How long has it been?

Okay everyone...it's been quite a while, so I have a lot of cakes to show ya'll. The reason I'm even on here is because I'm totally stressed out!! This is the end of my 1st semester of culinary school and a lot of stuff is coming due and a lot of tests are needing to be taken. We're getting ready for Christmas which means dishing out some cashola on gifts so I'm trying to take any order for cakes and cupcakes that I can. It's just busy. Tonight I'm trying to get 4 cupcake flavors baked for an order for tomorrow and the kids are CRAZY!!!! I just am at the end of my rope and I see no light at the end of the tunnel for a while. Sooooo...I decided I needed to vent and have some "me" time. Well, that's how I ended up blogging tonight.

Here are some cakes that I've done. I've done quite a few more, but didn't take pics of them.

This was a quick LV purse that I did in one of my classes. It didn't get to do a lot of detail because of time. I wish I could have done this better, but it's a good start.

This is a pink camo cake for a little girl that lives near me.

This is another cake I did in class. It's not perfect by anymeans, but I just didn't have the time.

This is Pooh Bear for Jonathan's 1 year cake. It's made from rice cereal treats and covered in fondant

This is the finished cake. It's a beehive with gumpaste bees, pooh and a hunny pot "smash cake".

This is my final cake I did for one of my classes. It's fondant covered with royal icing snowflakes stenciled on it and the piped royal icing snowflakes. I pretty much love this cake. You can't see all the glitter on the snowflakes, but it was really pretty

Okay, so there are the ones I've taken pics of. Hope it's not so long until next time.

Cakes galore!

Well, I haven't posted in a long time. I've been very busy with cakes and cupcakes for the past few weeks. I haven't taken pictures of all of them, so when I got this order YESTERDAY, I made sure I took plenty of pics.

I really enjoyed doing this cake. It made me more confident in my abilities because the customer called yesterday and wanted the cake this afternoon. That's not very long to do a 2 tiered, fondant covered cake. I was a little nervous and panicked. To add to the stress, my aunt was coming down for a visit and to take my kids for a couple of days. Fortunately, she took the boys after just a few minutes of arriving without me even asking or telling her my plans.

The cake the customer wanted was like the "Diva" cake but with a few changes. I learned from that cake, that I have to cover cakes with fondant if I'm going to stack them. I don't want to risk my cakes falling or collapsing. Little Rock is the closest place I can get Satin Ice fondant, so I had to make a trip. It's only about 45 minutes away, but it was time I didn't want to take, but I had to. I finally made it back home and started baking. I was up until 1 am and then had to get back up to stack and finish the cake. I can't believe that I did it in such a short amount of time, but I'm sure that not having my kids around helped a lot. I could just get in the "zone" and knock it out without someone needing a drink or having to give baths or everything else that comes with being a mom. So, here's the cake finished at the customer's home.

The finished cake

Grant and Anna. They're cousins and grankids of the birthday girl.

Hotlanta, here we come!!

OKay, most of you know that I'm going to audition for American Idol. Well, MeLinda, Kelly and I are leaving tomorrow around noon. It's going to be about a 10 hour drive, but I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be a time where I can be a fun girly, girl. Well, we'll probably end up being giddy litte school girls that get into trouble for being to loud or too mean. I'm wanting to make sure that no matter where I go, I have a positive attitude and show God through me. I want to lift people up and keep my eyes on Jesus. I am wanting to sing positive songs for my auditions. No sleezy lyrics or anything negative. I want to be different and give God praise, honor and glory as often as possible. I don't want to come off like the "crazy Bible thumper" because that's not who I am. I just want to be a different kind of "Idol". I probably won't even make it to Randy, Simon, and Paula, but please pray that my friends and I show the love of Christ everywhere we go this week. I'm super nervous about the whole audition process, but I'm going to have a great time and have wonderful fellowship with some great women. I'm so blessed to have such great friends in my life and I thank God every day for the people He has placed near me. Thanks so much for reading all this. Until next time

Music to my floppy ears

I have an unusually busy week this week because I'm leaving on Monday for Atlanta to audition for American Idol. It's just for the experience. I've wanted to do it since the show began, but never really could or was too afraid of rejection. Anyway, I don't want to look back and wonder "what if".

