Saturday, October 30, 2010

Today's Cake is Brought to you by...

...the number
This cake was sweet and fun to do!
I had a lot of fun with my printing and the butterfly trails!
It's hard to tell in the photos but the butterflies are all glittered up for extra sweetness!

The cake is Vanilla with Cookies and Cream Filling!

Enjoy!
Heather

Thursday, October 28, 2010

So here's how the story goes...

Wayyyy back in August, I entered a contest put on by Redpath Sugar to win Cake Boss tickets. You simply had to post a recipe and get people to vote for you. SO, that is what I did...I entered my Pink Lemonade Cake recipe.Well, in the midst of that...I discovered that The Happy Baker is a Canadian, self-published book by Erin Bolger...(she entered the contest too). SO, then I contacted Erin and got myself some copies of her cookbook to share!
Then, I lost the contest...I have never done well with popularity contests...but it wasn't for a lack of trying! SO, Redpath treated me to a basket full of goodies...Lucky me! Well, then they had another contest...one with asking for a recipe with an unusual ingredient...so that's when I posted the Jalapeno Popper Cheesecake Recipe (it's delish you should totally try it!) This was for a random draw so little effort was involved (well, except the baking and sampling part!)

The prize was that I would get to bake with Erin Bolger for a Youtube Series that Redpath was working on AND more sweet treats! Super cool! Well, then I got thinking...I'm not really a cheesecake kind of girl. I mean I like to bake all sorts of things but the idea of being taped baking a cheesecake just didn't seem right. Then, it was suggested that Pink Lemonade Cake is a little unusual (this had honestly not even occured to me!) SO, I switched the recipe and I won!!!

So lucky again! I met with everyone and filmed the video yesterday...sadly my camera died before we even got started...not SO lucky this time!

We will wait and photos will soon appear in the meantime just know this...I think I'm one pretty lucky girl! Yesterday was SO much fun!

Thank you to the team at Redpath, Erin of The Happy Baker and the Fish Eye Corp Team who made it all seem so easy!

Enjoy!
Heather

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Fashion Diva Alert!

A young friend of mine celebrated her 11th birthday this past weekend. Her mom wanted to surprise her with a cake...of course the very same family was here for our Annual Halloween Party so I had to keep this under wraps...
I was so excited to get to use some of the tools I bought at Cake School back in August! I love it when I get to play with my tools!
If you look closely you might just see YKK on that zipper...

I loved making this cake! It was such fun!

The cake is Pink Lemonade with Pink Lemonade Buttercream.

Enjoy!
Heather

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Whooo are you???

Well, the kids have fit in 3+ viewings of Alice in Wonderland since I bought it for Halloween inspiration and I have yet to see it once in full! Anyway...I got the inspiration I needed from the movie, blog surfing and well, imagination of course!Both of the kids wanted to make sure that they were well represented on the cake...so there are a couple of cards for Sean and a whole tier for Sarah...
And just to keep it fun, rather than making my Pink Lemonade Cake just pink, I added some purple too!
The Alice Cake was Blue and White but I didn't get a photo. Everyone wanted cake! I was busy.
Alice - Vanilla with Vanilla Buttercream
Cheshire Cat - Pink Lemonade with Pink Lemonade Filling

Enjoy!
Heather

Monday, October 25, 2010

8th Annual Habgood Haunt!

I have a bit of a reputation when it comes to Halloween...the funny part is, my house is not decorated, there are decorations I wish were out but haven't had the chance to retrieve from my storage area, we have no pumpkins or anything fall like outside...it's actually kind of sad! But we sure were't sad this weekend!

Which way would you go? This tree was my idea...the kids had such a fun time making it with me!
Meet my flower friends...any guesses on the theme yet? These flowers are all over the place...aren't they delightful!
You should be able to figure it out by now for sure!
These just brightened the room...you can find a tutorial for the tissue pompoms here (I would use 20 sheets rather than the recommended 8.) The paper lanterns are inexpensive and had a great effect as well!
Now...this is something that I particularly love! You can find the tutorial (and lots of other cool ideas) for this wreath here.
Finally...the costumes! I bought mine (first ever store bought costume for me!) here. The shipping was super quick! I made Simon's (the white rabbit), Mr CB's was a compilation of goodies...I found the vest at a Good Will store for only $3.50, the hat and gloves we picked up at a costume store and the bow tie I whipped up with some remnant sequin fabric. Alice is Dorothy from a few years ago revisited and the Ace we made in a few hours with a couple of yards of felt.
Simple enough? There are SO many great ideas out there...one of my favourite spots to find them is at One Pretty Thing. I bought the fabric to make this door but just ran out of time!

There was also Bubble Gum Iced Tea (totally forgot to take photos of this) that the kids loved adding sugar cubes that I got from Redpath Sugar to! (thank goodness I didn't sweeten it ahead of time!) You should check out Redpath Sugar's Acts of Sweetness Blog and Facebook! I am looking forward to doing some work with them soon!

