 2 weeks prepping and making the sugar items and then 4 days non stop baking and covering of cakes. My poor oven still hasn't quite recovered lol I went through 22 kilos of fondant and about 50 eggs and I shudder to think how much butter and sugar went into all this :-)

Here is a close up of the 3am book and rubber stamps, 100% edible made from cookies and fondant.

My favourite item, cookie calculator covered in fondant and numbers + writing made from edible paper. It looked so real everyone kept touching it.

80 favour boxes made to look like miniature Kikki K storage boxes, these almost did my head in!! Thank you Kristina for believing in me and trusting me to make your cake, I am truly humbled xxx

This is another cake I completed yesterday, for a 40th birthday party. Oh how I struggled making this cake due to fatigue. I just could NOT for the life of me cover the main cake on Friday, I tried 3 times and gave up, then went on to making the toppers and ruined all the edible images beyond repair (all 21 of them!) and then burnt dinner. I had a good cry and called it a day. I did however wack another cake in the oven in case the 1st cake would collapse after being recovered for the 4th time. In the morning I managed to save the bottom part of the cake (the top was mangled after pulling off the icing) and I trimmed it + popped on the freshly baked cake I made the night before. This time I was able to cover the cake within 10 minutes. I baked the cupcakes, iced them, made the toppers and the topper for the cake all before 3pm, 1 hour before it was due PHEW! I originally was going to paint the image onto the cake with edible paste but due to time constraints had to settle for an edible image placed on a fondant plaque.

Close up of one of the cupcakes, edible image using blue bird design from Jesska Hoff's artwork. My husband was kind enough to hotfoot down to Boronia to get the edible images reprinted, this saved me a lot of time.

Another request I had was for these cute Super Hero cookies, cake and cupcakes for Little Sooties Super Hero party which was later featured on Amy Atlas :-) Thetis from Little Sooti had done a wonderful job styling the party :-)

October cakes

2011-10-11T20:29:00.008+11:00

Some more lovely goodies to show you this month. This lovely cake was made for my daughter's grade 1 teacher Ms Fitzgerald, its a 6" inch vanilla sponge with vanilla bean buttercream icing and covered in white choc fondant. The matching cupcakes were made for the class.

Took me AGES to make the flowers for the mini bouquet, but it was done in the end. I still struggle with blending my colours, so need to practice with that.

These cute cupcakes were baked for a fundraiser for the Cancer Council Fund, the theme was "a little bit of pink".

This gorgeous + fun cake was made for Kikki K's CREATE Photobook range which was launched recently. I loved making this photo album and camera cake.

Close up of the camera cakelett, cake on the inside, fondant on the outside.

Matching camera cupcakes in orange blossom flavour with orange zest buttercream topping.

Princess castle and In the night garden cakes

2011-09-17T19:59:00.011+10:00

Sorry for being missing in action folks but its been one hectic month so far. I completed a wedding shoot with Lily Chic Events a few weeks back (I've shared the photos in the next post below), did some sample cakes for a big event in October, completed an In the Night garden themed cake and cookies, created an album cake + camera cupcakes (will show them at a later date when I get permission), completed a Princess castle cake, cupcakes, cookies and pops AND a super hero cake, cupcakes and cookies (can't show them yet) + prepped for a Christmas photo shoot coming up next week. Its enough to make me stress lol

Anyway, first up is this cute as a button castle cake, the design is from the lovely Debbie Brown as I have her book "Gorgeous and Gruesome". Its a 6" inch round triple stacked double choc cake with fudge choc buttercream icing and covered in white choc fondant.
This cake took me AGES to complete, I completely under estimated the time it would take to do all the small details, it simply took forever! It was however a super fun cake to make and I made it in the colours of the birthday girl Hanna's party which is red, white and pink.

Close up of the figurine, I was quite happy with how she turned out, I still need to improve my figurine limbs, they still look a little too "stiff" for my liking.

I also created these super cute matching princess pops. It is pink coconut ice covered in skin tone white chocolate and yellow chocolate hair. The nose, crown and lips is made from white choc fondant and the eyes from edible pen.

Then some matching mini raspberry compote cupcakes with fresh raspberry compote buttercream.

Mtaching cookies, I seriously need to do a piping class, I still struggle with piping to the point that I am getting scared to do it lol

In the night garden cookies I made last week.

Matching In the night garden birthday cake.

Hope you enjoyed the photo's, lots more to come so I'll post them as I get more time to do so.

xxx

Leoni

Black & white TIME wedding shoot.

2011-09-17T18:08:00.021+10:00

Another feature on the Amy Atlas website, wow! I was so happy to see our wedding photo shoot featured by the lovely Amy and her team, it always gives me a thrill to be featured. Thank you Amy and team :-))

A few weeks ago Lillian from Lily Chic Events and I put together this classy yet fun wedding shoot at the Woodlands Golf Club in Mordialloc. The theme was TIME with the colour pallette being back & white with pops of bright colour. Suzanna from Mon Tresor provided the gorgeous printables for the shoot.

Rose and strawberry meringue kisses

Chocolate and hazelnut wedding bon-bons

Zesty orange macarons with creamy orange filling

Gorgeous 3 tier wedding cake I designed for the shoot, I wanted something simple, elegant yet with a modern wow factor.

This gorgeous vintage button and brooch bouquet was supplied by Lillybuds Bespoke Button Bouquets and Brooch Bouquets, isn't it gorgeous? I love this piece and kept photographing it lol

Gorgeous flowers were arranged by Lillian herself (Lily Chic Events), Lil is one seriously talented lady who can do almost anything!

Here you can see Mon Tresors printables in action, isn't it lovely? Great job Suzanna ;-), all the crockery and party ware can be found in Lillian's shop called Shoppe with Lily.

Background fabric in the three frames on the wall is from Thea and Sami, LOVE their fabric!!

My Raspberry parfaits displayed on Lillians lovely lacy platter, I LOVE this platter from Shoppe with Lily

Remember how I was looking for black Japanese soup spoons recently? Well I could not for the life of me find any so popped the vanilla bean mousse on edible dark choc spoons instead. Yummy!

Some of the subtle hints at the TIME theme, cupcakes with clock toppers (all edible).

Black and white sugar cookies, some were embossed while others had edible prints on them.

I hope you enjoyed sharing some of the photo's we took of the wedding shoot.

xxxx

Leoni

Inviteme - Snow White party feature

2011-08-29T17:55:00.011+10:00

Inviteme.com.au is the brainchild of two busy working mums Simone Norris and Amanda Edwards. Both were inspired and united by a love of beautiful things and driven by the desire to provide the kind of quality and originality they demanded for their own children – but could never find.

Inviteme is an online partyware store full of beautiful invitations, decorations and supplies for any occasion ~ birthdays of all ages, christenings, kitchen teas and more. So if you are looking for something but can't seem to find it then hop on over to the Inviteme online shop.

I wanted to share a gorgeous Snow White party these ladies threw for Simone's daughter Tessa who was a little Snow White "obsessed". Apparently Tessa wore her Snow White dress-up costume for six months straight, with the only washing opportunity arising after she’d gone to bed. She has worn three separate costumes into the ground and regularly points at pictures of Snow White in books crying out ‘Look, that’s me!” So a Snow White party theme was the only option to cure Tessa's obsession.

I think both ladies did a wonderful job bringing Snow White to life. I adore the gorgeous invite you can see above, simple and not overly "cutesy". How cute are those drinks labelled "Poison Potion", it even looks like poison, love it!

Some of the food included Fruits of the forest – fresh fruit including grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. Small bowls of lollies labelled ‘Ravishing Raspberries’ for jube raspberries; white jelly beans are ‘Snow White Drops’; Candy apple lollypops are ‘Candy Apples’; ‘Strawberries & Cream’ and adorable label toffee apples ‘Pick your poison apple’. Very clever indeed.

Love the take home favour boxes with Snow White tags, they look adorable.

I love this Miniature Snow White dolly varden birthday cake by Cakes of our lives. They also made the super lovely Cupcakes you can see above and the apple-shaped cookies on a stick and love-heart biscuits below.

Fun and frivolity, princess style, here are some of the activities that were done at the party

- Colouring in: To help our guests get in the party mood, we set up textas and pencils and had our guests start some colouring in.
- Pin the jewel on the crown: Draw up a stylised crown containing a large jewel. Attach the crown to a wall and give each guest a jewel. Write each guest’s name on their jewel and put some blue-tack on the back. Blindfold them, give them a couple of royal spins and tell them to stick the jewel on the crown.
- Treasure hunt: A winner every time, tell guests the Royal Family has lost their treasure and needs help finding it. Hide jewels, crowns, chocolate gold coins and other knick-knacks around the garden and ask everyone to return the lost items to the ‘treasure chest’ in the centre of the yard. Once everything has been found, let the royal gathering choose an item from the chest. The remaining items can act as prizes for other games.
- Pass the poison apple: A spin on ‘pass the parcel’, hand an apple around a group sitting in a circle and every time the music stops the person left holding the apple is removed from the game. Make them feel better about going out by inviting them to pick a prize from the treasure chest.

VENDORS

Cakes of Our Lives
Miniature Snow White dolly varden birthday cake
Cupcakes, apple-shaped cookies on a stick and love-heart biscuits

Details Details
Tins and black and white ribbon for take-home gifts
Green candy-striped straws

Cakes Around Town
White tin cake stands and lace-detailed cupcake wrappers

Styling, invites and party paperwork by INVITEME

You can find Inviteme's shop HERE or go to their BLOG or FACEBBOOK page to like them

Well done ladies, gorgeous party styling xxx

Hollywood cake and Topsy turvy leopard cake

2011-08-26T13:56:00.007+10:00

Another busy week has flown by! First a photo shoot with the lovely Lilian from Lily Chic Events last Sunday, can't wait to share those pics with you all, it looked AMAZING!

Then it was busy creating the above topsy turvy leopard print cake for my friends daughter who turns 16 this weekend. Everything on the cake is edible, cake is choc mud covered in choc ganache and then covered in white choc fondant. First time I've made a topsy turvy cake and first time I've had to paint a leopard print :-) Making (carving) the cake kinda freaked me out a little but the "painting" of the leopard print was very easy. I used edible brown colouring paste mixed with vodka for the leopard print pattern.

Another cake I was working on is this film reel cake for a Hollywood 40th birthday bash. I am so pleased how this turned out, I saw an example at Cakes Crazy during my google image search and tried to recreate it for this birthday, I think I came pretty close. The reels are 2 x vanilla cakes with vanilla bean buttercream frosting and 1 x red velvet cake also filled with vanilla bean buttercream and covered in white choc ganache. All cakes then covered in fondant and edible wafer paper (the photos). Once again everything is edible, except the top cake's silver spoke, it threatened to crack and break so I had to pop it on a cardboard cakeboard for support before placing it on top of the cake. The other silver spokes are 100% edible, made from modelling past (with some tylos powder) and edible silver lustre dust. Clapper board is black fondant and chocolate with edible "chalk" writing. Not an overly difficult cake to make just very time consuming and you have to be very accurate. Close enough is not good enough if you are going to attempt this cake. The hardest part in making this cake is the stacking part, I tried to work out how to stack it without the edible spokes breaking and cracking on the bottom two cakes. In the end I used a "floating" stack technique used for wedding cakes where the cake maker usually assembles the cakes at the venue. I found this the safest option as well as making the transportation of the cakes easier and less heavy (this baby weighs a tonne!!).

A MASSIVE thank you to Little Big Company for doing the graphics for the film reel cake, without their help the images would not have looked so real and professional.

Spring birdy Christening cupcakes and cake

2011-08-12T11:59:00.009+10:00

THREE weeks till SPRING!!!!! Yay, can you tell I can't wait lol :-))

So what is more perfect than a gorgeous spring Christening cake like the one I've just completed. Oh how I loved making this cake and cupcake set, this was so much fun. The theme is birds (well derrr lol) with a vintage, whimsical and Spring touch. I am so happy how this cake set turned out, it is exactly how I imagined it in my head.

Here is one of the bird fondant toppers I made, a bit different from the usual ones I made as I thought I needed to update my collection of designs. LOVE this colour!

Ah, the tweety cake topper. It's a mix of designs I've made in the past, part "A little Sweetness", and part "Debbie Brown" , isn't it cute?

The top tier is a 6' inch x 3 white mudcakes stacked, covered in white choc ganache and covered in pale pink fondant. The design is my own, the brief was dainty, bespoke, delicate with flowers and butteflies. I used Darla Rose fabric on the cupcake tower supports as the Christening favours were made from the same type of fabric.

A mix of cupcake toppers, some birds are hand painted, some used custom transfer sheets, and some were embossed. I also made some roses, blossoms and delicate butterflies. Cupcakes were lemon with lemon zest buttercream, raspberry with raspberry compote frosting and caramel with caramel-toffee buttercream. Yummmm!!!!!!

For the cupcake tower tutorial please see below :-))

Cupcake tower tutorial

2011-08-12T11:10:00.006+10:00

I get asked many times how I make my custom cupcake towers so decided to do a mini tutorial for you. Here it is :-))

Step 1: Gather your equipment, you will need

- Masonite cakeboards (I usually have the sizes 6" inches for the top tier where the cake sits on top, 8" inches for the 2nd tier, 10" inches for the 3rd tier and 12"inches for the bottom tier.)

- 4 x dummy cakes (foam dummies) (mine are usually 5" inches for the top, 6" inches for the 2nd tier support, 8" inches for the 3rd tier support and 10" inches for the bottom tier)

- Scissors

- Pencil

- Fabric

- Glue (I use glue stick and craft glue

- Tape measure

- Trim/ribbon for each board

Step 2: Iron your cakeboard fabric (mine is white) and take your 1st board and trace onto the back of the fabric lightly using a pencil. Cut around the traced line leaving about 1 inch gap (see step 2 photo)

Step 3: Using your scissors cut about 1inch slits right around your fabric circle till it looks like the photo in Step 3. This is to make it easier for you to glue the fabric around the circular shaped board without the fabric pukering up. Lay your cakeboard shiny side down onto the back of your fabric lining it up with your traced pencil lines. Glue the slitted fabric using your craft glue to the cakeboard, gently pull the fabric tight as you keep gluing it around but take care not to move the board out of the traced pencil line or your fabric will be glued unevenly to the board. I find if you start on one end of the board, then move to the opposite side, glueing as you go will prevent the board from slipping.

Step 4: Iron your next piece of fabric to be used around the dummies. Using your measuring tape, measure the circumfrence of the foam dummy making sure you add an extra 1 inch so the fabric overlaps when you wrap it around the dummy. Now measure the hight adding about 1/2 an inch to both top and bottom. Transfer the measurements onto the BACK of your patterned fabric with a pencil making sure its accurate. I draw some light lines with my pencil as a guide before cutting my fabric (see Step 4 photo). Cut out your fabric and iron it flat again.

