A cake-filled weekend

This past weekend kept me busy with several cakes... (again, apologies for poor picture quality)

First was Friday: A friend from church took and passed her citizenship test last fall and the swearing in ceremony was Friday morning. Her family followed that with an "American Desserts" party that night. This was my contribution:
(idea from the "Hello, Cupcake" book)
As a "gift", I also made her the following candies:

Then on Saturday, a friend from theater had a birthday party thrown for her by her husband and son. She requested Cherry Chip cake - so I baked it, made some buttercream frosting tinted pink by Maraschino cherry juice (which also added a little more cherry flavor), and decorated as you see here:

And finally, today (Sunday) was Maryn's birthday. Last year's cake was one of my first blog entries (the butterfly cake). She asked again to be surprised, but wanted chocolate, so this was her cake:

This was a double-chocolate cake with chocolate and cherry chips baked in. Upon placing the cake on the cake board, I then covered the top in chocolate chips and allowed them to melt. That was spread across the top and sides of the cake and allowed to cool and set to give the cake a crunchy "crust" (notice the dark brown band around the star). I was able to use up the rest of the frosting from Janet's cake, and topped off the decoration with some maraschino cherries.

A few recent cards

While these are by no means "all" the cards (not even close...), here are a few most recent cards. Photo quality is poor because they're taken from my cell phone, since our "good" camera got stolen over the holidays on our way home from LA... It will hopefully be replaced soon...

1) Birthday card in lime green and purple

2) Valentine card with a spinner fuzzy (possible video link to be uploaded. We will see.)

3) A generic "hello"-type card. The quote states "kind thoughts". The butterfly was stamped and cut-out, then raised off the page using dimensional foam.

Valentine's and Baptism candies

These were made for friends and Mike's co-workers for Valentine's Day. They are chocolate (or vanilla)-covered Oreos with heart designs. Each individually packaged, with hand-made bag toppers.

For the weekend following Valentine's Day, a friend was helping her friend with plans for a baptism for the friend's daughter (did that make sense?). She asked if I could make some lollipops to use as centerpieces. These are what I made:

50 crosses (25 of each) and 50 baby carriages with hearts on the wheels and a cross on the bassinet

This is what 50 baby carriage lollipops look like...

New item: Purse notes

These "purse notes" are 3"x5" note pads (plain white, unlined) that have been decoratively covered and include a monogrammed closure. The first picture below shows 4 with the logo "Charity Never Faileth" for a small Relief Society order and 1 that was for a young girl's birthday (M).

This picture (left, "J") shows a close-up of the logo. This logo/decorative touch doubles as the closure. There is a magnet behind the flower-shaped piece that helps to keep the purse note closed when not in use.

... and a close-up of a single purse note:

Key Lime "Pie" cupcakes!!!

These are officially my new "favorite" cupcakes. The cake was a little dense and I am working on fine-tuning it... but each cupcake, once baked, is filled with a home-made key lime "custard" then topped with a meringue and baked to finish the meringue.

The first batch were regular sized cupcakes as a trial run. This was later followed by a batch of mini cupcakes in both "Key Lime Pie" and "Lemon Meringue Pie" that were then taken to a Super Bowl party

Another birthday cake or three...

These were images taken on my former phone, and without the ability to transfer it to a memory card until recently, they were stuck there. Anyhow, all three cakes were from at least a year ago, if not more.

This was for a group of friends celebrating their birthdays in the same month.
This cake was a 2-layer cake with more of the fruits you see on top layered in the middle.
Layered and finished with a whipped topping. (October, 2007)

These were for my niece's 1st birthday. (September, 2007)
The round one on the right was her "personal" birthday cake.

Christmas Boutique

A friend of mine from Picacho Hills Country Club (golf) held a Christmas boutique (yes, this is a very much delayed post) back in December. She sells designer handbags and jewelry, and invited me to bring some of my creations to sell. I set out a table with the following Christmas cards:

The 3 above are Christmas-specific. The one below says "Happy Holidays".

You can also see in this picture a small Christmas tree lollipop to the left that was also available for sale.

I also created small "nugget boxes" to hold Hershey's Nugget chocolates in. The ones pictured held 6 per box. I also had some that held 3 chocolates. I received quite a few orders for these after they sold out!

... and then there was this "Thank-You" card... (as well as many others)