Just 6 more days until Halloween!

Enjoy!
Heather

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Ghostly Goodies

I am so far behind with sharing my photos! Here are the goodies we made at Creative Kids last week (yes, a whole week ago!)
Ghost lanterns to go with the pumpkin ones from last year (you can see them here).
And we made cupcakes (something that doesn't happen often in Creative Kids but I really wanted to make these with the kids after making them for Sean's class last year. They are just too fun!And some little treats to take home and share...
In the photo above the boys are diligently colouring these lid covers...we filled the jars with Skittles, milk and nut free!
The count down is on...only 7 more days until Halloween!

Enjoy!
Heather

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Something fishy is going on here!

I did a Stampin Up! Demonstration the other night (sorry, you didn't know I was a demonstrator too? I know, it is a lot to keep track of!) and I am ashamed to admit that I found a bit of Christmas Spirit and did a Rudolph card. But seriously...who doesn't love Rudolph???We used the Sweet Centres...I love those things! The ladies had a lot of fun making variations...
I love seeing what they come up with...
I mean...how cute are those lashes???
And the eyebrows??? I love these ladies...they keep me on my toes!

Looking forward to the next time!
Enjoy!
Heather

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Hello again Kitty!

I really try to stay away from licensed party themes but sometimes I just can't help myself...since I'd done some Hello Kitty work for my daughter here I couldn't refuse meeting up with that cute little cat again!
So we made cupcakes...and ate them!
We did shrink art...oh and check out the brad I added to Hello Kitty after we shrank them! A little texture for the Shrink Art! It worked great!
And the infamous note pad...
So cute, so fun! How lucky am I! Happy Birthday!

Enjoy!
Heather

Monday, October 18, 2010

Careers in Art!

When I heard that my friend's daughter was doing an art project that focused in on careers in art and her group chose cake decorating I offered up a couple of hours to help them out. They came with cake and frosting in hand and we set to work!

We torted the cakes and iced them.
Then we kneaded the fondant...
and we covered the cakes...And set to decorating!I gave each of them a picture as inspiration and they set to work...this one was focused on piping and painting.
This cake as a fall harvest basket...look at all the work they put into this one!
Isn't it fantastic?
And this one was based on a leaf cake. There was some extra creativity added here...I love to see that!
I had a great time with the kids and am thinking about having a Cake Decorating PD Camp as a result!

Enjoy!
Heather

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Cheese Please!

If you ever spent a day here (when we were all here and in good form), you would know we can be quite cheesy and boy do we ever love a good pun! Well, Friday morning there was a rather pungent cheese in my kitchen it would seem...you see I was trying to make some parchment paper when Mr. CB came downstairs he took one look at it and suggested it looked like processed cheese!

Please note: this is after me staying up past my bedtime trying to get my video uploaded for The Marilyn Denis Show Auditions and knowing that I had way too much work booked over the weekend and a party that I needed to be in top form for.

I glowered at him and restarted my work...it wasn't looking promising at first but then with some fiddling around, I landed on this...
Not bad eh? I figured I could live with that...next up, finishing touches on my wand and sorting hat...they were both made with chocolate fondant but then there were different finishes put on them. I used a powder on the hat to make it look dusty and age it while I used brushed on a watered down colourant to enhance the wood grain and create the shine.
Then I started to paint...if you know me, you know I am intimidated by painting...my mother used to tole paint a LOT. She even used to teach tole painting and then decorative painting...really, you name it...she's done it! I have avoided painting because my mother was so good I figured I would likely never be good enough...and here I am painting!
And here is Simon...painting too! He was so sweet! He was fabulous while I worked on this (I don't usually work when he is around so I had no idea what to expect!)
Here is the completed cake...with more painting. I painted 4 spells on the cake;
Lumos = Light the wand
Confundus = Confuse the person the spell is cast on
Expecto Patronum = Conjures an incarnation of the conjurors innermost positive feelings
Imperio = Causes the victim to follow the commands of the caster
I really enjoyed doing this cake. The directions were 'we are going to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in November. Oh and make it chocolate please!'

So here you have it...a 10", 4.5" high chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling.

Happy Birthday Trish!

Enjoy!
Heather
xo

PS Sarah later came down and assured me that none of my pieces of work looked like cheese...cheese isn't usually various shades of yellow.


Thursday, October 14, 2010

Owl always love you!

So...you know...what do you do on a rainy afternoon when the kids are getting a little bored? There was this bag of socks totally beckoning us...And the sillies were too that day...So we cut, sewed and stuffed...
And once things settled down again, we had these to show for our efforts...Simon's owl has yet to get eyes as we didn't have enough buttons for all of them...for shame!!!It was a great day and a great craft. You can find the tutorial here on www.stashbooksblog.com and it looks like a cool place to hang out...I might just find some time to spend there soon!

Enjoy!
Heather