I just got this order on Tuesday evening for 2 carved cakes. They were pretty ambitious on my part. I think I pulled them off, though. I had an order for a guitar cake and a cake that looked like a favorite stuffed animal. Here they are. The guitar has more pics because I was so focused on the animal I forgot to take pics until the end.

The carved body of the guitar

The tuning keys and other "nubbies"

The finished neck

The finished guitar

The stuffed puppy all done

Well, I have to go to bed now. Thanks everyone for looking at these blog posts. Please let people know about my blog and about my cakes. I'm really hoping to get enough business here to be able to open up my own bakery one of these days. Thanks for spreading the word.

Until next time!

Cupcake pops!!

Okay, it's been such a long time since my last post. I know that all 5 of you have been anxiously awaiting my new post, so here it is.

I have done cake balls before, but they didn't ever turn out well. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but I think I was adding liquid instead of just icing. Then I saw Bakerella's blog and how she did such cute things with cake balls. So I started practicing and I think i have it down. Cake balls are just baked cake and icing mixed up then formed into balls and chilled. It's really easy and they are super yummy. Okay, so here we go...

I started out with chilled cake/icing mixture. Formed them into a small star cutter I have and made my "cupcake". I chilled them again while I got my stuff ready to dip them in. I dipped the bottom first then the top. I then put on an M&M then sprinkled little sprinkles on them. Stuck them in the floral foam to dry and then wrapped them. I made some for a fundraiser for church this past Sunday, but forgot to take pictures of the process, so I had to make some more. Oh, well, I'm sure they'll get eaten.

Tank you very much!

Okay, so I haven't posted in a super long time...I've been busy. This past week I had a "tank" cake to do. I had never done a tank, but I saw some pics online and thought I could do it. This cake was for the same lady I did the "diva" cake for a few weeks ago. Well, I was a little worried since that cake fell into itself once it went across town to the pizza place. I didn't know if I wanted to try something so ambitious, but I did NOT want to just try and draw a tank or something lame on a sheet cake...that's just not what I do. I like to go big and beautiful (just like me LOL). Soooooo...I said I would do the tank cake an actual 3-D cake. I knew I was going to have to use fondant just to make sure the cake stayed together. I have learned my lesson. I didn't take pics along the way because I lost my camera for a couple days, but found it the day of delivery (thank God).


This cake was a huge undertaking. It was a week long ordeal and I was up to my elbows in fondant. The cake was monsterous and I had to spend aan entire day just baking. On Wednesday, I was chilling the cake getting it ready to carve when a neighbor calls and asks if I can do her daughter's birthday cake. I need the business, so I said "Sure, when is it?" She lets me know that it's this Saturday. What??!!! We talked about it and it was no biggie. She wanted a cowgirl themed cake for about 25 people. I let her know that I could do it as long as it was simple. We decided on a cow print cake with a paisley print bandana. I told her she was in charge of what else to put on it. I didn't have any time to shop for a topper. So, I had 2 cakes this week, which I am sooooooooo excited about. Misty (tank cake) said that everyone loved the cake and she gave out my number to a lot of people. I'm hoping I get a lot of business from the cake. So, no more waiting...here they are:
They put on the hat, boot and #7.








Chase and his cake.

Store Stories

Okay, so the last couple stores I've been in, strange things have happened. The other day I was buying some groceries to make Matt (hubby) a nice dinner and I was at the express checkout. I was by myself because my parents were visiting the kids. I was just kinda looking around while I was waiting in line. I saw this guy waving at me and he was about 10 feet away, so I just smiled politely and turned back and looked forward. Next thing I know, he's right next to me saying, "Hi, your hair is beautiful." Okay...kinda freaky. So, I said thank you and turrned back around hoping he would catch a clue. But oh no..."Hi, I'm John." I wasn't even looking at him!!! ME: "Nice to meet you." (turned back around)
JOHN: So, what do you do?"
ME: I'm a stay at home mom. (turn back around)
JOHN: Oh, so you're married?
ME: Yep. (turn back around)
JOHN: Your husband is a very lucky man.
ME: Yes he is. (turned back around)
JOHN: Well, (shakes my hand) thanks for having an open mind.
ME: okay, no problem. Have a great day.

