Olivia has arrived!

Happy Easter to you all! I hope that everyone is able to spend some quality time with their loved ones and remember what Easter is truly all about (even I know it's not all about chocolate! lol)

So I received a request nearly two months ago to do an Olivia the Pig cake for a first birthday. This is a repeat customer, I've done her baby shower cake and I'm willing to bet there will be more cakes in the future.. especialy after this one!

Now, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am so incredibly proud of this one and how it turned out. It's a small cake that weighed a ton lol! Not gonna lie, though... I was stressing, but only because I wanted it to be great!

The bottom was an 8 inch chocolate raspberry truffle with raspberry mouse filling, and the top was a 6 inch red velvet with cream cheese filling. Covered in white fondant with stripes of pink and red, polka dots in red and black... a nice big red bow with a banner (first time doing a banner, and it wasn't as diffcult as I expected it to be). Crowning the top of this adorable cake was Olivia, in all her fondant finest, wearing a celebratory silver dragee necklace for the occasion.

In addition to the cake, there were 30 vanilla cupcakes, iced with light and dark pink buttercream, with fondant flowers as an added touch.

Hope you all enjoy looking at this cake as much as I do! :)

Another creation is underway, but it's for my family (since the kids tell me I never make anything for just us... lies! Lies, I tell you!), and I will post pics later :)

Stay Sweet!

Surprise!

I can admit when I am wrong.

It was actually a great surprise.. a happy one, and I don't see a lot of those, so when I do, it's worthy of a mention!

It was announced at work yesterday morning that we have indeed received a profit-sharing bonus. It's not much. A third of what we received last year, but nevertheless, any free money is better than none, which is what the majority of us have expected. The downfall is that it will be taxed to the hilt so we will be lucky to see half of the proposed amount, but hey! Still! It's better than zero and still a terrific accomplishment. And it's FREE MONEY!

Two stores opened up in the near vacinity of my store, which threw budgets off almost the entire year. We were below budget ALL year, it was depressing!) So, someone went to bat for us, and argued this fact with the powers that be, and they agreed that the proposed budgets we had all year long were screwed up. So, they refigured it and we ended up getting this small but more than expected bonus... YAY!

What does that mean for my cakes? Nothing. I'm still plugging away, still socking it away. When I heard the news, I texted my husband, and told him. He was happy and thrown off a bit, because neither of us expected it, as we were told for the ast six months, it was a no-go, but I told him it was still going into savings for summer. I said I want this to be the best summer EVER... so, why break the streak, right? Into savings it goes!

I have had a terrificly (it's a word NOW!) busy day.. baking and testing and playing. As you know, I love fondant... just hate cleaning up! So this is what I made!

 

 

 

I've been wanting to try the zebra cake effect for a bit now, so while I was baking that, I played with fondant and made some cute cupcake\cake toppers. I plan on making some more tomorrow :) Lovin' the pig!

Anyway... it's been a long day so it's time to end the post :) Enjoy your weekend, and stay sweet!