Just a Fruit Tray

A friend of mine was having a party, so I asked what I could bring. She suggested it would be great if I brought some fruit. And that is how this began....

I started making jokes that I was going to make the greatest fruit tray ever; so, I started looking at fun ideas to bring a fruit tray, and got pinterest-spired and it snowballed. I saw a really great pin about how to make a watermelon pirate ship, which I obviously concluded would be the coolest thing EVER. But, then I saw a tutorial for apple swans. Well, I had to make those as well. What other opportunity would I have to do so?! And hey, swans and ships are both in the water... so it could work right?

I enlisted a friend to help...and hubby stated that this was my project, and he wasn't helping. My friend bought all the fruit at costco and brought it over for me. We had put the kids to bed already, so it was about 8pm when we started. The party was after church the morning, so it had to be done before bed.

I used  this tutorial for the pirate ship. Hubby quickly came over to assist me (as he almost always does). We didn't to put a skull, because part of the party was for a baby dedication, so we ( I mean hubby, because really he did most of this part) cut a cross on the mail sail. We (I mean my friend) used a melon baller to get as much out of the watermelon as possible We used some of the watermelon to make waves at the bottom as well.

 

As pieces were done, they went in the fridge overnight and were just fine the next day. 

We also cut out letters out of the watermelon. I had seen this posted somewhere.. like this, and they used cantoloupe I believe, which would have been easier because it is harder. Watermelon was finicky. We cut out flat slices of watermelon and used little letter cutters (that I use for fondant).

Lastly, we (I mean me) carved apple swans. Now, this looked like the most difficult part, but was really simple. I followed this video here.

Doesn't it look fun?! Everyone was very impressed. It was a great project... unfortunatley, now my kids always want their apples cut into swans before they will eat them...
Oh well.. What can you do...

Safari Birthday

My good friend asked me to help her make her son's first birthday cake. I decided it was the least I could do to celebrate the fact that they had survived their first year together as a family. I was excited to help, but nervous when she said that there would be almost 60 guests at this party! This meant it would have to be much larger than any of the cakes I had made so far.

She choose the theme "safari." After much googling, I came up with a few ideas. The original idea looked somewhat like this. 2 tiers, covered in fondant. On the inside I made a marble cake, chocolate and white cake. It ended up being pretty neat, because when it was cut it looked like zebra stripes. ( just google "zebra cake batter design" and you will see what I am taking about and how to do it). We also decided to do a little smash cake in the shape of a safari hat.

I baked the cakes, leveled and added crumb coat, with the help of my husband, the day before we decorated. Then, I let them set overnight in the fridge to make the icing nice and hard. The key is to cut the "domes" that form while baking all the way off to leave a level top on each cake. Then, put a thick layer of buttercream of the top. Take the second layer, and place it cut side down on the buttercream. It can be pressed a bit to make it completely level on top. Now you have the somewhat smoother bottom on top, which is much easier to ice than the crumbly side that was cut. A generous layer of buttercream is added on the whole cake. This is important because it helps the fondant stick.

I had pre made the fondant with the help of my mom. She has a kitchen aid mixer, so it makes the process much simpler. I made marshmallow fondant, as I mentioned in other posts, however, this time I precoloured them all in the mixer to avoid having to do it by hand again. This simply required a bit of planning to know approximately what I wanted. I did leave one chunk white, so that I had some for extra colors if I decided to make any changes to the design, which inevitably happens.

In the morning, I covered each layer with fondant to make transportation much easier. I finished the safari hat, which was just a small rounded cake, which I had baked in a small well greased metal bowl. I covered it in buttercream and beige fondant, added a few strips and voila, it was done. That was a pretty simple task. I took all the cakes to my Fellow mommy's house and with the help of a 1 year old, 2 year old, a 16 year old sister and a dog, we finished decorating the cakes. I pretty much let my friend have control over the decorations, just helped her with the technical issues, such as how to glue fondant together (with water) and how to clean off cornstarch (with vodka).

The final product ended up being really cute and was definitely a hit at the party.

I learned at least 2 lessons from this project; one, always make sure you know the scope of a project before agreeing to it... And two, I 100% understand why they charge so much for these cakes. If I were charging, I calculated that I spent about $50 on supplies and approximately 10hours planning, baking, making and decorating this cake. This one year old hit the jackpot this year with a $250 present :).