In my head: What the heck??!!! What just happened? Are you kidding me? Open mind? Why did he think I had an open mind? Did he think that I even, for a second, thought about dating him?? I was just being nice. It's not like I'm gonna just tell him to get away from me. Then my mind goes to thinking that he might be targeting me for something. I mean, who just comes up to a single lady in the grocery store?? It really kinda freaked me out. I just pictured him following me to my car and killing me or something. Well, nothing like that happened, so I'm really glad. Once I realized that he wasn't following me, I thought, "huh, I just kinda got hit on. Too bad that it was by a 35 year old that didn't own a razor and probably still lived with his mother." Oh well. At least my hair is cute. Now, onto my second weird store story:

I was getting gas at a place that didn't have pay at the pump. I'm glad that I didn't have my kids with me because I hate to take my kids in. Anyway, I'm waiting in line that had 3 other people in it. I saw something on the shirt of the guy in front of me out of the corner of my eye. I looked and it was a HUGE spider!!! I freaked. I startedbreathing kinda hard and I said "Hey! There's something on your shirt." By this time, the spider had crawled to the collar of his shirt. He thought I said hat, so he took his hat off. I just grabbed his hat out of his hand and started hitting him really hard with his hat. He was turning around and looking for it while I was hitting him. Then the lady behind up said that she saw something fly off onto the floor. We found the spider and it was still alive!!! The guy didn't want to kill it, so the lady stepped on it. I said I was sorry for grabbing his hat and hitting him so hard with it. He told me thanks for telling him. We just laughed about it and that was that. It was much more crazy than I can explain, but how many times do you get to hit on a total stranger? I guess more than I used to think because both of these stories is really all about hitting on total strangers. LOL OKay. Until next time. I have to watch the weather.

Suds in the Bucket

Well, I made laundry detergent today. I'm super excited and want everyone to know about it. Okay, well, maybe just the four of you. I figured it up and it costs me about $2.50 for 10 gallons of laundry detergent. That's over $150 in saving in a year. That might not sound like a lot, but every time I go to the store and have to buy detergent, we usually don't get a few food items that I would usually buy that day, so it really is pretty awesome. My initial investment was more than $2.50 (more like $10), but I won't have to buy the bucket again and the borax will last a long time. It also has some great cleaning uses.

All this came from the Duggars. My brother told me about it because he started using it and likes it.

Here's the recipe and directions:

Ingredients:

1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap (Ivory works too)

4 C hot tap water

1 C washing soda (can be found at Kroger)

1/2 C borax (in the laundry detergent isle on the top)

Equipment needed:

5 gallon bucket w/ lid

cheese grater

long stirring utencil

laundry soap dispensesr

Directions:

Grate soap.

(Not Cheese)

Add to 6 qt saucepan along with 4 C water and heat over medium heat until the soap is melted/dissolved.

Make sure you keep an eye on it because when it starts to heat up it gets foamy. Meanwhile, fill the bucket 1/2 full of hot tap water and add borax and washing soda. Stir until dissolved. When the soap is dissolved, add to the bucket and stir well. Fill the rest of the way with hot tap water and stir. Put the lid on and let set up overnight. It will be thick in the morning. Xaiden not getting to play in the bubbles

To use:

Fill 1/2 of dispenser full of detergent and 1/2 of hot tap water. Shake before each use.

Top load washer - 1/2 c. per load

Front load washer - 1/4 c per load

I hope this helps ya'll out. Thanks to the Duggars, we can all save money!!!

Mountain of laundry

Okay, I'm a total slacker. I have been so lazy the past week and a mountain of laundry had built up. Ugh. I don't ever mind putting the laundry in the washer then in the dryer. I'll even take it out of the dryer and put it into the basket, but I can't stand to put the clothes away. Matt's going to be gone until Fri. morning and we're running out of clothes, so I'm having to do laundry all the way through. Did I mention how I HATE putting clothes away??? It's mostly hanging clothes up. I just can't stay focused long enough to do it.

Since I have so much laundry to do, I think I'm going to make my own laundry soap. I found it on the Duggars' site and I'm totally excited. It makes 10 gallons of detergent for like 2-3 bucks. That will last at least a year. We're talking major savings here. I'm really excited!!! I guess I don't hate laundry as much as I thought if I can get excited about detergent.

Okay, gotta get laundry going. I hear the dryer buzzer. I'm going to be making cannolis tomorrow or Wednesday, so stay tuned. Until later!!