Step 5: Now iron your fabric, 1/2 an inch in from the top and bottom creating a ironed seam on both top and bottom.

Step 6: Using your glue stick, cover the surface of the foam dummy (don't use very strong glue for this or it will MELT your foam) Now place one end of the fabric on your foam dummy and gently wrap the fabric around the dummy. Smooth the fabric out but don't tug too hard or you'll warp the fabric too much causing lots of puckering and wrinkeling.

Step 7: using your liquid craft glue, stick the dummy cake to the bottom of your covered cake board (obviously the NOT on the fabric side, but on the masoniteboard side lol) Pop a heavy book on top and leave overnight to dry.

Step 8: Using your glue stick smear some glue around the edge of your cakeboard, now glue on some trim or ribbon. I find trim is better as it does not stain like ribbon does from the glue.

Repeat the above process with each cakeboard you want to be part of your tower. The finished product can be viewed in action above for the Spring birdy Christening cupcake tower.

Paris in winter lunch

2011-07-27T00:04:00.001+10:00

It is with great excitement that I can reveal Anya's "Paris in winter" party held last weekend.

Thank you to the wonderful Amy Atlas and her team for featuring my party today, I am beyond thrilled and happy :-)))

I love Paris in the spring time

I love Paris in the fall

I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles

I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles………………….

and so a theme was decided upon for my daughter’s 11th birthday party.

My daughter Anya ADORES & LOVES France, especially Paris and the Eiffel tower and begged me for a Paris party this year. Since this theme has already been done to death I wanted to give her party a funky and modern twist without blowing the budget sky high. Lets face it, if this is going to cost me hundreds of dollars to create I might as well save up a little more to buy a ticket and visit the actual Paris. A lot of the elements for this party was homemade and we tried to incorporate quite a few wintery touches since its very cold down here in Melbourne, Australia.

We started with gorgeous invites created by Jennifer Birkhead Design and to make it more fun for the guests Anya and I made envelopes from colour copied Paris street maps topped with Par Avion (free from the post office) and Eiffel tower stamps (free download from Google images). Jennifer also created all the cookie and dessert table tags to match.

Since our Paris theme involved the actual French colours (funny how nobody has done a Paris party in French colours before) I ordered some inexpensive French flag bunting from Ebay and various French ribbons and paper mini flags to be used on the dessert table. I also knitted a blue, white and red square flag garland to hang from the fireplace to emphasise the winter theme. I didn’t want to go out and spend extra money on vessels and platters for the table so instead I bought some styrofoam square cake dummies and wrapped them in white wool before crafting the two main cupcake and pop stands you can see on the table. I also used empty, clean chickpea cans to hold my cookies and macarons and once again wrapped the tins in white wool to dress them up. I even used chickpea cans and empty juice bottles as vases as centerpieces for my dessert table and lunch table which I covered in fake fur (the cans stuck on candleholders) and red wool (the bottles on the main table). The background is a Parisian wall decal which can be (and was) easy to remove.

Mademoiselle Anya unwrapping one of her tres chic pressies all decked out in her Parisian finery (clothes from Pumpkin Patch's Paris range)

Close up of the Eiffel tower and snow cookies all displayed in wool covered chicpea cans!

The Pièce de résistance was the Eiffel tower cake made from double chocolate sponge cake filled with chocolate buttercream and covered in fondant, yummmmm. Everything on the cake was edible (except the ribbon, flag and feathers).

Vanilla and coconut "snow" cupcakes and edible choc Eiffel pops. All displayed on my handmade cupcake & pop stand.

Some of the food we had for lunch was French pancakes, croissants with ham and mini bread rolls (Petit pain) with cheese. The dessert table had mini white hot chocolates with marshmallow moustache stirrers (the girls loved these!), a cheese (fromage) platter, raspberry macarons on sticks, Eiffel tower snow cookies, vanilla and coconut snow cupcakes and Eiffel tower pops. Guests were inspired by Edith Piaf singing French songs on the CD player in the background while playing games such as “name that Paris landmark”, “Paris bingo”, “find the moustache” and painting their nails in French coloured nail polish.

Can't have a French lunch without French raspberry and vanilla macarons! These macaron pops were for the children.

I loved how the living and diningroom looked after it was decorated, it looked like a French cafe overlooking a window with the Eiffel tower in the distance. Tres Bien!

For the main lunch the girls had these mini French pancakes.

Vanilla & coconut "snow" cupcakes were a hit at the dessert table.

I scored some lovely striped plates from Bed, Bath & table for only a mere $3 each, Le BARGAIN!

What is a Parisian lunch without flowers I say........ bought these lovely red carnations and silver leaf filler from Camberwell flower market and just added some feathers. I added these blooms to my fake fur covered can vases and stuck them to my candle holders for "drama".

I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles.........found this gorgeous ruffle umbrella at my friend Lil's shop from Lily Chic Events and had to have it!! Isn't it just devine? Oo-la-la!!

Mini hot white chocolate drinks in mini cafe cups (I embelished each cup with a French phrase) with marshmallow & moustache stirrers/swizzle sticks. The guests loved these the most!

For the guests to take home they each received a mini wool felted postman’s satchel with poppy brooch containing an Eiffel tower cookie, a notebook bought from the dollar shop then covered in Paris street map paper, a stripy pen, Eiffel tower necklace and vintage airmail letter paper and envelopes (downloaded and printed for free) from Linda at Tortagialla.

My daughter loves to write letters so the free printable letter set was especially appreciated by her.

Eiffel tower snow sugar cookie with edible Eiffel tower image.

One of the favourite items on the dessert table was the cheese platter!

Forget napkin rings, just wrap some wool around your wooden cutlery, add a cute wool felted brooch with ribbon and viola, you've gone from cheap to chic!

Close up of the raspberry & vanilla macarons I made, these were for the parents that stayed for coffee.

It was only a small lunch of 6 guests who sat at the main table, this kept the lunch intimate and manageable.

Even my youngest daughter Liandra got into the swing of things.

See the red bottle? I used two empty juice bottles, wrapped them in red wool to jazz them up a bit and used them both as vasses on my main table. How easy and cheap is that!!

Don't forget to join me on FACEBOOK and tell me what you think :-)) or you are welcome to leave a comment here if you wish.

xxxx

Leoni

Lala bird cake, cookies and pops

2011-07-17T12:27:00.007+10:00

This weekend I was busy completing this cute cake, cookie and pop set inspired by Alannah Rose's lala bird stationary. The cake was made from 3 x stacked chocolate mudcakes and filled with chocolate buttercream, then covered in white choc fondant. The bird topper is also made from cake which has been covered in milk chocolate before being covered in red vanilla Satin ice.

With the leftover mudcake I made these matching bird pops, aren't they cute? I love birds!

Here are the matching bird sugar cookies.....

Now for some exciting news, dessert Queen and styling Guru Amy Atlas is considering coming to Australia!!!! You all know how much I LOVE Amy Atlas and how much she has inspired my dessert tables. In fact, it is almost a year ago to the day that I created my very first dessert table that was heavily inspired by Amy!! I would LOVE to meet Amy, so if she's also your hero and you would love for her to visit us, please click HERE to register for Amy's mailing list. Don't forget to fill out the "How Did You Hear About Us” section and selecting the country “Australia". Lets make Amy's inbox go into meltdown ;-))

Ice cream shaped cake

2011-07-08T18:18:00.002+10:00

A few days ago I was asked to create a cake to exactly match a stationary design for a 40th birthday, this is what I created. Although a fairly simple cake to make it still was tricky to try and make the cake look like the sketched ice cream. This particular cake was a double chocolate sponge (not a cake I recommend for carving!) filled with Choc fudge frosting. The cake consisted of 4 x 8' inch square cakes, stacked then carved using a cardboard template I created.

It was quite large in the end, as you can see it sitting on a 14" square cakeboard covered in fondant.

Rapunzel-Tangled and flower fairy cake

2011-07-04T14:55:00.006+10:00

First of all a big congratulations to Michelle Harding who won the Lily Chic Events Winter warmer giveaway. Enjoy your prizes Michelle :-)

Well another busy two weeks have passed as you can see from the photo's. July is a very busy month for our family as we have no less than 6 family birthdays to celebrate, 2 of those birthday belong to my youngest and eldest children. So lots of baking for me lol

The lovely cake above however went to a good friend of mine today, her daughter Lili is 5 today and since her own oven was out of action I volenteered to make the birthday cake as pressie. The design came from Debbie Brown's new book called Gorgeous & Gruesome, I love this book and have been itching to make a cake from it. This cake was called the flower fairy princess, I loved her flowing hair and all the gorgeous flowers sprinckled over the entire cake. It's not a massive cake, only 1 x 6' inch round on the bottom and 2 x 4' inch round cakes to make the tower. The majority of work went into the figurine and flowers and I loved how they turned out.

Here is a close up of the fairy, I am happy with how her face turned out.

This cake was made for my youngest daughter Liandra, she turned 3 on the 1st July and desperately wanted a Tangled/Rapunzel cake. I am not usually a fan of character cakes so opted to make the tower more like the fairytale rather than the movie.

Close up of Rapunzel..... yes, I even made Pascal ;-)

Liandra wanted Flynn Rider on the cake and since I was not keen to make the figurine I stuck an edible poster on the tree instead. Overall she was very happy with cake but she did ask me where Max was (I made his head with the intention of making a bush with his angry head sticking out, alas there was no room on the cake so his head became a cupcake topper instead lol)

Lily Loves....A Winter Warmer Giveaway!

2011-06-21T09:34:00.003+10:00

I am SUPER excited to announce that Lilian from Lily Chic Events has announced a MASSIVE giveaway on her blog. ONE very lucky person will win EVERYTHING, so hop on over to Lily Chic Events for instructions on how to enter the giveaway.

All entries will be made directly through Lily Chic Events by comments made on her blog post and not via Facebook.

The winner will be notified through a post HERE on Lilian's blog.

This is what Just call me Martha will contribute to the prize pool, some gorgeous brand-spankin new Kikki K stationary items that I am sure you all will love.

1 x Landskap slim notepad value $12.95
1 x Landskap adhesive sticky note set value $10.95
7 x Landskap gift tags value $8.95
1 x Landskap journal value $24.95
8 x Dala horse calico bags value $10.95
1 x Landskap pen value $4.95

The other fantastic prizes are (in no particular order)

Mon Tresor - Win a $30.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything in their gorgeous Shop!

Sharnel Dollar Designs - Win a $40.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything in her Shop!

Little Sooti - Win a $25.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything in her Shop! Special code will be given to the Winner.

My Little Jedi - Win a Prize Pack of Paper Cups, Birthday Cards and gorgeous Fruit Shaped Note Pads.

Jennifer Birkhead Design - Win Invitation Pack & matching Party Pack in your choice of Fairy, Cowboy or Safari Theme's!

Bliss Clips - Win a gorgeous Pearl Princess Grace Headband!

Tara K Designs - Win a Dolly & Me Belle Headband Set in Purple {one size fits all}!

Eternal Memories Wooden Flowers - Win a $40.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything on their Website {valid for 6 months}!

Sprowt Graphic Design - Win a $20.00 Gift Voucher to spend on any of Sprowt's Graphic Design's!

Pinwheels and Pearls - Win a Ribbon Wand Party Favour Pack {8 Ribbon Wands in your choice of colour} to the Value of $75!

Candy Soirees - Win a Red Polka Dot Cupcake Stand from their Shop!

Paper Scissors Rock Stationery - Win 7 Gorgeous Items from their Shop! See Lily Chic Events for photo.

Sweet Little Birdy - Win EITHER ONE of the Love Henry Range's and an Owl Squeaker in your choice of sizes from 000 - 0 Valued at $75.00!

Little Big Company - Win 10 Mini Glass Milk Bottle,a pack of Red and White Straws, 10 White Favour Bags with Ribbon, AND your choice of 10 Swizzle Sticks (choices include Brown Caramel, Sweet Honey, Purple Grape, Hazelnut, Pink and Blue Cherry, Raspberry, Cotton Candy, Natural Sugar, Lime Green & Lavender) Valued at over $80.00 from their Shop!
Princess Allure Jewellery and Accessories - Win a pair of Swarovski Pearl Earrings with Sterling Silver Hooks!

Moonlight & Whimsy - Win a $25.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything at their Store!

3 Piece Events - Win a Dinner Party Pack which includes a table runner, vase and four tea light candles as shown in the below Photo Valued at $35.00!

Luminoso Blu - Win a 'My Little Circus' Party Suite Valued at $40.00!

Sweet Style - Win a gorgeous Stamp, a Stamp Pad and a set of Mini Spoons!

The Princess and the Pirate - Win a Square Cake Stand, Baking Cups, Candy Scoop, Cookie Cutter, Cocktail Forks, Candles & Chalkboard Labels Valued at over $100.00!

Charli Jean - Win a gorgeous Blue & White 66cm Girl's Dress Valued at $40.00!

Ah - Tissue - Win a $50.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything in their Shop!

Ruffled Ribbon - Win one Character Bunting AND one Flag Bunting.

Ham&Pea design&paperie - Win 2 sets of Designed Baby Dummy Chandeliers in 5 colours!

Trendy Tiny Tots - Win a Two Piece Mermaid Costume!

Itty Bitty - Win a Hoot Ponytail Holder Set, Orange Cake Ring & Citrus Bead Bracelet all in a Heart Gift Tin!

Piece of Cake Parties & Celebrations - Win a Paper Eskimo Party Pack which includes Plates, Cups, Baking Cups, Balloons, Candles, Bunting and Straws!!

Eye Candy Event Details - Win a $30.00 Gift Voucher to spend on anything in their Shop!

Tout Mon Amour - Win a Cute Rosanna Petite Cupcake Stands in Pink!

The Bouquets Of Ascha Jolie - Win a $50.00 Gift Voucher to go towards a stunning Flower Arrangement {Open for Melbourne Resident's Only} OR a Inspirational Book on Floristry {Open for AUS Residents}

Sweet! Cupcakes and Treats - Win a $100.00 Voucher for Custom Decorated Cookies to match your Event with a {validity of 6 months}. Cookies are available in Gingerbread, Vanilla Bean, Chocolate Sable, Lemon Zest, Brown Sugar Cinnamon or Almond Cream all with Royal Icing!!

I Will Invitations - Win a Complete Party Stationary Set {in a design of your choice} including Invitations, Labels, Cupcake Toppers, Wrappers, Badges, Bunting, Welcome Sign, Placemats, Chocolate Wrappers, Thank you Cards, Drink Bottle Labels, Goodie bags, Stickers AND MORE Valued at over $100!!

Lily Chic Events - Win a White Suitcase Set, 2 x Ear Muffs, 2 x Slippers, Nail Polish, Lip Gloss, Eye Shadow, Umbrella and a $30.00 Shoppe With Lily Gift Voucher!

