Happy Easter!

Hi all! Happy Easter! Just wanted to quick post about what I've been up to and Lily's Easter! So I've been super busy the past few days. Wedding dress shopping for my cousin, and baking like crazy on top of the usual holiday bustle. I made a cake for my cousins baby shower, made a generic birthday rosette cake, made egg shaped cookie sandwiches for Easter, am in the process of making my brothers birthday cake and wedding shower cupcakes!! Busy busy time! But it looks like a lot of people viewed the Easter party post so I'm super excited about that! Thank you all for reading and repinning and sharing! I'm so grateful! And also, I'm on my phone which means all of the pictures will be at the bottom. Sorry!!!

So first ill talk about the rosette cake. I use a wilton tip 1 and had a crazy easy time with it honestly.. the only tip (not frosting tip, pointer tip, lol) I really have is to be conscious of the sides. Don't worry too much about making the side rosettes the same size as the top rosettes. If they don't fit, they don't fit. Make bigger rosettes for the sides.

Next ill talk about the baby shower cake. I'd say I learned plain old not to use sugar sheets. They're so difficult and frustrated the crap out of me! They don't wrap around the cake as easily as youd think and even someone like me, who always finds a solution, struggled bad! I also purchased the baby mold for the top from a company called winbeckler who I could spend millions on! I didn't have color dust, so I painted the baby's hair with cinnamon. I also put the baby in diamond sugar around the baby which definitely gave the her a nice touch! Surprisingly, this cake has got more comments than any thus far, I think, and its not my favorite.

And last but certainly not least, Lilys basket!!! She found hers in her room and was very pleased!! She had hair bows, pjs, chalk, bubbles, big coloring book, a ball, brobee keychain (yo gabba gabba), shoes, hair elastics, shorts, a little wind up jumping bunny and a rubber duck. Very satisfied! Grandpa also got her some books. I did not give her any candy. She did an egg hunt at Adam's house and made out very well too!

Now I feel people are going kinda crazy with baskets. I don't think big gifts are necessary at all because its not a big gift holiday. Here's a list of basket stuffers for children under 3:
*puffs, yogurt drops, cheerios, cheddar bunnies or their favorite snack in eggs
*beach toys
*bubbles
*books
*a small stuffed animal
*shaker eggs or an egg tambourine
*bows
*pjs
*stickers
*crayons (the fat ones are great for little hands)
*a large scale coloring book
*wind up toys
*bath toys
*a ball
*socks
*water shoes or flip flops
*anything you truly need to restock on (hair elastics for Lily)
*sun hat or baseball cap
*Melissa and Doug wooden puzzles
*mix up some pinterest baby finger paint if you're feeling brave
*a bathing suit
*fairy wand
*tball set
*Easter rubber duck (dollar store!)
*baby sun block (if you're going with beach theme)
*tights
*a soft photo album

See, I think its key to set a budget or an Easter basket size, because you don't need to get too much. We spent about 30$. They probably have plenty of toys and will get overwhelmed if there are too many things to look at. I think that interactive things like coloring and outdoor activities are great because you can prepare for summer! Don't buy something cute but useless, you'll be wasting money! Simplicity is key in everything with kids. You can also put things in the basket that your baby needs anways. They won't know at this age. When buying ask yourself, "Does my child need one of these?", "Will this stimulate a skill or growth?", "Will this be interactive for my child and I?". Those are the worth while presents. I mean how many toys do you have that sing the abcs, count and sing songs in Spanish and English?! Let them do the learning and exploring!

What did you put in your childs basket?! What was their favorite?

Thanks for reading :)
-Becca

DIY Age Cake Topper

Hello! My feet are KILLING me cause I've been in the kitchen aaaaaaaaalllll day. A batch of cupcakes (2 flavors), and two cakes! Woo! Got a lot done, fixed some mishaps and am ready to show how I made my Cake topper from last posts cake, and one of my new cakes.
So here's the finished product on the cake:

So cute huh?! Perfect way to bedazzle a cake! This cake is Adam's great grandmother's, Lily's great great grandmother's! She was a St Patrick's Day baby and named Patricia in honor. She wants strictly St. Patrick's Day theme every birthday. Can't wait to present it tomorrow! Although it's kinda of funny.. I'm so proud of my work till it comes time for the "client" to get the cake. I get so nervous! I feel like a dog with my tail between my legs or something. Weird. OK!

Materials: 

I also used a hot glue gun! Oops! 

I find using my finger to spread the glue gets it totally all over so there are no empty spots. Then the best part:  Glitter!

Now, I do like three or so glitter sessions so that I get every part of the wooden number. 

Once the front and top dries, I move on to the back and bottom. Then last the middle. After this, I modpodged EVERY spot on the number. Be very sure to absolutely cover it. As much fun as glitter is, you truly don't want to eat it or have it rain on your cake. Then lastly, I hot glued it to my skewer, wooden pole thing. I bought a set of them at Michaels. The numbers took me FOREVER to find, and I traveled long and far to find them at the perfect size for cakes at AC Moore. I trimmed the skewer by holding it next to the finished cake and just snapped them. I filed the ends with a clean, new nail file to make sure there are no little splinters in my cake. 

You can do this with glitter, scrap book paper or anything your heart desires. If you check out my last blog, you'll notice I did a polka dot pattern on my 18 topper. I feel like it gives it more of a birthday feel where I don't usually actually write out happy birthday on my cakes anymore. Here are the rest of the pictures!

I am so proud of my guy's little beer! I hollowed out a pen and sawed it into a small round. Stuffed it with fondant, put a bit of frosting on top and added sugar pearls for bubbles! How awesome! The pot of gold is of course dusted with gold pearl dust. My leprechaun is full of tooth picks and built around a fat boba straw (which I also use for stacking my cakes). I used chocolate gold coins on the outside, too, and pasted those with frosting because they were so heavy! I think she's going to love it! Here's the other cake I made today: 

Things I learned this time around:

Don't even open the fondant till you're going to use it. (I tried to dye it ahead of time to save time.. nope. Don't do it, just wait and you'll get the desired consistency)

If you're coloring with food coloring (like the leprechaun's face or the star's faces) don't do it till it's already on the cake. 

Put moisturizing soap next to your sink. I washed my hands about 6,000 times today and are so dry from plain soap. Ouch! 

If you're building a sculpture that you want to stand, or sit on the cake, build around something that will hold it up. I learned this actually from the Harry Potter cake. "Impaling" your fondant will make it smush and bend a way that ruins your shape or creature.

Have a good playlist on hand. Tay Swift has stuck with me strong in all of my baking! 

So I hope you use this tutorial or enjoyed reading it anyway! Lily had a great day with her grandma. I had warned my mom much in advance that I'd needed her allllll day and I did. I was in the kitchen 10-6! I really hope everyone loves them because I know I'm going to wake up nervous as ever tomorrow morning. My next post will probably be of Lily's first party she's throwing. She's having four baby friends over for a one year old egg hunt! Should be lots of fun :)

Night!

Becca