I have followers!!

WooooHoooo!!! I don't have to write to no one!!! I have 3 followers!! Thank you all. This means so much to me. LOL

The cake wreck story continues. Okay, so I delivered it to the party place. They were then going to take it to Larry's Pizza. I really thought it would make it. I had supported it as much as I could, but it didn't make it. I'm really heartbroken. I just wanted Rylie to be able to blow out her candles and cut her cake in front of all her friends. I'm really more upset than I probably should be. The cake was SUPER CUTE and perfect for Rylie and she couldn't even enjoy it. I'm just sad. There's nothing else I could have done that I know of. I'm going to do some more research to see how to better support and stabilize the cake. I don't want this to happen anymore. Well, until next time!

Cake Wreck...seriously.

Okay, well, as you know I had a cake order due today. It was a 2 tiered cake, so I thought I would go ahead and start on it on Sunday. I got all the cake baked and all the icing made and colored.

That's six cakes. I was doing great!!! And on top of everything else going so well, Nana and Papa (my parents) were going to take the kids for the week. I was going to be able to do this cake in peace and quiet and no little fingers being tempted by freshly smoothed icing. Ahhhhh.. This was going to be great.

The next day, I started putting the cakes together and doing a quick crumb coat. ( The kids would be here until 4pm when Matt took them to Harrison to meet my mom.)Here's the bottom tier. It looks bad now, but just wait...it gets better. At least for a little bit.

So, I do the crumb coat on the bottom tier and then cut out the circle in the top of the tier so the top tier can set in the space that is level. I put the top tier on and then do an all-over icing and wait for the icing to crust. I decide to pack the kids' clothes for the week so the icing would have plenty of time to crust. This is what I came back to...

There was a HUGE crack in my bottom tier!!!!! There was another crack in another place that was smaller. WHAT THE HECK???!!!! I was not going to panic. I was NOT going to PANIC! I thought of all the time that I had already put into it and I had never done zebra print before, so I didn't know how long that would take. It was a little stressful. I was just going to clean up the kitchen and start all over, so I washed cake pans, wiped off counters, set out my butter for icing and went to check all the ingredients for the cakes. I had no sour cream. Sour cream is a major part to my cakes. It makes them super moist and yummy. I was still in PJ's and I decided to just wait until the kids left to go get my supplies. I re-made all the cakes and icing and gave a lot of the cake wreck to neighbors. I was up until midnight waiting for the cakes to cool then realized that my icing had been in the fridge and was unspreadable. I just gave in and went to bed.

The next morning I was ready to go. I got all the cakes put together and went to cover my 6in cake board with contact paper and couldn't find any. No biggie. i had woken up earlier than I thought I would and so I just ran to Fred's in Greenbrier to pick some up then ran by the hardware store to get some wire and pruning shears. Both of which were for the cake. I got home and put it all together.

Here was the moment of truth. Could I make a zebra print on the cake with fondant stripes??

Not too shabby, I thought. The icing didn't smooth very well because the humidity was crazy today, but I couldn't really help it. Here are a few pics of the final product. Riley is the birthday girl and is a super sweetie. I love doing cakes for these people. Seriously, I love my customers!!

Rylie with her cake.

So, all in all, I think it turned out well. Of course, things could always be better, but I think Rylie loved it, so that's all that matters. Well, until next time. See ya!

Cake order

Okay everyone!!! Oh I forgot that no one even reads this blog...oh well. I got a cake order from Xaiden's APN (advance practice nurse). She ordered from me pretty regularly, so I'm glad that I'm back and can do cakes for her again. She's super great and her kids are too. Her daughter's birthday is this Tuesday and since it's spring break here, they're actually having the party on Tuesday. That's great!! She's having a diva party, so I'm doing a topsy turvy, hot pink cake with zebra stripes on one tier and black circles/dots on the other tier. I'm hopefully also going to have curly wire with pink balls on them coming out of the cake.

I saw bakerella's blog and totally love it. I love all the pics and she's just soooo talented. Well, I thought that I needed a camera to be able to take good pics with. All I have is a point and shoot camera. I found a camera that I wanted. I was so excited, but how could I talk Matt into buying it for me??? I thought of all kinds of ways to butter him up (if you know what I mean), but as soon as he figured out that I wanted something, the deal was off. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to make due with my little point and shoot. Hopefully I'll remember to take some pics while I'm making the cake and all the components. I'm so excited!! Until next time.