So hop on over to Lily Chic Events and enter this fabulous giveaway.

Entries will be closing on June 28th at approximately 10:00pm (Melbourne time)

Handi's cake course and camera cake

2011-06-19T11:49:00.008+10:00

Wow, what a massive week I've just had! I was lucky enough to start my week with my very 1st official cake course, a 2 day intensive Beginners III with the legendary Handi from Handi's cakes. I had a wonderful time in class, met some lovely people and found it worth every penny I paid. It was a real privilege learning from the cake boss/Guru Handi, he is a fantastic (and patient) teacher and I learned a lot! Here is my result after 2 days of hard work, a two tier choc mudcake (not baked by me) covered in baby teal fondant, and hand stencilled (1st time I've ever stencilled) by me.

I even made the stylised Peony and leaves topping this cake, now you all know how much I HATE making flowers but I LOVED doing this! Handi made it fun, interesting and surprisingly easy and I must say I am quite proud of my end result.

Now this cake was BIG, it fed 80 people and I didn't want to waste it (can't give it away due to strict food regulations we have here in Australia) so I "recycled the cake for a 30th birthday party I was attending last night. Here is the result.........

Ta-daaaaaa, Ok, Ok, ideally I should have recovered the bottom tier in white fondant, probably should have slapped on a thin black ribbon but hey, I ran out of time. The camera (cake) was very detailed so I didn't have much time afterwards to think of a solution to hide the indent on the square cake. In the end it was quikest to just pop a cardboard (covered in fondant) platform on top of the cake and pop the camera on top of that. Probably not as pretty but I was desperate and I didn't want to waste the cake.

Here is the back of the "camera", would have loved to have popped an edible image on the view finder but alas, again, I ran out of time. So instead I pretended the camera was switched "off" lol.

The camera and lens is made from choc mudcake which I shaped into a camera body, then ganached it, hot knifed it (to get rid of sharp edges) and then covered in black Satin ice. This camera replicates my friend Clair from See be Art's actual Canon 5D Mark II camera she uses for photography. It is her 30th birthday this Wednesday and we celebrated with friends last night, this is her gift from me. Everything on the camera is edible :-)

I have to say I am most proud of the Canon lens, it is as close to the real deal as I could make.

And because I wasn't busy enough I also decided to make 55 boy cupcakes for a 14th birthday party. Very happy with how they all turned out.

Owl cake set and graduation cake

2011-06-13T09:23:00.008+10:00

Well it has been another very busy week of baking! This week I had the pleasure to re-create one of my signature designs, the lovely owl and bird themed cake and cupcakes. For those of you who remember, I created this set for a friend's daughter early last year for a Baptism. The above set was made for Sierra's 1st birthday and although the design is the same I've changed some of the colours and designs.

The main cake was a triple layer chocolate sponge cake with chocolate fudge buttercream filling and covered in white choc fondant.

I did a mix of cupcakes, some hand painted, some embossed and some printed with edible transfer sheets. I am very happy with how they turned out.

I also got asked to make a couple of embossed sugar cookies as favours.

Another cake I created this week was this graduation cake for two sisters. Everything is edible except the two red ribbons tied around the fondant scrolls. The books are made from vanilla buttercake filled with vanilla bean buttercream and covered in brown and white chocolate fondant. The hats and calculator was made from cookies and fondant while the rest of the props were made from fondant. Overall I was extremely happy with how the cake turned out, the exception being the incorrect spelling of the word Bachelor (I spelt it Batchelor). Even though I had checked the spelling three times and written the word down correctly I still managed to spell it incorrectly on the actual cake!! By the time I realised I was not able to remove the lettering without damaging the two books so had to leave the lettering in place :-( Not happy with that!!

Close up of the cookie calculator covered in fondant. Lettering done with edible pen.

Time for a mini break and then it's my youngest daughter's 3rd birthday cake to make ;-)

Peekaboo Melbourne magazine feature

2011-06-02T13:10:00.022+10:00

It is with great excitement that I found out yesterday that our Dala baby shower that we styled a few weeks back was featured in the Peekaboo Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney issues. Please have a look at the Peekaboo magazine and have a look at page 27 and page 28, hard copies can also be found at various distributers listed at the Peekaboo website. To say that Lou and Mel (from Little Big Company event styling) and I had fun styling this shower as a team would have to be an understatement, we had a ball! The inspiration behind the baby shower is the Landskap range from Kikki K which features the gorgeous Dala horse and the venue was at Petit Atelier (Thank you Christina!!)
We would not have been able to do this shoot without the help from the gorgeous Lilian from Lily Chic Events, Lil swung from stylist to florist to decorator with true grace, thanks Lil.
Another HUGE thank you goes to our photographer Clair Bremner from See Be Art, without Clair this shoot would not have been possible, so thank you Clair xxxx

Look at the gorgeous invitation designed by Little Big Company, they designed this invite from scratch using the colours we chose for the shower.

We chose soft pinks, burnt orange, navy and light blue as our colour palette seeing as winter has just begun.

One of the show stoppers was this 2 tier carrot cake. The bottom tier was decorated in fondant flowers to mimic the Kikki K Landskap stickers they sell. The top tier showcased a hand cut and decorated fondant Dala horse with simple navy ribbon. This cake could easily be made for a boy baby shower by changing the pink into blue on the horse cake topper.

Some gorgeous orange horse pops made from coconut ice and white chocolate.

Each party guest took home a goody box with Kikki K products and a Sweet Tashie felt horse wrapped in a muslin hand stamped bag.

Gorgeous fleece baby jacket for the mother to be. I think Bumble Bee Boutique did a wonderful job creating this gift.

Hand cut and hand decorated Dala horse sugar cookies. Ofcourse the Dala cutter arrived the day after the baby shower, go figure lol

Tricycle borrowed from Petit Atelier, Christina had to watch me with beady eyes as I tried to sneak it to my car twice during the shoot ;-) Petit Atelier was also the venue for the shower, they have the most devine, open, HUGE, light filled space I had ever seen and are PERFECT for parties and crafting. I love them so much I've booked my next party in November with them ;-)

These gorgeous ride on horses were also a gift to the mother to be, aren't they stunning? Calamity Bolt created these beauties, I was very impressed with the attention to detail and love that went into these horses.

Strawberry Woopie pies, need I say more? ;-)

Here is a close up of Sweet Tashie's felt horses that were part of the take home gift for all guests. To be a bit different I hung some Kikki K pegs on a wooden board, hand stamped the word thank you and hung some hand stamped muslin bags (with the felt horse inside each bag) from the pegs. The bags were from Little Sootie and the Dala stamp from Kikki K

Gorgeous cupcake wrapper by The Cupcake Wrapper Co, mini felt flag bunting by Sweet Tashie, cake stand and flowers by Shoppe with Lily

Yummy white, hot chocolate with cream in Espresso glasses with wooden hand stamped spoons

1. Handmade Horses from Calamity Bolt http://www.calamitybolt.com/

2. Woolen Knitted Balls from http://www.etsy.com/shop/bugalugshandmade?ref=seller_info Scalloped edged pedestal from Lily Chic Events Shoppe online http://www.shoppe.lilychicevents.com.au/

3. Dala Felt Horses made by Sweet Tashie http://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetTashie and Sweet Tashie party felt decorations will also will be Available for purchase from Little Big Company with other custom personalized designs from http://www.tlbc.com.au/-Muslin Bags from Little Sooti http://www.littlesooti.com.au/ stamped with Kikki K Landskap stamp http://www.kikki-k.com/shop/category/collection/winter-landskap/ and Kikki K Landskap range pegs from http://www.kikki-k.com/shop/category/collection/winter-landskap/

4. Handmade Jacket by The Bumble Bee Boutique on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/listing/61221079/handmade-baby-jacket-with-roses5.

5. White Rocking Horse: from The Little Big Company Styling http://www.tlbc.com.au/

6. Flower Styling with pumpkin and flowers from Lily Chic Events http://www.lilychicevents.com.au/

7. Felted Bunting from Sweet Tashie http://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetTashie Sweet Tashie Bunting also will be available to purchase in your colour choice from The Little Big Company http://www.tlbc.com.au/ Cupcake Wrapper from the Cupcake Wrapper Co http://www.thecupcakewrapperco.com.au/The_Cupcake_Wrapper_Co..html Scalloped Pedestal available from Lily Chic Events Shoppe http://www.shoppe.lilychicevents.com.au/, Flowers by Lily Chic Events

8. Bon Bon Pedestals from Little Sooti http://www.littlesooti.com.au/ - also other pedestals were sourced from http://www.tlbc.com.au/

9. Authorised use of the Dala Horse Image by Kikki K http://www.kikki-k.com/shop/category/collection/winter-landskap/enlarged and printed by Top Print Productions http://www.topprint.com.au/
10.The Dala Cake, Cookies, cheesecake, Dala Cupcakes, truffles made by Just Call Me Marthahttp://justcallmemarthaa.blogspot.com/

All Dessert Buffet Labels and Invitation printables by The Little Big Company http://www.tlbc.com.au/

All Pom Poms by Ah Tissue http://www.ah-tissue.com.au/ and two light orange ones from Peppercraft Room phone 0416559256 can be ordered via Petit Atelier http://www.petitatelier.com.au/

11. Milk Bottles from Lily Chic Events Shoppe http://www.shoppe.lilychicevents.com.au/, Orange Retro Straws from The Little Big Company http://www.tlbc.com.au/

12. Invitation Printables from The Little Big Company http://www.tlbc.com.au/

All photography by Clair Bremner - See By Art Photography http://www.clairbremner.com/

Venue held at Petit Atelier http://www.petitatelier.com.au/

Party Styling by Just Call Me Martha and The Little Big Company –

Inspiration and favours sourced from Kikki K http://www.kikki-k.com/shop/category/collection/winter-landskap/

Cat in the Hat cake

2011-05-28T18:16:00.005+10:00

Do you love cake, and adore Dr. Seuss?
Do you struggle to bake, but only gawk like a goose?
Then, I have a surprise, that may well please,
Just feast your eyes, and take a gander at these!

Here is the Cat in the Hat cake I completed this afternoon. The bottom tier is 2 x 8" inch round stacked cakes and the top tier is 3 x 4" inch round stacked cakes. The flavour was choc marble mudcake with double choc buttercream frosting.

All the figurines are made from flower modelling sugar paste and the black markings are created using edible black pen.

I loved making the twins the most, they were so cute!!

Cakes, cakes and more cakes

2011-05-28T14:13:00.007+10:00

Well I can't believe May is almost finished and June is lurking around the corner. Here is some of what has been keeping me busy the past two weeks. First up this lovely, simple wedding cake made from fruit cake for the top tiers and mudcake for the bottom. I was a bit nervous making this cake as I had never stacked 3 square cakes before and the cake had to be driven 1.5 hrs away to its final destination. My cake teacher helped me stack the cake (so it was nice and secure) and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Next was my daughter Annike's grade 1 teachers birthday cake. I loved making this cake as I could make whatever I fancied. The top tier (which was for the teacher) was made from chocolate butter cream sponge filled with choc buttercream icing and the "dirt" was Orea biscuit crumbs. I then covered the "cake pot" with terracotta coloured white choc fondant (I used Wilton Copper and brown to make the terracotta colour). The flowers were made from flower modelling past and wired and taped. The students all received a spider, worm or flower cupcake which they loved to bits.

Here is a close up of the flowers.

and a close up of the worm ;-)

I also made a baked cheesecake and cupcakes for 1 friend's birthday (no photo's, as it wasn't fancily decorated lol) today, as well as a Cat in the hat cake which I'll show you later, once it has been picked up. So stay tuned, I'll upload the photo's later in the evening.

Happy Mother's day

2011-05-07T13:43:00.021+10:00

Ok, ok, I know its officially tomorrow, but since I plan to stay in bed as long as I can and enjoy every moment of being spoiled by my girls I know I won't get a chance to show you what we have planned for the day. This Mother's day my eldest daughter Anya asked if we could do a mini high tea using my lovely china, so here is what we will be enjoying together. We chose the colour palette lavender, lilac, mauve and green. Cupcake stand on the bottom tier of the tea cart is from Shoppe with Lily.

This is what is calling my name from the fridge, a lovely Rhubarb, ginger and blueberry baked cheesecake. Can't wait to tuck into this!!

We baked some heart shaped sugar cookies covered in embossed fondant.

Mini flower posy which I popped in my mercury glass vase (vase from Bed, Bath & Table)

I LOVE my tea, so what is a high tea without my favourite teapot! I looked through my treasures and pulled out all my favourite pieces for the tea cart.

We also made some yummy lavender and vanilla cupcakes.

Ah yes, a nice hot cuppa of my favourite tea (English breakfast)

The sun started shining so we moved the tea cart outside onto the balcony where I can sip my tea and enjoy my garden.

Stunning bunch of flowers we arranged for the tea cart, a mix of mauve roses, mauve and lilac Lisianthus, white and purple Freesias, big fluffy Chrysanthenums, green carnations and purple Hydrangea. It smells heavenly!

Simple white chocolate and Pistachio mudcake with Pistachio buttercream icing.

Here is one of the lovely gifts I will be receiving tomorrow, a gorgeous Jane Austin book since I love to read.

Lavender macarons were also on the tea cart, although my skill is improving they still look a wee bit......errrrrrr.... rustic lol

Another gorgeous gift for me, vintage minty jar filled with mints and a lavender pin cushion with custom embellished tacking pins because another one of my hobbies is to sew.

Had to have that first cupcake since there is enough to go around for tomorrow lol

The girls made these for me, embossed paper satchel filled with lavender pot-pourie and yarn covered bangles/bracelets. (Clever girls!)

And these cute bottles I bought for myself, so to me from me! Snaffled them up from St Vinnies for $2 ea, except for the jewel encrusted bottle stopper perfume bottle, that one I bought from Bed, Bath & Table.

Last but not least a small bag of bath salts (again Lavender) I intend to enjoy one of these days.

Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's day and are spoiled rotten by your loved ones.

xxxx

Celia & Istvan's wedding cake & cupcakes

2011-04-26T15:43:00.004+10:00

This past Easter long weekend I had the pleasure to finally put together and complete this lovely wedding cupcake tower for Celia and Istvan. I am very happy with how it turned out. Not only did I make the cake and cupcakes, I also created a custom cupcake tower for everything to be displayed on and hand cut all the cupcake wrappers (to match the paper I used around the pillars of the tower).

The top tier was gluten free coconut cake covered in coconut buttercream and then iced in white fondant. The orchid and lily cake topper is all made from flower modelling paste, only the ribbon was not edible.

The cupcakes were milk choc sponge topped with choc fudge buttercream and embossed white choc fondant and orange & almond cupcakes topped with orange buttercream swirl and then all topped with fondant orchids.

