Fun & Festive

This past week was very fun with the Christmas season here!! I got to do a few fun treats (which I forgot to take pictures of...), some festive cupcakes, and one super fun birthday cake!!

The first was for a friend of ours, Candee, who was celebrating her 40th! She LOVES wine, so it was only fitting to make her her own bottled version...

It came out so much better than I ever imagined, thanks to the amazing creativity of my beautiful friend Riva. She did the custom label (and with all of one day's notice!!) for Candee's special wine bottle. If you can't read it, it said, "Candace Vineyards, 1969, Aged 40 Years to Perfection, Bottled in Temple City, Ca, 40% alcohol by volume" So perfect!!!

This next order was for a Christmas celebration for my cousin's extended family. His mom ordered a cake to celebrate all of the December birthdays (cute idea!) and some festive Christmas-y cupcakes to go along. These were cute, and super fun to make!

Happy/Merry Birthday/Christmas!!!

A long while back, a friend of mine, DeAnne, from work asked me to do her baby girl Avah's first birthday cake. Little did I know this was the same weekend as my daughter's Nutcracker ballet performances! I was excited to create her little cake, so I told her I would still do it. Avah had a 'little cupcake' party, so I was super excited to make something cute for her!!!

Avah's mommy loves elephants, so we had to incorporate one somewhere!!

Here's some cupcakes I "threw" together for our Becoming One Sunday School class Christmas party. It was fun coming up with holiday themed desserts!!

Happy Birthday Ava!

Last month I had the priveledge of making cupcakes and cake for a childhood friend of mine, Sarah. Her little girl, Ava, turned ONE! When Sarah told me the colors were orange and fuschia I was so excited!

Here's Ava digging into her smash cake

And Sarah's set-up

Thanks for letting me be a part of your special day, Sarah!!

Fall Treats

Fall is one of my favorite seasons, so of course I had to do a little baking...

Marshmallow pops for the kids classmates

Pumpkin cookies...

...and leaves...

for Thanksgiving!!!

Catchup

So.... It's been a while!! Since I've posted anyways... Slacker!!! I have so much going on these days, but anywhooo- here's a few from the past couple weeks.....

Jen's Baby Shower
This is probably one of my favorite cakes!! So simple, so cute! I made the baby shoes from fondant and the cake was chocolate chip with chocolate fudge filling and chocolate cake w/ raspberry filling.

Jen also asked for some cookies as favors, so here's what I came up with. Same style- simple & cute!! Jen said she almost cried when she saw them! So glad I could help make your day a happy one, Jen!

A friend of my sister's, Yvette, asked if I could do a cake for her mom's 50th birthday. This was a fun one! She said she wanted leopard and brown, and red, with a red bow on top.
I think it came out just like that!! The cake was black & white cake, all three layers.
So glad you liked it Yvette!!

Here's just a little one I whipped up for a Halloween cake walk at a church event we went to. I used my friend's beehive pan for this one. Cute & fun!!

Cake & Cars

I almost forgot to include this one!! This cake was for my sweet friend Riva's son, Tyler. He turned 4 last week and loves all things 'Cars'. This cake was super fun to create!! It was great to see Tyler's face when I dropped it off.

Happy Birthday Tyler!!!!

Bear-y Birthday!!

This past weekend was my daughter's 7th birthday, so of course there's always pressure to do something grand... She decided to do a Build-A-Bear Party, so I went along with the theme and invitation. She loved it, so that's all that mattered! It was cookies & cream cake with buttercream and chocolate fillings, and lemon with buttercream and lemon curd fillings. (Both requested by her, of course!)

I also did a cupcake order for a friend of mine who wanted some jungle-themed baby shower cupcakes. I borrowed some ideas from my friend Amy (thanks!), and came up with these cuties.
Thanks, Erin, and your baby shower's next!! :)

Birthdays, Babies & Brides

As you can tell from the lack of posts I've been pretty busy (still) so here's to catch up from the last few weekends...

Our niece Mikayla turned 15 last weekend, and I HAD to whip up something cute for her! She said her favorite colors were purple and green, so here's what I came up with!

Kristin's baby shower cake, made mostly by my sis Amy!! She did the turtles and spots for me- what a lifesaver!! Cake was chocolate chip flavor with chocolate ganache and bavarian cream fillings.

From last weekend- Dylan's birthday cake. Anybody tell they're Cowboy fans???

Valerie & Darryl's wedding cake!!
This was a super fun (and stressful) cake for me... After getting all of the kinks worked out (and the LONG, bumpy drive to Palos Verdes) this cake turned out beautifully. Flavors were white cake with raspberry and bavarian cream fillings, my "black & white" cake (chocolate and white cakes alternated with chocolate ganache and bavarian cream fillings), and lemon cake with lemon curd and vanilla buttercream filling. Val actually called me today to thank me for her cake. That was SO rewarding!! Congrats to the happy couple!!

