Josh's Birthday Cake

Yes, it's blue. I was going for a moderately manly look, so I avoided flowers. Instead I hand-piped the snowflakes and added pearl drops for the snow.

Fran's Cakes

These cupcakes were for a 50th birthday party luncheon, as requested by Fran. I combined buttercream flowers, candy butterflies, and candy numbers on extra-jumbo cakes. They looked good except that it was around 800 degrees the day I did these, and the frosting melted terribly.

Flower practice

My mom needed to bring something to a party, so she asked me to make cupcakes. Jay's parents (who got me all the cake decorating equipment to begin with) got me the 2nd book of the Wilton decorating series (flowers) for my birthday, so I decided to try some of the flowers out on these cupcakes. These came out great! I made four designs: roses, rosette bunches, chrysanthemums, and blue cartoony flowers. I invented the last type, because I had a bunch of cupcakes left and I needed something easy to do. I actually think they look cute and lent the plate some variety. The mums were my favorites, though.

The cat had a hand in these cupcakes, or a paw, as it turns out. I left the roses and rosettes out to dry and she managed to step on them. Some of the roses were a little squished in the middle, though most of them were salvageable. Then, when I was almost done, she jumped onto the counter about two inches from the cakes. Fortunately she freaked out and jumped right down once I started shrieking.

Easter Cupcakes

Not much to say about these. Cute, though, aren't they?
I made twelve egg cupcakes and the rest of the batch just got dollops of frosting. When I was doing the dollops, they looked amazingly like little piles of doggie doo. The little hearts and flowers helped reduce the excrement-ness...or made it look like the dog had had a very interesting meal. Your choice.
I've been attempting to improve my photography skills, and this week, I've discovered--gasp--wait for it--how to turn off the flash (work with me here people, I'm a musicologist, we're not so good with technology). It helped, don't you think?

I've also been trying to do that nifty thing where the front item is in focus and the ones behind are progressively fuzzier. This is the closest I got:
I want to eat that front one now, don't you? Now I just have to learn how to remove the cans of cat food from behind the picture before I snap it.

Sunflowers

I made these for a small gathering at my friend Erin's house. They were really fun to make. The sunflowers were oreos with frosting petals and Fruit Roll-up leaves, and the ladybugs were M&Ms. I loved using my frosting tips and will definitely be using them more often.


Some cupcakes had two sunflowers or more:
And some had ladybugs, while others were not as lucky.