Happy Easter everyone

2011-04-24T15:53:00.016+10:00

Happy Easter everyone!! Hope you all had a fantastic long weekend with family and friends. We had a quiet day today with our 4 girls with lots of Easter crafts and an egg hunt in the afternoon.
This Easter I was inspired to create an Easter table for our family based on Mandy Sutcliffe's characters "Belle & Boo". I purchased Mandy's book "Bubbles Before Bed to do book" especially for Easter and was so in love with all the gorgeous drawings and activities that I knew a Belle & Boo Easter table would be a hit with my daughters. The Easter table is actually quite simple with lots of crafty items that any crafter can replicate, all you need to do is go through what you already have in your cupboards and perhaps look at your old furniture in a brand new light. I re-used our old drawer unit (I used it for my nieces bird party last December and it now sits in my eldest daughter's bedroom) and gave it a green coat (Dulux celery) of acrylic paint followed by crackle medium to make it look more vintagy.

I had an old wine box lying around which I covered in celery green Kona fabric and then wrapped in left over celery wool. This was used to give my flowers more hight on my table.

The cake was very easy, bottom tier is choc mud covered in milk choc fondant, top tier raspberry buttercake covered in embossed raspberry fondant. The topper is a wooden Boo brooch I bought from the Belle & Boo online shop, while the cuff of the bottom tier cake is just fluffy wool wound around the cake several times (I first popped a cardboard (or you can use acetate) "collar" around the bottom to avoid fluff sticking to my cake) and then finished of with a crochet flower brooch I already had (look familiar Selina? lol).

Gorgeous blue hydrangeas mixed with pale pink carnations in one of my vintage tea pots, I used this as my table centre piece. I was lucky enough to get the very last hydrangea for the season as they now don't flower anymore.

Cute hand knitted hunting egg bags with Belle & Boo badge attached to each bag, yep hand knitted by me! Those who know me know I do NOT knit, so it was quite a challenge to knit these simple squares and then fashion them into bags :-) But I did it!!

Wool covered MDF letter E, I saw this clever idea on Bump Smitten, so hop on over for a free tutorial. Ceramic bunny from Bed, Bath & Table.

Boo cupcakes, pistachio cupcakes topped with Rose flavoured Persian fairyfloss. Boo topper created using Dress Up Belle & Boo range.

Boo cookies on sticks, all hand cut since I couldn't find a cutter that looked like boo. Milk bottle from Shoppe with Lily, make sure to visit Lilian, she has AMAZING items for dessert tables and if you can't find what you are looking for just ask her! Belle & Boo dress up dolls from the Belle & Boo online shop.

One of the Easter crafts we did was colour eggs in gorgeous pastels. Now as some of you may know I struggled to find white chicken eggs since it seems they don't sell many here in Melbourne, in the end I used white duck eggs from the Asian grocer which are the size of a 800gr chicken egg and colour beautifully. Very happy with our results!

Rose flavoured macarons, not my best results but they would have to do ;-) Tag from Belle & Boo (came with my Boo wooden brooch)

What the Easter bunny left for the 4 girls this morning, all in a lovely canvas Boo repeat bag.

My gorgeous flowers with a Lindt bunny yummmmmmm Will have to hide these away from the girls ;-)

Lemon baked cheesecake & cupcake set

2011-04-08T17:15:00.006+10:00

I made this lovely cake set last Sunday for a father/daughter combined birthday for one of the mums in my mother's group. The cake is baked lemon New York cheesecake with lemon white choc panels while the cupcakes were mini lemon baked cheesecakes topped with butterflies, roses and blossoms.

Close up of the cheesecake cupcakes, aren't they cute?

Anyone want a glass of coke?

2011-04-01T13:42:00.006+11:00

This is one of two cakes I had to make for 2 people leaving a company. The coke cake was a choc sponge cake frosted in choc fudge icing with black choc fondant, the coke label is made from edible paper. It's actually not that difficult to make, I baked 6 individual 4" cakes since its the same size as the coke bottle and the coke bottle top was shaped and then held in place with a wooden skewer and choc fudge ganache. This is to feed 15 people since the cake was the actual size of a 1.5ltr coke zero bottle.

Next up is this dairy and gluten free Moose cake, probably a bit more challenging to make due to the fact that almost everything on the planet contains gluten! In the end I rang around and even double checked with companies who made the colouring paste I was using to check if it was gluten free.

Orange cake gluten & dairy free

250g of Tablelands dairy & gluten free canola

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

2 cups of Orgran selft raising flower (gluten & dairy free)

1 cup of Pauls Zymil dairy & gluten free milk

zest of 1 large orange

1/4 tsp of whole vanilla bean

Cream canola & sugar till well combined, then add your eggs one by one, beating after each addition.

Now sift in the 2 cups of flower and add the zest, vanilla and milk. Gently mix till combined.

Pour into a greased and lined 8' inch round tin and pop it in a pre-heated 180 degree oven. My oven is gas so it took 65 minutes to bake, make sure to check it after 50 min to see if its done.

Let cool and then frost with orange frosting

Orange frosting

2 cups of pure icing sugar

2 Tblsp orange zest

3 Tblsp Tablelands canola

enough Zymil milk to blend the frosting into the consistency of thick whipped cream

Beat 1 cup of icing sugar with all the canola and a small amount of Zymil milk for 5 min till whote and fluffy, gradually add the remaining icing sugar and enough Zymil milk to make a thick spreadable frosting.

My husband thought the bottle was real, he almost picked it up!! lol

Sunshine and smiles 1st birthday party

2011-03-27T17:09:00.013+11:00

This is what I've been up to this weekend, getting ready for Lexie's sunshine and smiles 1st birthday party. Rather than making the entire party yellow and white, we've thrown in some soft and hot pinks to break the colour up a bit. Besides the sun is not only yellow, look at what gorgeous colours mama sun creates when the sun comes up or sets ;-) This gorgeous party was created around Parties by Hardie's printable sunshine birthday collection.

Since Simone, Lexie's mummy, would be making the doily bunting for the party venue (all 8 metres of it!!) I decided to add some fondant doilies to the cake design. The sun topper is actually made from coconut ice (pink) and then covered in white choc fondant that I coloured canary yellow. The cake was 8' round x 10' tall "rainbow cake, so one layer of raspberry, then strawberry, then orange and then lemon to simulate the sun rising.

For the flower pieces I bought some floral sponge balls, cut a 1/4 off the bottom so it sits flat, dipped them in water and then popped various shades of yellow and pink flowers till the whole ball was covered. Not only did the arrangements look lovely but they smelled devine too, not bad for a non florist who tends to kill plants by just looking at them ;-)

Some of the goodies on the table were these cute ice cream cakes. I saw them in my Bakerella recipe book and decided to make these with the leftover lemon and orange cake I had after carving and evening out my cake. The only difference is that my ice creams were covered in buttercream frosting and then topped with chocolate and sprinkles.

Here are the goodies that I made for Lexie's party, I was one busy bee in the kitchen these past few days!

Smiling sun cookies.

Yummy raspberry and lemon cupcakes

The party was held in a communal hall, here is a photo taken just after I completed the styling of the main table. It looked so pretty once everything was in its place. Some of the other food items we had were thermometres (breadsticks dipped in chocolate then dipped in yellow sprinkles), Sunset and sunrise home made lemonade, mini cheescakes with beach umbrellas, slip,slop,slap sandwiches, sizzling sausage and sunshine jelly cups.

Since it also was a smiles party I made these smiley pops.

The hall looked stunning in the end, Simone worked very hard making decorations and creating the rest of the food. Fantastic job Simone, well done.

Vendors:

- Styling by Just call me Martha

- Cake, cupcakes, smiley pops, sunshine cookies, ice cream cakes, mini cheesecakes and flower arrangements by Just call me Martha

- All lables, cupcake toppers and printable partyware from Parties by Hardie

- Glass bottles from Bed bath and table

- The rest of the food and decorations were created by Simone Nuroo

Axel's airplane birthday cake, cookies & pops

2011-03-12T20:10:00.013+11:00

As most of you all know I LOVE and ADORE anything to do with Kikki K, in fact my husband keeps a close eye on my credit card statements to see how many times I visit my local Kikki shop and I am blushing to say it is a lot. Well imagine my surprise and sheer delight when Kristina Karlsson, the founder and owner of Kikki K contacted me to ask if I was free to create a cake for her son Axel's 3rd birthday. So after first thinking the email was a hoax and then promptly passing out at my desk followed by some squeels of delight I went about planning for the cake, some biscuits and some pops. Kristina created the adorable invite above and said Axel loves planes, especially Qantas and since Kikki K has a kids travel - RESA range, Kristina requested that everything be plane orientated. Since I was making 4 items for the table anyway (Kristina would be styling the party and table herself) I just could not resist creating a mini airplane dessert table myself. The only rule I had was that I had to use items I already had or handmake it myself to keep costs down. This is what I came up with.

Do you recognise the backdrop? Yep, I recycled Anya's canvas frames from her polka dot party I styled in July last year, I even kept the fabric just added some felt fluffy clouds (I blanket stitched them on my machine, added some fabric adhesive membrane and ironed them onto the canvas), a felt airplane and some cute stitching (running stitch) to spell out Axel. All felts and materials used I had lying around in my sewing baskets. The "tablecloth" is actually a scrap piece of Cath Kidston fabric I had lying around, it was an exact match to the canvas.

Here are the goodies Kristina bought as favours for her guests. Cute mini suitcases from Baby's got style, (probably cleared out all their stock lol) bag tag, colouring book + pencils and pencil case from Kikki's RESA range along with an airplane cookie I made. This was popped in the "baggage claim" area of the party table.

Here is Axel's birthday cake, its a cross between Planet cake's airplane cake and a Qantas jumbo. The body of the cake is vanilla buttercake, the wings are made from biscuit covered in vanilla Satin ice, while the tail and tail fins are made from fondant. The engines were made from coconut ice since I needed somthing solid yet edible to hold up the heavy wings. In the end this cake weighed a tonne!

The mini suitcases are also something I already had, they were left overs from Imara's back to school party. I re-used them here to add hight to my items.

The cloud cookies were one of the items created for Axels' party, I thought they were rather cute. The tin is recycled I just added some striped paper I printed using the invitation as my inspiration, very simple yet effective.

The drink bottles are also recycled from a previous party, I used some blue cordial + water (called it Jet fuel) to fill them up added some blue stripy straws I had lying around (cheapie ones from Coles) and a cute airplane cutout that I printed out and handcut then fastened to each straw. The airplane cookies were for Axel's party table and favour suitcases.

Marshmallow propeller pops were another item for Axel's party, these are just plain white ones dipped in white chocolate (coloured red) with fondant propellers. The square foam stand was a spare I had lying around, once again I printed out some stripy paper to dress them up.

I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely, warm and genuine Kristina while delivering all the items and I must say Kristina did a stellar job in styling her party room, the decorations were gorgeous and the table just perfect and beautiful. I am hoping to see some of Axel's party pics in the near future, if I do I might snaffle some to pop on my blog ;-)

Now for a nano break, and onto the next party........

Babushka 1st birthday cake for twins

2011-02-27T14:57:00.010+11:00

This weekend I had the pleasure to work on a babushka birthday cake for twin girls. Although I've made this cake before I must say this cake was different, for one it was HUGE, well 43cm tall and 29cm wide in my book is huge lol and the design was fun to do. I was given the above invite as inspiration and this is what I came up with.....

I loved doing all the love hearts, the cape was handpainted while the apron was heart cutouts.

This is the finished product, isn't she cute? I hope the twins like her ;-) I used red satin/vanilla fondant for the red dress (best tasting red fondant I've ever tasted!) and white chocolate fondant coloured pink for the cape and white for the apron.

I know she tastes lovely, caramel mudcake with caramel fudge buttercream icing (I had some off cuts lol) but I am fretting if she will be enough to feed 80 or so people, yikes! Fingers crossed xx

cheers,

Leoni

xxx

Annike's tea party - Kate Landers competition entry

2011-02-20T08:22:00.003+11:00

Hello everyone, it is with great pleasure that I finally share the pics of my daughter Annike's 6th birthday tea party that I created back in November 2010. As some of you may remember, I entered a written party design/concept competition back in September on Kate Landers's blog, Kate asked contestants to submit a written party design for a 1930-1960 children's birthday and I received 2nd runner up (yay). Kate has just revealed her vintage doll tea party shoot which incorporates the designs and ideas from the winner and 4 runner ups and Kate has done an INCREDIBLE job of pulling togehter this utterly DEVINE party. Please hop over to Kate Landers's blog to have a read, it has the most amazing details and gorgeous pics, I am sure you will love it as much as I do.

For my design entry I actually decided to re-create the tea party for Annike's birthday on the 6th November 2010 seeing as I went to all that trouble to "dream" it up. So here it is.......

This is the invitation by Style me Gorgeous we sent out to Annike's friends, folded in pink envelopes and topped with a yellow paper doily, I purchased mine from Details, Details! Back in August if you purchased the party ware from the "The Beauty Full Collection" before the end of the month 100% of the sales would be donated to Paradise Kids.

For my submission I did a 1950's vintage tea party, most of my items were handmade or 2nd hand as I did not have a large budget to work with. After doing some initial sketches in my ideas book I chose pink, white and yellow as my colour scheme as I fell in love with the fabric Verna Mosquera ROSES AND HYDRANGEAS Lemon that I saw on Etsy. I ordered several yards along with some co-ordinating fabrics so I could make my ruffle table cloth, cover and old chair and do other crafty items for the birthday party. A couple of weeks before the party I started collecting all the chairs for the party, all were bought 2nd hand from Ebay some for only $5!! Bargain! I didn't touch them as I liked the shabby chic mixed feel the chairs evoked. My eldest daughter Anya and I made the doily bunting from cheap white dollar shop doilies ($2 for 72 various sized doilies) hand dyed and then stapled onto some twine, easy peasy, idea from Martha Stewart

I also collected all the mis-matching 2nd hand china from Ebay, they had some gorgeous pastels for sale at the time I was buying so I snapped them up. I used left over paper doilies as placemats and to dress up some of my serving plates. Scones, jam and cream were homemade by me, white cake plates are from Provincial Living.

Here you can see the birthday girl and her friends enjoying the tea party.

I bought this lovely 2nd hand tea trolley from Ebay, once again I didn't touch it as it was already painted white and looked shabby enough to my liking. I decided to do a biscuit/cookie dessert trolley rather than lolly table for this party, I bought some glass jars (Provincial living, but the dollar shop also sells them) and asked my eldest daughter Anya to label some doilies which we then tied to the jars with twine. We had double choc cookies, Anzac cookies (An Australian/New Zealand treat), Macadamia cookies and short bread cookies. I also made some raspberry flavoured Macarons, a plate of high tea sandwitches and bought some tea pot shaped cookies from Dolls at the Mount, they were delicious! To cover the windows I covered them in black cardboard and wrote the verse "I am a little teapot short and stout, ......" in chalk, it looked really cute.