 

The Friendship Tree Guestbook

As I have mentioned, I co-hosted a shower for my friend this past weekend. I really wanted to have some sort of gift from the guests. After a bit of internet surfing, I found this cute idea for a fingerprint tree guestbook. I thought it would be a great keepsake for K to hang on her wall to see all the time.

Tools used for this project:

Canvas

Acrylic Paint (Brown, white, Pink)

Permanent Ink

Chalk Ink

Letter Stamps

Rub on Stickers

Paint brush

Pencil

Good White Eraser

It is best to paint the entire back ground of the canvas. I did not, but wish I had. This gives the canvas a more finished look and enables you to go back over pencil marks to cover them up. You can simply use white for this, but any colour will work. The beneifit of using acrylic paints is that once they dry you can paint a light colour over a darker one.

I started with a template I found on google. I searched "tree template" and simply copy and pasted one into a word document. I changed the size to match the canvas I had. I printed and cut it out. I traced around it with a pencil. It looked rough but that is fine.

After I was happy with the outline I painted the tree brown. It took me two coats to give it a dark brown colour. I used the littlest brush and just went slow. Sometimes it is easier to follow to paint brush rather than the pencil lines. This will give you smoother edges and you can erase the pencil later. After the brown had dried I used pink to paint the heart. I practiced quite a few times on another sheet so that I was able to make the heart the perfect size to fit the letters in.

After all the painting was done I used rub on stickers for the birds. They can usually be found at any dollar store. They are much more versatille than stamps or stickers. The only negative is that you need to be careful to only rub the sticker you want. Otherwise you may get the edge of the next one and it can be difficult to remove. Rub-ons are great because they can be used on almost any surface. 

Lastly I used letter stamps to stamp the words I wanted. It is important to measure out your space and plan where you want the letters to go, otherwise you may end up running out of space. I used the permanent ink I had from another project for the words. It dries quickly, so there was less chance of it smearing. On either side of the tree I stamped "Kelsey" and "07 July 12," the bride's name and date of the shower. Underneath I stamped "Showering you with wishes today and forever." I happened to have the words "wishes" and "Forever" with my rub-ons, so I used them instead of stamps. It just gave the picture a bit more dimension.

I made a little instruction sheet and placed it all near the door at the shower. The guests used their fingerprints to make leaves on the trees. For this part I used chalk ink. It takes longer to dry but cleans easier and made a much prettier print. I encouraged the guests to practice on an extra sheet first before doing it directly on the canvas.

Finally, each guest signed their name over their print. It may also be a good idea to spray the whole canvas with acrylic sealer to preserve the colours and protect the canvas.

It ended up working well and was a great keepsake for the bride-to-be.

Princess K's Castle

Yesterday was my good friend's bridal shower. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, so of course I was all over planning to shower. She choose the theme of "Princess;" So, beware, these next few posts include copious amounts of pink and sparkle.

The big centerpeice for this project was the cake pops. I showed how I make cake pops in another post here. This time I followed the exact same process. I wanted everything uniform in white and pink, so I dipped them all in white chocolate or vanilla frosting dip. I decorated them all with pink sugar or pink candy melts. I generally buy all my decorations at Bulk Barn. This way I can buy small amounts of everything, instead of having to purchase big bags. (I hate having left overs.)

I also made "bridal party" cake pops. I used the bride and groom cake pop tutorial that I found here. I made 3 tuxedo ones, to represent the groom and groomsmen. I made the bride like it says, but then did the same in pink to represent the bridesmaids. The groom was easy to make. But I still need a lot of practice piping, so I found the girl ones to be much more difficult.

After all of the cake pops were made I need to make a display. I used floral foam to build a castle. Three placed next to eachother made the base, which I simply wrapped in wrapping paper. I then cut 4 squares, wrapped them in wrapping paper and placed them on top on all 4 corners. At the dollar store I found a foam castle-making kit for children. I bought a few packs of those. And used them to decorate the castle.

I placed the foam castle on a cake board (99cents at bulk barn). I used a skewer to poke the hole for the cake pops.

Here is the final product...

It was a hit at the party. The only issue was that noone wanted to eat them because they were apparently "too pretty!"