Sponge Bob cupcakes for Isabelle's birthday. I had a blast with these too! Took a bit to get him just right, but turned out great!!

Isabelle's special cupcake :)

...a closer look :)

Farm Fun

This cake was for Lisa (a co-worker of my bro-in-law Vince) and her son's 1st birthday. When she told me it was a farm theme I was SO excited! I've been wanting to do a "farm" cake for a while now... After finding many inspirations on line, I think my little figures came out cute. I had a blast and am thinking of using my farm ideas for my little one too... :)

Sweet & Saucy

We just so happened to be in the area of Sweet & Saucy Shop the other day, so we HAD to stop by to take a peek (and taste)! Melody Brandon is the owner of this fabulous dessert studio (who's blog I LOVE to follow), and so I got to meet her and chat cakes! I was really excited because I love Melody's work and think she is super talented. It was fun to see the place that I've visited online so many times come to life!

Here's her super cute front counter...

Ty enjoying one of her cake lollipops. YUM!!

Cam went with the red velvet. (YUM, again!)

She had a whole rack of cake stands (my fav)!

And she even put up with my crazy kiddos...

Thanks Melody for the fun tour of your awesome place!

Had to take some home (but it never made it home)!!

Birthdays Galore!

This past weekend was cake craziness! I had fun doing them all, but boy was I wiped afterwards!!

This was for one of my good friends, Gina. It was her birthday so, of course, I wanted to make her a super cute cake! It was white chocolate cake with raspberry preserves and vanilla buttercream filling, covered in fondant with fondant accents.
Happy Birthday Gina!!!

This was for a friend from work, Julie. She is due in Nov. with her 2nd baby boy, so this was for her shower. I loved this cake!
It was white vanilla cake and chocolate cake, both filled with raspberry preserves, and covered in fondant. All fondant accents as well. Congrats Julie!!

This little lady was for my friend Stacey's little girl Maddie. It was Maddie's 4th birthday and she LOVES all things 'princess'. Maddie is very near and dear to my heart because she reminds me so much of my daughter, Camryn! They are like long lost sisters! So cute!!
Hope you had a wonderful birthday Maddie!

This butterfly cake and cupcakes were for a girl Tina, who was referred from a friend. It was her daughter's 8th birthday & she wanted flowers & butterflies. Nicole helped me with this one- it came out so cute!! Hope she liked them Tina!!

And last, but not least, this cake was for our babysitter Jenna. She turned 18 on Monday, so I told her I wanted to make her a cake. This one was super fun, and by the end of all that I whipped it out in like an hour!! I am really grateful for Jenna- it's so nice to have someone (besides family) that the kids adore, and that loves my kids SO much!!
Happy 18th Jenna!!!!

(Btw, I forgot to take a picture of this one, so Jenna had to send me one... :)

BSWEETCAKES NEWS

So, after many talks with my husband and friends and debates in my head, I have decided to cut down on the number of cake orders I will be taking. The stress of trying to juggle 3 kids, a part-time career as a nurse (as little as it it right now), and working at home in between, has really started to take a toll on me. I pretty much "hit the wall", as my friend likes to say, this past weekend. And for those of you who are thinking "I knew she wouldn't be able to keep up", I just want to thank you for your support. I really love making cakes, but when my kids beg me not to, it's hard not to look at their little faces and tell them no. So for now, the posts will be getting fewer (not gone though), and please don't be upset if I have to tell you "no" for a cake order. My sanity will thank you!! I appreciate all of your support and encouragement, and maybe in a few years I'll be ready for more....

The BIG One

So here it is- the largest cake I have done to date!! I was so excited and relieved to pull this off (with help of course!) this past weekend. It was for a 50th birthday party and the birthday lady asked for a cake "exactly" like one she had seen from Pink Cake Box. I absolutely love and admire their work, so I was excited to try to recreate one of their masterpieces. I think I pulled it off pretty well, I must say, but not without the help of my assistant (I think I can officially call her that now:) Nicole. She did ALL of the zebra stripes on the cake, and a darn great job she did! I could not have done it without her! The cake sizes were 8, 12, and 16 inches and were white and chocolate flavors filled with bavarian cream. I heard it went over very well at the party, so that was worth all the hard work!

One 'Sweet' Girl!

I had a fun time just practicing on a cake last weekend! I decided to prepare for the large topsy-turvy cake I'm doing next week by doing a 'mini' version. And considering we were going to be seeing our family for Labor Day, I thought I would see if our niece Mikayla would want to help me decorate it. She has been asking me to teach her some cake stuff (and has gladly volunteered to be my assistant a few times:) so I new she would be excited. Truth be told, I was excited to teach her!! Mikayla started high school this year and doesn't live too close to us, so I wanted to take this opportunity to spend some time with her. She's growing up too fast for me!!

Here's Mikayla with her cake. She did an awesome job with the zebra stripes!!

The finished product :)

Mikayla and her pround Auntie!!
Good job Mik, you're AWESOME!!