Here is part of the birthday cake, I wanted a teapot and Annike wanted a fairy teapot cake so we compromised and I made a fairy teapot house complete with fairy sitting on the handle. The cake was raspberry sponge filled with raspberry buttercream icing covered in white chocolate fondant, Annike's favourite.

This is the 2nd part of the birthday cake, since Annike also wanted a rainbow cake, its a rainbow coloured sponge cake (strawberry, orange, lemon, raspberry and chocolate) filled with vanilla bean frosting. I made the teacup, saucer, No 6 topper and fairy from modelling paste, edible chalks, gold lustre dust and Wilton pastes, so it was all edible.

Here is how the two cakes looked together. Vintage white cake stand from Domayne, crystals were later added by me.

Here is the birthday girl Annike, the very talented Maureen from MKsNeedlemania at Esty made Annike's matching birthday dress, isn't it gorgeous? Thank you Maureen, I love it!

I picked up this lovely wrought iron chandelier from Ebay, it went perfectly with my table. All the flowers were generously donated by my friend Sara, her lovely garden was overflowing with roses and I was allowed to just pick whatever I needed (thank you Sara xxx). White teapot is from Provincial living, pink teapot vase (I used some vintage teapots as vases lol) is a 2nd's buy from Ebay.

Ofcourse what is a tea party without yummy cupcakes, so here is a pic of some yummy vanilla and strawberry cupcakes topped with fondant flowers. The gorgeous damask cupcake wrappers are from Kat and Nat from The Cupcake Wrapper Co. Love your products ladies, absolutely LOVE them xxx Cupcake stand is from...yep you guessed it, Ebay lol, once again I added the crystals afterwards to add some bling ;-) (Annike begged me for some "daimonds" because she wanted her party sparkly lol)

Close up of the teapot cookies from Dolls at the Mount, Gingerbread covered in icing sugar, they tasted homemade so super yummy. Hope you enjoyed looking at this party as much as I had hosting it. Thank you Kate Landers for allowing me to be part of such an incredible experience, I loved every minute of creating this party!

Please also say hello on my Facebook page, Just call me Martha, I would love to hear from you.

xxx

Leoni

Wine and Cheese themed table - Guest Feature

2011-02-19T20:52:00.010+11:00

Serena from Rylie Boo Events sent me this clever wine and cheese party she recently hosted. Who says a party has to only be sweets and cake? Not me! Being a Dutchie myself by birth I LOVE cheese so wanted to share some of the clever elements Serena used on her table. So have a look at the next couple of pics.

Love the cork placecard holders, very clever.

Ooooo wine bottle and cheese pops! Yummmmm

How cute are those cupcake toppers?

For those of you who are looking at keeping your guests "busy" at your wedding while you nip away and have your photos taken this would be the way to do it. You could dress up an old dresser with empty wine bottles and pop in some single flowers for colour, I've also seen bottles suspended by lace and ribbon for a vintage feel. Ebay also sells those old wooden wine kegs, they would make a great prop to display your cheese or wine.

Well done Serena, I am sure you had a ball at your wine and cheese party, thank you for sharing.

Vendors

Party styling, Party Printables and FavorBoxes – Rylie Boo Events

Cupcake Toppers – Lynlee Petite Cakes
Cake Pops – Boxed Pops

Cookies – The Cookie Jar

Cork Placecard Holders – Gallery 360

Banner, drink me tags and Twine – Pig Castle

Frame – Creative Flair Art

Bunting – Jaime Mancilla

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T10:59:00.003+11:00

Hands up if you love Kikki K, me too!!! So for Valentine's day what's more appropriate than a Kikki K inspired dessert table and that is exactly what I did after I fell in LOVE with their Valentine's Sweet Heart range. They had the cutest cards, wrapping paper and stickers, so based on the above items this is what I came up with.

First I wanted a backdrop and for this table I went with envelopes stuck to the wall, I saw this idea at one of Cheree Berry's shows for Kate Spade and loved it. It was also appropriate since my husband used to be at sea when we first started going out and we wrote love letters to eachother while he was at sea (still have them stashed away in a box somewhere ;-)) It was also cheap, I bought about 40 envelopes for $2 at the dollar shop AND I can re-use them afterwards.

The cake was inspired by the gorgeous heart bunting pattern on the Kikki K wrapping paper and the heart pattern found on most of their Valentine cards. It is actually a very simple cake, I used a clay extruder to create the red "string" and edible paper to create the hearts.

Gorgeous card I bought for hubby, anything with polkadots on it has my stamp of approval ;-)

I also bought the Kikki K sticker book and used most of the stickers to create all my paper goods for the table. Labels for the desserts, cupcake toppers and flags for the drinks are just some of the items I made using the stickers.

These cute cards came from the Kikki mini note set, aren't they adorable? Mini heart pegs are also from Kikki K.

Here is the cupcake toppers I made using the Kikki K stickers, loved them!

My 4 daughters were very excited that I was doing a dessert table for Valentine's day since they knew they would get to eat all the goodies afterwards. My hubby's heart is also through his stomach so I knew he'd be happy with any food I was to make.

Close up of one of the drinks flags I made using the Kikki K stickers.

Love letter sugar cookies with edible paper stamp (stamp design from Kikki K)

Some of the things I made were mini raspberry trifles, mini cheesecake bites, coconut & pineapple milkshake, raspberry and coconut mini cupcakes, chocolate hearts, love letter cookies and heart cookies.

Close up of the heart cookies I made, I copied the Kikki K heart design in their sticker book. Excuse the piping, I still need to learn how to do that properly lol.

Close up of the cheesecake bites I made, I piped on some red chocolate and popped in a red choc heart. So what do you think?

Happy Valentine's day everyone,

xxxx

Leoni

Thank you

2011-02-11T14:52:00.008+11:00

I woke up this morning to see this sweet feature of my back to school party on Bird's Party blog, to say I was thrilled would be an understatement. I LOVE Bird's work, she is incredibly talented and has the most unique and adorable designs in her Bird's Party Shop, you must have a look when you get a chance. So thank you Bird for the lovely feature, what a nice start to the weekend for me ;-)

In fact it has been a fab year for me so far, 1st to be featured on Hostess with the Mostess who featured my birdie party back in January , I LOVE Hostess with the Mostess, its my design bible and I always go there to sample all the visual goodies,

then on Amy Atlas's blog earlier this month, who's work I admire and respect and who is my idol in the Dessert table world, and then Bird's blog, whom I equally admire and respect.
I am actually a little overwhelmed by it all, thank you to everyone for your wonderful comments, emails, features on your blogs and shared links on Facebook, they truly made my year!!

xxxx

Leoni

Pencil crayon mini cake tutorial

2011-02-04T14:23:00.008+11:00

STEP 1: Gather your ingredients, you'll need some mini swiss rolls (mine are Italian choc mini swiss rolls) you could use twinkies or tootsie rolls, some mini ice cream cones and some coloured fondant.

STEP 2: Lay out your pencil so you can see how much of the mini ice cream cone you need to cut off. I've cut about 1/3 off the bottom of mine.

STEP 3: For the wooden nib parts of the "pencils" I've coloured some fondant skin tone, you could colour it light peach or light brown to represent the timber nib of the pencil. I then rolled the skin toned fondant flat and made a rough template so it would fit around the ice cream cone neatly. Cover the tip of your cone in the colour your pencil is meant to be (mine is red) and brush some buttercream around your cone to act as glue, now drape and smooth the fondant around the cone, slightly over lapping at the bottom of the red fondant to hide the jagged seam. Tuck the over hanging skin tone fondant at the bottom of the cone in, this will help anchor the fondant and smooth out any lumps and bumps.

STEP 4: Measure how tall your swiss roll is and add another 2cm overhang, also check the circumfrenche of your roll as you want the fondant to go all the way around with a nice sharp finish/seam, now cut a rectangle from your coloured fondant (mine is red) (My rectangle was 12cm tall x 14cm wide). Ice the swiss roll in buttercream, (don't forget to put some icing on the tip of the swiss roll so your cone can adhere to it and be more secure), and cut a circle the size of the bottom of your swiss roll, stick the circle to the bottom of your swiss roll, smoothing down the edges. Stick the "nib/cone" to the top of your swiss roll.

Now gently pop your swiss roll on the rectangle fondant and roll it up till the seams meet up, cut away any excess with scissors and close the seam. Cut out a smaller red circle and stick this to the skin tone circle at the bottom of your "pencil" (this is the coloured lead you see when you look at the bottom of a pencil)

STEP 5: Gently smooth the top part of your coloured fondant to the skin tone nib, you may need to use some sugar glue or water to make the fondants adhere. Don't wet it too much or your colours will smudge and run onto your skin tone nibs. If there is any overlapping fondant don't panic, just cut it off with some scissors and smooth it. Let it dry for an hour before moving it around, I find if I pop it on baking paper as soon as I've made one it won't stick and break when I try to move them.

Have fun making them ;-)

Leoni

Caramel mudcake recipe

2011-02-03T10:50:00.004+11:00

Image courtesy from Taste.com.au

Anne from Norway asked me to share my mudcake recipe since these cakes weren't common where she was from and she wanted to try and make one, so Anne, this is for you. Obviously you can make them in dark and white chocolate too but this is a favourite amongst my family.

CARAMEL MUDCAKE

Ingredients

250g butter

150g white cooking chocolate

2 cups of brown sugar

1 cup of buttermilk

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

1/2 cup self raising flour

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

3 eggs (at room temperature)

Preparation

1) Preheat oven to 150 degrees C (Mine is a gas oven and no fan) Grease a 20cm round cake tin (mine is also 8cm high), line base and sides with baking paper.

2) Combine butter, chocolate, sugar and milk in a saucepan and stir over low heat (don't boil) untill smooth and melted. Transfer to a large bowl and let it cool to room temperature (about 20 min)

3) Using a wisk add the sifted plain + self raising flour, then vanilla essence then eggs. Make sure you do not over mix or your batter will become tough.

4)Pour mixture into your prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 50 minutes. After the 1 hour mark I usually turn my tin around in the oven and loosely cover the top with some tinfoil, I then bake it for a further 50 min till cooked. I check the cake with a serrated knife put in at an angle.

5) Keep the cake in the pan while it cools, I usually cover the top with a thick towel while it cools, it keeps the moisture in the cake. Once cool I pop it on a plate to ice, but you could also eat it plain with some whipped cream.

Back to school apple party for Imara

2011-01-29T21:06:00.046+11:00

Phew, another party complete, I am bushed after this one! This party was for my 3rd daughter Imara she turned 4 on the 29th January. Since school was starting back (after 8 very long weeks) on the 2nd February and Imara was starting a new Kindy I thought a back to school theme would be a good way to encourage some enthusiasm for school amongst my elder girls and hopefully make it easier for Imara to start the new year. I made a list of all the things Imara loves, apples, drawing, reading, writing etc and tried to draw some inspiration from her likes. I also looked, drooled and was inspired by Amy Atlas's Back to School bake sale, a feature Amy did for Parents Magazine back in September 2010. So many cool ideas, where to start! I featured the apple throughout the party as well as the bookworm because Imara always takes an apple to Kindy and LOVES to read the most. To start with I made Imara's apple invitation using Kikki K's apple tags, I just printed the details on some blank cardstock and cut it to fit the apple shape, I then used the Kikki K envelopes and stickers from their stationary range to send them off to her friends.

I then started off by painting some MDF boards with blackboard paint and with the leftover paint I covered an old dining table (that already had a lot of scribbles on it) top so the girls could have fun drawing on it after or during the party with some chalk. On the blackboard I stuck a white tree wall decal which also became the focal point for my table and the "vessel" for my homemade apple cookies. Yep, I hung apple cookies from my "tree", it looked so cute and best of all the girls just had to undo the ribbon bow if they wanted to eat one. I was then inspired by Bird's Party free downloadeable back to school printables (I used them on labels, tags and pencil toppers), they are amazing, but if you want something different please visit Bird's Party shop because she has some AMAZING designs to suit everyone.

The banner infront of the table I made using Dimple Prints free downloadeable alphabets, thank you Carli they are so cute, Carli also has an Etsy shop HERE.

The best thing about the blackboard paint on the table and walls is that I could use both surfaces as giant "lables" for my sweet goodies. Any excuse to write on walls and furniture ;-)
The building blocks (red ones on the right side of the table) are custom made by Lilly-Pilly arts on Ebay.

For the cake I decided on a small chocolate sponge filled with chocolate fudge icing, Imara's favourite flavour. Everything on the cake is edible and made from fondant, Imara loved the bookworm the best.

Instead of traditional platters and cake standsI decided to use mini blackboards resting on books (covered in craft paper) that I had lying around the house.

One of the items I made for the dessert table (since Imara LOVES drawing) are these cute pencils, I used mini sponge rolls (you could use twinkies or tootsie rolls) for the body of the pencil and mini icecream cones cut in half for the pencil leads. I then covered it all in coloured fondant.

Yummy apple pops inspired by Bakerella

Scrummy vanilla buttercake cupcakes with numbers, apple and worm toppers made from fondant.

One of Imara's favourite drinks is plain milk, so had to have that at the party! Instead of printing lables I bought these cute blackboard labels from Bradensgrace Wallart and wrote the word milk using plain white chalk. How cute are the polka dot straws from Tout Mon Amour? I love them, and they have heaps of other goodies, so please visit them to see for yourself.

The gorgeous birthday girl wore a custom made apple skirt with polkadot frill from Janum, thank you Majd I love the skirt! I made a matching T-shirt with a $4 Target T-shirt and some left over felt and fabric.
The party table was decorated with melamine plates (from Spotlight) and home made polkadot napkins and party hats (inspired by Kate Landers) I wrote each child's name on the table, in chalk, above each plate as place cards.

At the back of each chair is a handmade library bag containing a children's book about apples ;-) I made the bunting flags from Kokka green and red apples, Chalkboard Letters and Numbers fabric, Kaufman Metro Market Apple in Red and Michael Millers lime green polka dots fabric.

Each child took home these cute mini suitcases with Penny Scallan bag tags and stickers.

and each suitcase contained 1 x edible crayons, I handmade these using Parties by Hardie's cute tutorial, alphabet cookie snacks (made by me because I couldn't find any to buy at my local store grrr), notebook (covered in funky apple fabric) and pencil + apple. Hope you enjoyed reading about the party, please also join me on my Facebook Page, I would love to see you there.

Last but not least a HUGE thank you to Amy Atlas for featuring this party, I am beyond thrilled and honored!!!