Onions

As some of you know, we bought a house last month and it sits on a acre. We love it and I'm so excited that we now have a garden. Well, recently planted 2 rows of onion bulbs and I had a ton of bulbs left over. After I planted them I just put them on the shelf beside the front door. Well, today while I was watching Ellen (I love Ellen) Xaiden was playing with something in the area. Not until I saw small white things flying through the air in every direction did I realize what he was paying with. Before I could get to all the onion bulbs, Tater, our English Bulldog, had eaten about half of them. Ugh...onions and dogs don't mix. About 30 minutes later...blah. I'm not the biggest fan of dog puke!!! Oh well, I guess I could put it in our compost pile, but I'm not gonna. It would just weird me out knowing that there was throw up in there. Well, I think Tater will spend the evening in a bathroom in case we need to contain more ickiness.

Xaiden and I are going to the jeromey Deibler from FFH concert at church tonight. I hope a lot of people show up. Well, until later.

Lazytown

Oh my gosh!! I just realized that I have been so caught up with Rhea Lana, homegroup, wee-worshipers and blogging that I have done NO house work this week while Matt has been at work. He comes home tomorrow morning and I HAVE TO get this house cleaned. Xaiden is taking a nap and what am I doing???? I'm blogging!!!!! This is craziness.

Okay, so I finally dropped off all the clothes for Rhea Lana's Consignment thing today. I drove all the way into town (12 mi. or so) and realized I forgot the crib bedding that was my "big ticket" item. Are you freakin kidding me??? I can't believe I'm so stinkin scatter-brained. OKay, I can believe it. Some days I'm just an idiot. Whatever. SO, I dropped Xaiden off at the babysitter's for an hour, took what I did bring into the store to drop off. I picked up Xaiden, got food at Popeye's, rushed back out to the house (12mi.) picked up bedding and went back to town (12mi). Pretty much rush, rush, rush.

AND...while Xaiden and I were eating Popeye's chicken nuggets (because it was the cheapest combo meal on the menu) I realized that the nuggets were more spicy than I anticipated. Xaiden too, b/c he downed his juice and was begging for more drink. Here we are 10 min from the house with our mouths on fire. I'm trying my hardest to go faster, but there's this "blue hair" in front of me going the speed limit. How dare she. Doesn't she know that you can go 10 miles over on HWY 25??!!! There are NEVER cops on that road!! Anyway, all my Coke is gone and all Xaiden's juice...it was not a very good drive home. Once we got there I realized that I had juice boxes in the back of the van. I tortured my kid for nothing. I felt like a horrible mom. I soon got over it, though.

I think I'll keep a pack of juice boxes in the back of my van from now on just to be on the safe side. Well, I'm off to clean. Hopefully I won't be as lazy today as I have been the entire week.

Totally new at this

Okay, so here I am...totally new at this blogging stuff. A very good friend of mine suggested that I start a blog. I'm not really sure why she thought I should do this, but once I thought about it I thought, "What's the harm?".
So, I'm a stay-at-home mom. I have 2 wonderful boys that are the light of my life. My husband isn't too bad either. He's super supportive and a wonderful father.

Okay, so the point of this blog is to just tell about my crazy days.

Where to start? The way my day starts depends on how the night ends. Arrin, my oldest, is at Nana and Papa's house until Sunday, so it's just me and Xaiden (ZAYDEN) for a while. Last night was nuts and I don't even want to get into it, so...long story short, Xaiden didn't go to sleep until 10:30pm. That's crazy!!! He did sleep until 8:30 this morning, so it wasn't too bad.

My little boy got his hair cut today. Ugh...I can't believe it. This isn't the first haircut, though. I just can't believe that my little boy is growing up so fast. He did such a great job. He sat there so big. The only thing is that when the barber took his cape off, it went all over me and Xaiden. A lot of good the cape did. Oh well...at least he doesn't look like Shaggy anymore.

Rhea Lana's Consignment is going on. I'm consigning and I put coupons in 1000 goodie bags to be given out to the 1st 1000 customers. I'm hoping they will bring in some business. Well, I have lots more to do today like make 8 dozen chocolate chip cookies. MeLinda, I'll remember you.