Cheers,

Leoni

Black & white engagement

2011-01-22T17:05:00.006+11:00

This is what I've just completed for an engagement this weekend. Nancy showed me a photo of a ring box she wanted on the top tier and asked for everything to be black and white themed with hearts. I made a mix of coconut, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes + cakes to feed 150 guests, that certainly is a LOT of cake! I custom made the stand to match the theme by covering cakeboards in white fabric with black ribbon trim while the support pillars were decorated in black and white damask fabric. All cupcake wrappers were handmade by me in Christina Re black & white damask paper as I tried to match the pillar fabric (and succeeded, yay).

Here is a close up of the top tier, a 6" inch round coconut cake with coconut buttercream icing and covered in white choc fondant. Everything is edible (but I wouldn't try or you'd break your teeth lol), the jewelry box is made from black flower modelling paste while the ring is white modelling paste painted in edible silver dust after it had dried. The diamond in the ring is isomalt (edible sugar) and bought from a cake store (its readily available on the internet), size of edible diamond 1.5 carats set in 6 prong "platinum" setting, wish it was real ;-)

Back to school party idea board

2011-01-15T20:13:00.006+11:00

For those of you living in Australia, did you know its only 2.5 weeks to go till school starts again? Eeeeeek! I bet some of you can't wait! lol I've already started collecting items for my eldest two girls who will be in grade 5 and 1 respectively. Since my 3rd child's birthday is only 3 short days till D-day we've decided to have a back to school birthday party with apples as the focal point. Imara will be 4 in 2 weeks time and although she will be going to Kinder rather than big school I thought I'd encourage the enthusiasm for Kinder by having the school theme incorporated into her party.

I put this idea board together to start the creative juices flowing, image on the top left hand corner is from TomKat Studios, the one next to it (chair) is from remodelista, bottom right hand corner is from Amy Atlas while the rest were from Google image searches (author unknown). I've got a pretty good idea what I will be doing for her party but I am stuck on her cake, usually I have the cake sorted first and the party idea then follows but since its been hot and humid here in Melbourne its been very hard working with fondant. We've got some cool weather coming up early this week so I better think fast what I will be making so I can get the sugar work completed and it can dry in time. I am also stuck on some gift ideas, I've bought part of her gift (Penny Scallan lunch bag and matching drink bottle) but can't think what else to get her. Imara is Barbie mad but I am so OVER Barbie at the moment I'd prefer not to buy anymore of those, besides my sister in law has bought her another Barbie for her birthday.

I better start thinking a little harder before I run out of time!

Featured on Hostess with the Mostess!!!

2011-01-11T10:46:00.005+11:00

Happy New year everyone, hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and holiday with family and friends. Its been very busy for me with 4 children home and trying to keep them busy, hence being MIA since Christmas lol Everyone goes back to school on the 2nd February so I'll have more time to come back on here ;-)

First up some exciting news for me this month is that my party for Jasmine has been featured on Hostess with the Mostess!!! I was so excited to see my pics on the HWTM blog, I think I nearly fainted lol Mind you HWTM made my photo's look 10 times better, I was floored at how professional they looked. Thank you so much HWTM for featuring my little party, I am absolutely stoked :-)

My next project is Imara's 4th birthday on the 29th January, here is a hint of what I am thinking.............

Merry Christmas 2010

2010-12-24T18:25:00.006+11:00

Merry Christmas everyone, have a safe and wonderful time with your family. Here are two photo's to show how I have re-used Jasmine's birthday party elements. I am all for recycling ;-)

Cheers,

Leoni

xxxxx

Jasmine's Birdy birthday party

2010-12-22T21:41:00.039+11:00

A little bird told me........... this is what inspired me to create my niece Jasmine's birthday party a few weeks ago. I love, LOVE Tasha's work from A little sweetness, this lady truly inspires me and I loved working with her gorgeous art to create my nieces party. It was perfect for what I had in mind for a 2 year old's birthday. Tasha sells all sorts of gorgeous goodies, but beware, once you are in her shop you won't be able to leave!!

My biggest dilema was that Jasmine's birthday is only 3 short days from Christmas, I wanted a birthday theme that could be used for Christmas (I wanted to re-use a lot of the birthday elements) without Jasmine's birthday being too "Christmassy". I uhmmed and ahhhed a lot over the colour scheme, should it be green and red, no I want pink and green, it drove me to distraction. After doing some "homework" I was inspired by Amy Atlas's Wedding library dessert table I love the soft colours Amy used and the feather details on the table. I chose pale blue, red, white and natural because I already had some of the bird elements at home and I felt the colours were nice and fresh for our hot Ozzy sun.

This is my favourite food item on the table, "chicks on sticks" inspired by Bakerella's Spring Chicken pops. Some other foods were "worms" (sausages), "crows feet" (choc covered pretzels), "twigs" (bread sticks), "Magpies" (Aussie mini pies), "bird nests" (mini meringue with malteser eggs) and "Polly's crackers" (Sesame cracker biccies)

Since the party would consist only of 6 children I didn't want a huge dessert table instead I opted for something smaller like the antique drawer unit, chair and stand combo above. It worked quite well I think, even thought I was very nervous the week before I kept thinking this is NOT going to work and nearly canned the whole idea about 3 times lol

I didn't have much time till the party so I bought my bird gingerbread cookies from Dolls at the mount, not only were they yummy but they looked cute too. I hung some bird cookies from the branches above the table and some I popped under the glass dome (to keep them fresh).

The birthday cake was inspired by the invitation designed by Tasha, a lovely chocolate buttercream sponge covered in white chocolate fondant. The bird and mushroom topper I made to match Tasha's bird drawing, isn't it cute? I love it! Instead of ribbon I covered the bottom of the cake with feathers.

The chidren drank "GOOSEberry" juice from vintage bottles with custom a little sweetness bottle lables and cute stripey straws.

How cute are these cupcakes, I've always loved Natasha Collins from Amelie's House and was inspired by her Rockin Robin cupcakes. The toppers are made from edible fondant paper (using Tasha's bird drawing) and the vanilla butttercream cupcakes are encased in Kat and Nat's famous bird cupcake wrappers (from The Cupcake wrapper co)

On the main table I popped a white tablecloth on which I attached a feather boa. The eating bowls were mini baskets (like nests) and I popped the bird house boxes inside which are treat boxes but also served as name place cards.

Above the table I suspended some bird garlands made from twine, scrap ribbon and cardboard birds painted in blue, white, red and some left natural.

I used bamboo cuttlery for the party and used Kikki K's VAR bird stamp to personalise the spoons. Napkins and plates from Provincial living, baskets and cuttlery from Wheel & Barrow

Here are my bird house treat boxes (inspired by Torie Jayne's gingerbread house) ready to go home with the party guests (see tutorial below) Each one is made using cardboard and fabric scraps I had lying around the house , bargain! You can also view my photo's on my FACEBOOK page.

Birdy house treat box tutorial

2010-12-22T20:49:00.018+11:00

So for the birdy party I was after some super cute yet unique treat boxes, I didn't want to spend a lot of money and wanted something I could do with my children so I came up with this cute idea. I downloaded a birdy house template from Torie Jayne's blog (thanks Torie), made a carboard template and traced 6 box shapes (since I needed 6 treat boxes) (see above photo)

and drew 6 x seperate rooves.

Then I cut out all the boxes and rooves

and traced the same pattern on some scrap fabric to cover my walls and rooves.

laying the cardboard cutout flat against the fabric I glued down the top of the eaves and the walls, I left the sides open since I would be sewing them together anyway. I scored the floor (square you can see in the middle of my cardboard cutout above) lightly with some scissors so they would bend along the fold more easily.

I then glued some felt to each of my rooves.

Now fold the walls up so they meet and using blanket stitch sew them together (the raw fabric edges are folded in as you can see above)

Your house will now look like this, you can trim the fabric back on the inside but I left it for tutorial purposes, you won't see it anyway once the roof is in place.

Now cut out some black felt circles to stick on the front of your birdy house (as the hole) I blanket stitched around mine to make them neater.

Glue the circle on the front of the birdy house and glue one side of the roof down leaving the other end open. Once you've filled your house with treats you can close the roof by tying a ribbon around the house and roof (see my blogpost above to see what I mean)

Going to the Chapel to get married...............

2010-12-03T14:16:00.007+11:00

This is a lovely sample wedding cake I did as a tester. Colours were ivory, creamy gold and pale pink with pearl highlights. I love the soft colours and simplicity of this design.

Here is a close up of the the rose, I can see the shimmer from the the pearl dust I used on the tips of the petals.

Here are some matching cupcakes to go with the cake, it was just a sample box of 6 flavours and I experimented with some of my new impression mats. The birds were hand cut and handpainted, still haven't found an appropriate cutter I like yet. The other designs were inspired by the lovely Kylie Lambert who's cupcakes are AMAZING.

Tinkerbell giant cupcake birthday cake

2010-11-26T20:39:00.005+11:00

I finally had a chance to bake and decorate a giant cupcake this week, boy did I have fun!!! I was lucky that the giant cupcake 3D pan was on sale at Myer a few weeks ago since I didn't fancy carving up a cake from scratch. Using the design from the Planet Cake book as my guide I covered an orange butter sponge cake (filled with orange buttercream) with some jaffa flavoured white choc fondant and proceeded to decorate to my hearts content. This birthday was Tinkerbell themed so I had to make a Tinkerbell figurine holding a paint brush since the birthday girl loves to paint.

Isn't she cute? I didn't try to replicate Tinkerbell limb for limb, I just used her as a guide and simplified her facial details.

Everything was edible, including the cherry on top which was make from red fondant given a super shine finish with my edible flower glaze (I love that stuff!!)

Wedding family characture portrait

2010-11-19T20:11:00.004+11:00

Ok, I have to admit I found this request difficult, really, really, REALLY difficult. Last year my good friend Sel asked me to make this painting for a very special family member. Her request was a characture family portrait, no problem I said, easy I thought, if I can paint portraits and seascapes surely I can paint charactures right? HA! I was wrong, you see I am a realist, a thorough, anal, draw every detail kinda realist, I see it I draw it even to my high school art teacher's dismay. I sucked at abstract art and could never create anything by just using the object's colour or shape. So when I started on this painting I tried so hard to keep the subject simple and cartoonish that I lost the character of each person, I struggled, vented, chucked a tanty, tore my hair out, almost gave up about 15 times and drew the intial sketch a further 8 times before Sel and I were happy with the final design. Then I ummmmed and ahhhed, procrastinated, dug my heels in for a further few weeks before getting the courage to put the design on canvas. I was petrified I'd stuff it up, I think I tested the background colour 3 times, and did some mini colour versions before I finally took the plunge and started the painting. To my surprise I enjoyed painting it, I came across no hiccups, and ever the pesimist kept my triump under wraps right till the last stroke was complete. Am I happy with the result, heck yes! Will I be doing this again, heck no!! lol

Spiderman birthday cake

2010-11-13T18:24:00.004+11:00

This is what I was busy completing for this weekend, a lovely Spiderman cake. Thank goodness I had the foresight to make the figurines two weeks ago, hot and humid weather + a very hectic schedule gave me very little time to do anymore figurines. This is a super moist choc mud cake with choc buttercream icing, the walls of the cake were a mixture of white choc fondant and Nestle milk chocolate (yum). The only thing not edible were the 2 cars I popped on the board at the last minute. I had a scary moment the night before where the hot weather played havoc with my milk choc walls, they kept going soft and wanting to break yikes!!! Thankfully the weather cooled down and I was able to complete the walls and cake, even if it was at 1.30am in the morning :-(

I made the spider webs from melted white chocolate, a template, some grease proof paper and a piping tip. Once they were dry I just peeled them off and "glued" them to the cake using more chocolate. Did I mention that the cake weighed a tonne? I nearly killed my back carrying it to the car!!

Castle cake

2010-10-31T18:30:00.002+11:00

Its been another very busy weekend with 3 cakes completed by today. This lovely castle cake was for a very good friend of mine who's daughter just turned 1. Although very time consuming (I was up till 11pm last night finishing it off) it was a fantastic cake to make. I love the rabbit and frog Prince the most, they look adorable. The cake was just plain butter cake with strawberry buttercream frosting and covered in white choc fondant.

Football cake

2010-10-31T18:26:00.003+11:00

This weekend I also completed a footy cake for a 6 yr old boy, he's an avid Kangaroo supporter so I made the cake based on the footy field with 2 players. The cake was chocolate mud with chocolate buttercream icing, yummmmmmm.

Teletubbies cake

2010-10-31T18:14:00.004+11:00

Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa & Po, yes I know ALL their names lol Although not one of my favourite TV shows (the non talking annoys me) it was a fun cake to make. The figurines took me ages to make and they were quite difficult to make, well not their bodies, just their faces were a bit tricky but I managed in the end. My favourite character was the baby sun, I made him with flower modelling paste using a template I drew on some cardstock and used edible colour pastes, water and chalks to draw his face.

Baked lemon cheescake for 40th and Babushka cake

2010-10-10T17:22:00.006+11:00

I loved doing this cute mini Babushka cake, its actually a gift for a friend who loves Babuska dolls. Cake is just simple butter cake with toffee buttercream icing, nothing flash but I know its a safe bet that my friend will like it ;-) I handpainted all the details onto the fondant with edible paste and my cake paint brushes.

This weekend I completed yet another baked cheesecake, this time the flavour was lemon with lemon white choc panels. I loved the colour combination of yellow, pink and orange, very spring like. Time for a breather, I am bushed!

Spongebob and friends cake

2010-10-03T13:05:00.004+11:00

The 3rd cake for this weekend was this gorgeous Spongebob cake. I had so much fun making him, my fav being Spongebob, Squidward and Gary the snail. A lot of work went into this cake, all up I spent every day for the past two weeks doing all the figurines. The cake consisted of a 12' square marble chocolate cake filled with white choc buttercream while the pineapple was a white choc mud cake. The "sand" around the cake is royal icing mixed with brown caster sugar.

Close up of Spongebob, isn't he cute? I wanted him to hold the number 6 (also fondant) which was a bit tricky because the number kept falling over before the "sand" had time to dry.

Close up of Patrick starfish, he too was fun to make, everything once again is made from fondant.

Now to relax and put my feet up for a few days till my next request is due.

Elmo birthday cake

2010-10-03T12:45:00.004+11:00

This was my 2nd cake completed for this weekend, the lovely Elmo. Its a 10" round double stacked and shaped coconut butter cake filled with coconut buttercream icing. I love Elmo but piping his fur was not so fun, it took me almost 3 hrs to complete his fur, by then my hand was cramping up lol Did I mention it took 2 kgs of icing and 2 x pots of Wilton red to make his fur? Yikes!! His eyes and nose are made from fondant and was the easiest part of the cake. I also had a hairy time transfering the cake onto the cakeboard without getting red icing everywhere, but it got done in the end.

Balloon 1st birthday cake

2010-10-03T11:52:00.005+11:00

This past week has been SUPER busy, I had 3 cake requests to complete, one for Saturday and two for today. This cake was for a little boys 1st birthday party yesterday. The mum gave me a Paper Eskimo invite (they have other matching items, so hop over to their website to have a look) and asked me to copy the design for the cake. I love balloons and the invite was soooo cute I couldn't resist, I am very happy with how it turned out. Cake was a double stacked 8' round butter cake filled with vanilla bean buttercream icing, yum.

I love the little rabbit sitting in the basket, how cute is he!

Kate Landers Competition runner up, woot woot

2010-09-28T20:42:00.003+10:00

Wow, I just found out I was runner up to the Kate Landers Events party design comp I entered a few weeks ago, click HERE to see.
We had to write a party design plan for a vintage 1930's - 1960's children's party, no photo's or drawing allowed, just written design up to 15 pages. I had so much fun writing out my ideas, it took ages lol The winner will have her party styled and featured at Kate's blog while elements will be taken from the runner's up designs and incorporated into the main design (with full credits) Its a huge honor for me as I LOVE Kate Lander's parties, she does the most AMAZING work I've ever seen.

I will be doing a mini version of the design I submitted for Kate for Annike's birthday in November, the only catch is I won't be able to share anything on here untill Kate has styled the winning party. Boo hoo, the price you pay for fame ROFL ;-) I don't mind, I'll wait patiently.
Thank you Kate, I am completely stoked!

Baked Raspberry cheesecake

2010-08-31T18:14:00.005+10:00

I've just completed this super yummy raspberry baked cheesecake topped with raspberry jelly sauce. The panels were made using white Nestle chocolate and flavoured raspberry and covered in dark chocolate swirls. It was a quick cake but I am still happy with how it turned out.

Double 60th birthday

2010-08-29T12:54:00.004+10:00

This weekend I made 30 cupcakes for a double 60th birthday celebration, I was told the couple liked green and blue so came up with the following colour combo. Half the cupcakes are french vanilla and the other half double chocolate, all the toppers were made from fondant.

I made a custom stand to match since it gave me a good excuse to use some of my Heather Bailey Pop Garden fabric ;-) I am quite happy with how they turned out, bright yet classy without being too "girly".

A baby gift for Pepper

2010-08-24T13:25:00.004+10:00

This is something else I've been busy with this month, a cute baby set for my friend Selina who gave birth to Pepper a few weeks ago. Selina's favourite colour is pink and she loves polka dots so I thought I'd combine the two and came up with the cute bunting for Pepper's room (fabric from Cath Kidston, Tanya Whelan and the dress print fabric is from A little sweetness) Everything was placed in the suitcase (from Baby's got style) and I painted the name to make it more personal (tag on suitcase is also from A little Sweetness). The pants are from Oobi and I loved them so much I made a matching applique for a white T-shirt I bought from Target.

I also loved this teddy, she came from Bed, Bath and Table but was naked so I made her this cute polka dress. I love the homemade look of this teddy, pity more soft toys don't look like this.

Selina's cupcakes

2010-08-22T17:22:00.003+10:00

Today I met up with some lovely Melbourne friends for a catch up, my friend Selina gave birth to her daughter Pepper about 10 weeks ago and I wanted to give her a little gift as celebration. Selina has mentioned on several occasions that Pepper can be quite "grumpy", so I thought the crying cupcakes would be appropriate. If anyone has the Planet cake book (by Paris Cutler) then you would have seen these cupcakes before, I love the different expressions and wanted to make a batch. Here is my efforts, I am quite happy with how they turned out.

Last minute cheesecake

2010-08-19T18:29:00.003+10:00

Just popping in to share this lovely cake I whipped up yesterday for a 24th birthday. I was asked for a plain New york baked cheescake but just could not help myself in decorating it. I've made this type of cake before (Nicholas's Holy Communion cake last month) and the person who requested this cake loved the colour combo and taste so I made a similar design. The chocolate collar is made from white Nestle chocolate and flavoured Jafa, the blossoms are just fondant. The cheesecake was topped with sour cream and orange zest topping, yummmm!

Ofcourse I had a fair bit of leftovers so I whipped up a batch of Orange and lemon zesty cupcakes with orange zest buttercream and used up the leftover blossoms.

Before I go, please visit Tasha at A little sweetness and wish her a happy birthday for your chance to win some lovely goodies (have a peek, its really lovely items).

Now I must be off to finish that wedding canvas I've been meaning to complete this week!

Have a fab weekend.

xxx
Leoni

Oh my goodness!!!

2010-08-15T18:14:00.002+10:00

Well blow me down with a feather! I've just found out that Anya's birthday dessert table was featured by Amy Atlas, squeeeeeeeeeeeel! I LOVE Amy Atlas's work so needless to say I cried when I saw the spread on her blog. Thank you Amy, you are the best xxxx

Dora birthday cake

2010-08-15T16:47:00.007+10:00

Look what I completed today, this lovely Dora cake for a 3yr old girl called Rebecca. Its a double stacked Butter sponge cake filled with strawberry buttercream (yum!!) and covered in white chocolate fondant (flavoured strawberry). I have to say I love this cake, it was so much fun to make.

That doesn't mean there weren't a few hiccups on the way, no-sir-ee I had a heck of a time sculpting good-ole Dora. After 3 attempts I finally managed to get her right, you won't realise till you actually make her that she's got a BIG head, with funny shaped eyes and a funny mouth. In the end I started with her feet and made her legs then shorts then waist then neck before lastly making her head. Boots wasn't too bad to make, just his tail gave me grief (kept breaking).

This is the back of Dora, see, I even made her backpack lol

Anya and Liandra's bedroom makeover

2010-08-05T18:15:00.008+10:00

Finally a bit of sunshine meant I could take some photo's of the bedroom makeover, so here it is, ta-da....... Six months of collecting, buying and making items and this is the final result (please note that I rent, so I couldn't change any of the wall colours or make any structural changes) In the above photo you can see Liandra's bed (my youngest daughter), the quilt was made from various aqua and red fabrics from the fabulous Kerri at Sew Deerly Loved, while the quilt was handmade with love by fantastic Marcie at Got scraps (Marcie does the most AMAZING quilts, every detail is perfect, please visit her shop to see for yourself) The red polka dot canvas is just a white canvas with polka dot fabric stappled around the frame. The print on the back wall is from Belle and Boo, I LOVE their paintings.

Marcie also did matching/contrasting quilt for Anya's (my eldest) bed (seen above), isn't it beautiful? Both Anya and I love it to bits. The aqua and red crochet blankets and cusshions are from thecomfortsofhome, I love the colours and the homemade feel, they are also super warm and cosy, a must have here in winter. The fabric bunting, ribbon mobile, fabric letter A and felt birdies (ontop of the cupboard) was handmade by me. Wooden tree and cupboard were bought from Ebay.

This corner isn't finished yet as I am looking for a vintage drawer unit or perhaps a storage seat, but for now I've stolen a drawer set from my room. Print in the aqua frame is from the fabulously talented Tasha at a little sweetness, I've bought several items in the favourite dress range but alas its for another project (boo-hoo) The big print in the red frame is from The little Humbugs and I covered an old hatbox in spotty fabric to match.

The above photo is another angle of Liandra's bed, she LOVES the red birdie decals (removable) on her wall and every day runs inside her room to show them to me ;-)

Anya's 10th birthday polka dot party

2010-07-31T15:00:00.018+10:00

Phew, my very 1st lolly/dessert table is complete! I can finally kick back and appreciate all the hard work that went into Anya's polkadot party today. Six months of planning, collecting and crafting has paid off and the day was a huge success, its not every day my daughter bursts into tears because she's so happy ;-) Seeing her happy face made it all worth it. My inspiration as always, came from the fabulous AMY ATLAS (I LOVE her work!!) and Sharnel Dollar (amazingly talented lady!) Hats off to both these ladies for always pulling off the perfect party because it sure is hard work.

Most of the goodies were made by me with a lot of help from my girls, so its not perfect but I like it this way, we had fun doing those projects together.

The birthday cake was a 2 tier caramel fudge mudcake with caramel fudge buttercream icing.

My 1st macarons, don't think I'll be makng these again in a hurry, I found it very fidly lol My eldest wrote out all the label tags since my handwriting is BAD ;-)

These were made by Anya, we melted some white chocolate, coloured some blue and red and Anya piped the red and blue into a baking dish, then poured over the white chocolate and used a kebab stick to make some swirls. She then popped some smarties, peanut M&M's and sprinkles ontop to set. Once set we broke the chocolate into pieces.

We used some leftover fabric (sew deerly loved)to make these lolly bag tags, the girls then filled the bags with lollies and stapled the tag into place.

Another project I did with the girls, they piped blue chocolate into picnic spoons and then used various smarties and sprinkles to decorate the spoons. It went well with our polkadot theme.

These lovely vanilla cupcakes were entirely baked and decorated by my 10yr old daughter, I only helped mix the icing for her and she then piped it on the cupcakes and popped on the toppers. Cupcake wrappers are by The cupcake wrapper co, aren't they cute? They can be wiped clean and best of all they don't get greasy from icing mixtures. It was very hard work to pull together but everyone had a fab day.

Holy Communion cupcakes and cake set

2010-07-31T14:31:00.006+10:00

The weekend of the 24th July was very busy for me, not only was it my eldest daughters birthday (think 24 cupcakes for the whole class) but I also had two Communion projects to complete. One was for a lovely girl called Bronte, I made her the set of cupcakes above in pink, yellow and blue, while the other set was for a boy called Nicholas.

Please excuse the terrible photo's, I had one of my chocolate panels break at the eleventh hour and went into a mad panic rush to make another one before delivery time. So instead of getting lovely clear and unhuried pics at 4pm I got these done in a rush at 6pm on my kitchen bench. The cake was a 2 tier baked New York cheesecake surrounded by chocolate panels, the cupcakes were plain vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

Here is a close up of the figurine I made, I am very happy of how he turned out, he's my very 1st "suited" figurine, and very 1st standing figurine.

Sneak peak to bedroom "reno"

2010-07-13T17:39:00.002+10:00

Ok, not REALLY a renovation since we are renting, but I am doing up the bedroom and this is the fabrics I've used. Since my eldest and youngest share a birthday in July they will also be sharing a bedroom come 23rd July and as a combined gift from us I am doing up their room. Its actually the same fabric and colour pallett I am using for Anya's party and to keep costs down I've used it in the bedroom makeover.

Fabrics are

- Cosmo Cricket, Snorkel RED and Aqua Polka Dots on White
- Michael Miller, Minnie Ta Dots, Red
- Simply Sweet, Quilt Soup, Barbara Jones, BJ Red dots on aqua
- Michael Miller, Ta Dots in ocean
- Couple of Monaluna, Mingle, Red and Aqua range fabrics

Now to hurry up and finish all my projects, two weeks to reveal day, eeeeeeek!

Hip hop Spotti dotti birthday invites

2010-07-13T17:19:00.004+10:00

So all the invites (done by The English Pea)for my eldest 10th birthday party was handed out yesterday, no turning back now, come what may this party WILL happen. Theme will be aqua and red polka dots since Anya is now "too old" for fairy/princess parties, we will be playing games such as twister, musical dots, spot the difference and join the dots. I started prepping and collecting for this party in January since I knew it would take awhile to collect all the fabric and blue and red items required to decorate her party. I am quietly having a panic attack, but probably more so because I am simultaniously doing up her room as a surprise which will be "revealed" the week before the party, on her actual birthday. I need more time, but then again if 6 months isn't enough time to do her room and plan her party then no amount of time will be enough. So watch this space!

Sewing 80th birthday cake

2010-07-04T14:01:00.007+10:00

Look at what I delivered to the reception centre this morning, isn't it quirky? The birthday lady used to be a seamstress, specialising in wedding dresses and her daughter and son had this cake made (to feed 70 people) as a surprise. The main elements that had to be present on the cake was the mannequin with wedding dress, scissors, tape measure, pin cusshion, spool of thread and buttons + thimble. Everything on this cake is edible, even the pins you see. The main cake was a orange citrus double tier cake filled with orange and white chocolate ganache, yummmm!

I was stressed the most by having to cover the cakes in fondant but surprisingly I had no hiccups covering the 10' and 8' inch cakes. No creases and no lumps, mainly due to a neat trick "Planet Cake's book by Paris Cutter" has taught me, to ganache the outside of your cakes, let it set and then run a hot knife along the outside to smooth out bumps and creases. The cakes ended up very smooth (yay). Everything on the cake was made from scratch, only the sewing machine and scissors were made using a candy mould.

I loved the sewing machine the best, I used a candy mould to get the shape of the machine (grease the mould with some vegetable fat, pop in some fondant (Pettinice) then wack it out onto your table and let it set before moving or touching it) and used edible pastes to "paint" on the details.

The pin cusshion was made using a medium circle cutter, I cut out the green paste first, pressed the top into my mesh icing sugar shaker (to get the pattern) then used the circle cutter to cut out some grey paste, stuck them toghter and painted the base using edible silver paste. Pins were made from No 3 spaghettini (Angel hair) painted silver (edible) and topped with a coloured fondant "pinhead". All up a very time consuming project, but fun to do. I spent 3 weeks on making all the fondant items (so they could dry properly) and the last week I spent baking, assembling and covering the cakes.

Happy 2nd birthday Liandra

2010-07-01T19:14:00.005+10:00

It was my youngest daughter Liandra's 2nd birthday today so to celebrate the special occasion my other girls chose the fruit fairy cake from Debbie Brown's Enchanting magical cakes book. I had a lot of fun making this cake, the body of the cake was cookies and cream madeira filled with chocolate ganach. The easiest items to make was the actual fairies themselves and I had a few hairy moments baking the two halves of cake. My 1st cake (made in a pyrex bowl) didn't cook, even after 4 hrs in the oven it was still raw so I pulled it out and tried again. The 2nd attempt was made using a metal mixing bowl and it turned out perfectly, I did have some trouble applying the fondant. Debbie makes it look super easy in her book but trust me covering a round object in fondant is far from easy! I ended up with a few small creases at the base of the cake which I hid with grass ;-)

Close up of the blackberry fairy, the gloss you can see was achieved by applying edible confectioners glaze, love that stuff!

Close up of the tangerine fairy. All up a fun cake to make which was a challenge but not so difficult that you'd throw in the towel in frustration. Liandra loved it, which is what counts the most in the end.

Sienna's Cheescake for 13th birthday

2010-06-09T21:38:00.008+10:00

Holy moly but this project was a doozy. A 10' inch refrigerated cheescake with 24 mini cheescakes. Sounds easy enough, ha! It wasn't, ok the making of the cheescakes was easy but the decorating was a complete pain, I had to do several tests to see what would and what wouldn't work and after numerous swear words and lots of stamping of feet I came up with the following. The birthday girl wanted butterflies in pinks, mauves, lilac's and aqua and the cake had to be cheescake, the rest was up to me. The problem with cheescake is it doesn't like any type of decorations (other than fresh cream and fruit) any type of fondant or pastillage tends to sweat and then go mushy so that leaves you with chocolate. I love to eat chocolate but am not overly confident in using it in decoration, its an unpredictable cranky medium and one I'd like to stay away from. In the end I used white chocolate modelling paste to make the butterflies and coated the underside of each butterfly with white chocolate to stop it absorbing moisture while resting on the cake. I tried to think how to cover the cake to make it look pretty and thought a chocolate collar might work really well, the 1st chocolate collar I made turned out quite well (that was my back up collar) but my 2nd collar (using edible pattern sheets) was a shamozzle. I managed to get half the collar on but the 2nd half had a serious kink in it and I wasn't quick enough to smooth it out, then it broke when I tried to remove the acetate arghhhhh. Back to the drawingboard so I tried making the collar in 4 pannels and with a half circle pattern on the rim so it didn't look unproffesional and shoddy. It worked and the impromptu lattice swirl effect I popped on afterwards made it look even better. It was quite fragile and I had kittens trying to keep it safe for the past three days, esp when I was "gluing" on the butterflies with chocolate.

The number 13 is also made from choc fondant and resting on a choc plaque. I used some Christina Re butterfly paper to cover the cupcake supports (seen in the top pic) and made matching cupcake wrappers to go around my mini cheescakes (encased in foil wrappers to stop the moisture and fat "bleeding" through) The most stressful part for me was keeping it all refrigerated till the last minute, then quickly popping on the butterflies and then dropping it off intact. Don't think I'll be doing anymore of these in a hurry!

Emily's Christening

2010-05-23T10:41:00.010+10:00

This is what I have been working on the past 2 weeks, its a Christening cake and cupcake set for a friend's little girl being Christened today. The theme was birds and owls with the invite being pink and chocolate brown (a bit hard to see in the scanned pic above).

The main cake was for immediate family only so I baked a 6'inch triple decker white mudcake, filled with vanilla buttercream and covered in white chocolate fondant. I then stippled the whole cake with pink royal icing to give it a rough textured look. The main owl, branches flowers and writing is also made from white choc fondant then the flowers and letters were brushed with pearl lustre dust to give it a shine. The side and back of the cake had various birds in different patterns prancing around. The cupcake stand is custom made using pink and brown fabric from Spotlight while the supports (not visible on the photo) was covered in fabric called "Birdie" by Moda

The 70 cupcakes were 50% chocolate mud with double chocolate buttercream icing and the other 50% white chocolate mud cupcakes covered in pink vanilla buttercream. I then handcut 23 birds and 23 owls (my cutters arrived too late in the post, so had to be handcut) and either gave them a texture (using my texture mats) or handpainted them using edible food colours. I also tried out an edible print sheet on white chocolate for the white birds (experimenting for my next project ;-))

I am extremely happy with how they all turned out, it looked stunning once all assembled and I loved doing this project. Most nerve wracking moment was when I had trouble covering the cake in white choc fondant, I just wasn't fast enough to get the creases out before the paste kept drying, after 5 attempts I managed to get it done. After a strong vodka and a chat to my cake teacher I found out that tall narrow cakes are the most difficult cakes to cover, even for the expert cake decorater (which I am most certainly not!) and that only practice will make me better at it.

What a busy week!

2010-05-02T11:20:00.007+10:00

Jumping jelly fish but what a busy week! I've just completed this lovely Baptism cake and matching cupcake tower last night. The theme is circus clown (incase you couldn't tell lol) but in girly colours rather than the bright red, blue and green of the traditional circus. The cake consists of a double decker 10' Cadbury milkchoc mudcake as the base, with the "tent" made from a 6', 5' and 4' mudcakes. The cake was filled with Cadbury choc buttercream icing and covered in fondant (the tent part). I had so much fun making it and a few nervous moments when things did not go to plan. The cake was based on Debbie Brown's Knight in Armour tent from her Enchanting magical cakes book, the only trouble I had was with the tent roof (in the end I made a carboard template and made the roof from modelling paste, after drying I added it to the tent) and the fabric that makes up the walls of the tent. Debbie said to roll out the fondant quite thick and then add it as one piece to the cake, I found this a) added unnecessary extra weight to the cake and b) made the fabric look quite artificial, not nice and flowing. In the end I rolled the paste out nice and thin and added the fabric in sections, seams nicely hidden and added a Garrett frill border to hide the join to the cake.

For the cupcake tower I had to make 80 (yes 80!!!) chocolate sponge cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream and 4 different toppers. The recipe used was from the Crabapple Cupcake bakery book, yummmmmm.

Here's the clown modelling paste keepsake I made, initially he was meant to go with the cake, but in the end it looked too "busy" so I decided he would look better on his own on the cupcake tower. He certainly was big enough to feature as the main topper on the tower.

Here's a close up view of the 4 different designs I did for the cupcakes. I loved doing the clown heads the best, since I had to do 20 of them they all looked the same but had different expressions which I quite liked.

Liandra's Christening

2010-04-11T16:56:00.004+10:00

It was my youngest daughter's Christening day today, we finally bit the bullet and had her Christened just two months shy of her 2nd birthday. I wanted to make something simple for her Christening cake, I didn't have time to make anything fancier so this is the result. I just made a single tier (double cake)coconut cake, covered in orchard icing, the rocking horse was handcut from petinice and I used some stamps and royal icing to make the flowers and sadle. I also tried writing on my cake for the 1st time, so "wrote" a lovely Christening verse using edible textas around the circumfrence of the cake. It probably would have looked more spectacular had I popped the cake on a fully iced and be-ribboned cakeboard, but alas I had no time for that either. It tasted yummy and the girls loved it, which is what counts the most I suppose.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T13:37:00.007+10:00

Look what I knocked up in a jiffy for Easter, this yummy Raspberry mudcake covered in white fondant and stippled with Royal icing. I made the fondant birdy a week in advance and "painted" some flowers on with red and blue edible colour paste. The tail was just made out of left over ribbons I had in my stash, but you could make that out of fondant too if you like.

Raspberry mudcake

250g butter
1 1/2 cups of caster sugar
1 x 85g packet raspberry jelly
1\2 cup canned raspberry or fresh raspberries pureed
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
2 eggs beaten lightly

METHOD
Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line the bottom and sides of a 18cm round deep (non springform) tin. (I line my tins with brown paper and then baking paper)

Combine butter, caster sugar, raspberry jelly, pureed or canned raspberries and water in a saucepan and stir over low heat till butter has melted, transfer to large mixing bowl and let cool for 15 minutes.

Whisk in flours and eggs and pour into prepared pan

Bake for approx 1 hour, then open oven door and rotate the tin and also place a circle of baking paper on top of the cake (stops it from rising unevenly and splitting) Close oven door and bake for another 30 min, check cake to see if its done. Stand cake in tin untill completely cool and remove and store till needed.

I searched high and low for a nest and stumbled upon Kataifi (ka-ta-i-fee), its a shredded dough the Greeks use for sweets (and savouries) You just shape it into a nest, brush some melted butter on it and pop it in the oven for 10 minutes at 200 degrees celcius. I also sprinkled mine with caster sugar to make it sweet. I was contemplating making bird nest cupcakes but it would have been too much to eat (along with the cake), I've made some extra nests so might use them with choc mouse and spare Easter eggs as a dessert this week. Hope everyone is enjoying their Easter, I know I am ;-)

Yes you may contact me

2010-03-27T08:55:00.005+11:00

I've been asked by several people how I can be contacted if they have any questions, the best way is via email sajena@iprimus.com.au
Oh and to answer another question, I am based in Melbourne.

Owl cupcakes

2010-03-26T15:03:00.005+11:00

Oh how I LOVED making these, I had a blast experimenting with different patterns and embosing mats. I made this set of 6 cupcakes for Anya's yr 4 teacher as it was her birthday today. Three were vanilla buttercream sponge cupcakes and three were chocolate cupcakes. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find an owl cutter online anywhere, well not one I liked so I made some sketches and created my owl "stencil" out of cardboard. It just meant more work for me as I hand cut each owl. The patterns on the owl were created using rubber stamps, embossing mats or coloured paste with water.

Since I was already busy making the above box of goodies I also created this tester box for a potential customer who is deciding on a Christening cake for her daughter. Once again the birdies were hand cut since I don't have a ready made cutter available. The white stiples on the owl was made using royal icing and a number 1 tip in an icing bag.

Baboushka/Matryushka Doll cake

2010-03-20T16:08:00.004+11:00

This week I was asked to make a Baboushka cake for a 4th birthday party and boy did I have fun making it! I baked a large rectangular white mudcake which I shaped into a doll and iced with vanilla buttercream and fondant. A garret frill cutter was used for the "broderie anglaise" frill on the apron and the name was painted on with edible paste colour, background stippled white polka dots. The rest of the cake was handpainted in floral and polkadot design.

I had a pretty nerve wracking moment when the edible transfer paper didn't want to co-operate while trying to trace the name onto the apron (paste was still too soft) so instead I had to scribe the name on before hand painting in the letters. My hands were shaking so badly I had to take a tea break before resuming the painting lol

Happy birthday Miss Parker

2010-03-20T14:53:00.004+11:00

This week was Miss Parker's birthday (Annike's prep teacher) and the theme was birdies (red and aqua). The cupcake wrappers is from The cupcake wrapper co, ofcourse in birdie pattern ;-)
The cupcakes were made from butter vanilla sponge and iced in vanilla buttercream with fondant cake toppers. I used a birdie template to make the toppers and a letter press template to cut out the name. Each topper was then handpainted with food colouring paste.

Close up of one of the birdies, my inspiration came from Nievie-Pie cakes in the UK

Wedding canvas

2010-03-20T14:45:00.002+11:00

I am so happy with how this canvas turned out, its a gift for a friend who was attending a wedding and wanted something a bit different. My brief was simply, I want a canvas with their name and wedding date on it, I had complete artistic license (yay) to paint what I wanted. I played around and thought of doing a silhoutte with the couples details painted at the bottom of the canvas, I quite like how simple and classy it looks (but don't be fooled as it was a lot of work ;-)) without looking overdone or kitch.

Pretend cake shop gift set - Project 3

2010-02-28T11:29:00.003+11:00

This took quite some time to stitch, I spent every night for a week infront of the TV sewing these yummy felt goodies as part of a pretend cake shop play set for a friend's daughter who had her birthday party yesterday. I am really pleased how it turned out, once again I used felt scraps I had lying around to create the yummy goodies and the birthday card. I bought the pink suitcase from the internet (as I wanted a plain non character one) and handpainted the three figures to represent the birthday girl and her two best friends baking cupcakes together. The big "card" on the right of the photo is a menu I made for the pretend cake shop, I handpainted the cupcake with acrylics and printed the menu on the back and laminated the menu for protection. Very happy with the result :-)

Birthday cupcake set - Project 2

2010-02-28T11:19:00.004+11:00

Another project for this week was this lovely half a dozen cupcake set made for a little girl who turned 5 last Thursday. I was experimenting with different types of fondant and paste, trying to work out which was best for flowers, and which was best for figures. This batch was vanilla butter sponge with strawberry and vanilla buttercream topping. All the decorations were handmade and dusted with some fairy dust (edible glitter) It looked awsome and tasted even yummier (I made extra for my girls lol)

Close up of the pixie, I used gerbra cutters to make her dress. I need to experiment a bit more with the faces as I am getting tired of the same expressions lol

Baby cot mobile gift set - Project 1

2010-02-28T10:53:00.008+11:00

This week, one of three projects I had going was this lovely gift set for a friends baby girl (Audrey) born on the 18th March, 5.5 pounds. The birdie mobile was part of the gift set, I love how it turned out in the end. I had a clear idea of what it was supposed to look like, and thrilled I managed to do it. The birdie pattern I used came from SKIP TO MY LOU, its so cute. I used some felt and fabric scraps I had lying around in shades of pink, blue, red and cream to create the birds. An embroidery hoop was used as the frame of the mobile and scrap ribbon tied around the frame hid the timber and added some colour and visual interest. Although I stuck to the colour scheme each ribbon has a different width, pattern and colour. The idea for the mobile came from THE RED THREAD blog

I whipped up a taggy blanket with some left over Sandi Henderson fabric and pink minky, stitched a birdie card with some fabric and watercolour paper and made the gift tag with ribbon to hang from the wrapped parcel. I was a bit cash poor but time rich so decided to use some of my fabric and paper stash to make these gifts.

Happy Valentines Day

2010-02-14T17:53:00.004+11:00

This is what we made today, Sugar cookies with Royal icing.

Ingredients
4 cups of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
220 grams margarine or butter
2 cups white sugar
2 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine flour, baking powder and salt.
Beat the margarine and sugar and beat until fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
Add flour mixture a few tablespoons at a time ; beat until well mixed.
Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until easy to handle.
Roll out the dough and cut with favorite cookie cutters.
Place on cookie sheet and bake at 160 degrees for 15 min.

Kindy outfit #2

2010-02-14T17:45:00.002+11:00

This is the 2nd outfit I made Imara for Kindy. The tiered skirt is made from Michael Miller Malibu stripe and ta-dot green and Alexander Henry Apples & Pears fabric. Red T-shirt is from Cotton on Kids and hand appliqued fruit to match the skirt. I'd love to buy another pair of these canvas shoes, so I can try some sequence and fabric paint I have a-la Lelli Kelly style.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie......

2010-02-10T17:08:00.004+11:00

Last week my cake decorating classes started back up again. I asked my teacher if I could please learn how to make roses as I've attempted them before in the past and they were very clunky not to mention ugly. Well I learned my 1st mistake (out of many lol) was that I used the wrong fondant, instead of using the store bought Orchard icing I SHOULD have used either modelling paste or flower paste (derrrr Leoni) So after a bit of practice (rolling out the paste VERY thinly) and a few boo-boo's I made the above roses. Not bad for a 1st attempt, quite proud of the result, I was told by my teacher the more I make the better I'll get, so I better keep practicing ;-)

First day at Kindy

2010-02-10T16:56:00.004+11:00

Yesterday was my 3rd daughter, Imara's 1st day at Kindy. Ofcourse I just had to make her a special kindy outfit and here it is. I've never made a tiered dress before and have to admit it WAS a bit tricky at first but once you get the hang of it, it is quite easy. I followed Sandi Henderson's Gracie pattern for the skirt part of the dress, while the top part of the dress was made using an old dress (I traced an old dress and then used the pattern). Fabric used was some scraps I had lying around, Sandi Henderson stripe and cherry fabric, Tanya Whelan pink polka dot fabric and Alexander Henry apples and pears fabric. I was quite pleased on how it turned out. I also made a tiered skirt from scraps and will do a post on the weekend, after Imara has had a chance to wear it.