Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Heart Tree Cupcake Stand

Ladies and gentlemen! I am proud to introduce to you an oh so very nerdy blog post!!!

My husband Will and I are very much into The Song of Ice and Fire book series and the Game of Thrones HBO show. For his birthday this year, I got him a horn mug like the ones they drink from in the show. Because of this, I decided that this year his birthday would be Game of Thrones themed. So what cake would I do? I daydreamed about it for some time before this crazy idea came into my head... and I couldn't get it out... I could make the heart tree!

A heart tree is the center of a Godswood. A heart tree is a weirwood tree that has a face carved into the wood of the trunk, with red sap giving the appearance of tears of blood. They are sacred in the religion of the Old Gods of the Forest. 

So the wheels in my head were turning, and I decided to make a heart tree cupcake stand. I made a cupcake stand before using cake boards and salt containers, so I decided to use the same concept to make this stand. Here's the link to the previous stand: http://createsharerepeat.blogspot.com/2011/12/project-of-week-babys-1st-birthday.html

I am going to show y'all how I did this stand, but I do not recommend it... even though it did turn out pretty cool... You will see why :)

I started off with 3 cake boards in various sizes ( I think 2-12" and 1-16" .... the 16" for the middle layer), two salt containers, red ribbon and modeling clay.

First I wrapped red ribbon around the boards to cover the unfinished ends using double-sided tape. Then I hot glued the top cake board to the top of one of my salt containers.

I wanted to have arms on the middle board, so I cut that part out. Then I glued the rest all together.

Then came the fun part... The sculpting! I molded the clay onto the boards and salt containers to create my tree!

Then comes the reason I WOULDN'T recommend doing this. And I SHOULD have known better. Clay shrinks as it dries, and that's exactly what it did.... and cracked... and made me sad....

OOOOOH NOOOOOOOO!!

But guess what... it was all okay in the end. :) I just filled some cracks in and painted over it! problem solved! :D

To finish off my stand, I decided I needed some snow on the ground... especially since this is Winterfell's heart tree.... and.... WINTER IS COMING! ;) So I used some styrofoam balls I had laying around, cut it up and glued it down to make snow!

I baked the cupcakes in red wrappers and used white buttercream frosting. On cupcakes I placed two small red leaves made out of edible dough I found at the store.

I thought this was kind of fun to look at... my rough sketch of what I had in my head, and the finished result. You can see I also added the Stark sigil, the direwolf head, to the top of my cupcake stand.

Here are some pictures from my husband birthday party:

I made him a birthday banner too.

What inspired this theme... the drinking horn I got him for his birthday!

My husband and me

I would like to use this opportunity to show off what I did for my husband for Valentine's Day... which was also Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones themed. In the book, Daenerys Targaryen would refer to her husband, Khal Drogo, as "my sun and stars." He in return would call her "moon of my life." So that was my theme for Valentine's Day.

The bottom picture is of the Beef Wellington that I made him for dinner. It was probably the most delicious (and expensive) thing I have ever made! Here's the recipe! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/the-ultimate-beef-wellington-recipe2/index.html

That's it! I think I am done with Game of Thrones themed parties for awhile! :) They were a lot of fun. When I have kids I will have to do other fun book themes, like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. :)

❤ Emily

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Mom's Fishy Birthday Party

So this past weekend, we threw my mom a small surprise birthday party. She is really into fishing so I took that theme and ran with it! Here are some of the projects I did.

Birthday Banner

I set up the outlines of the fish and letters on my computer in Illustrator. I bought kraft cardstock paper from Hobby Lobby, printed the fishies onto the cardstock, and cut all of them out. Then I put two whole punches at the top of the fish, threaded some jute string through, and hung up my banner! I added some bobbers and netting to finish the look. 

Birthday Cake Table 

I recycled table clothes and burlap runners from my wedding, and used them in the dining room for the cake table and outside on the food tables.

I dressed up my chandelier with some net, bobbers, kraft paper fishies and a big bobber.

To make the big bobbers, I bought some paper lanterns, covered part of it with painting tape, then spray painted the tops white.

Kitti helping decorate...

Mini Fishing Poles

I decided it would be fun to have some mini fishing poles to surprise my mom with. I tied little bells at the top of the "pole" with red and white baker's twine for everyone to ring when my mom came through the door. I cut out little fishies (2 per pole) and used double-sided sticky tape to attached it to the twine and the fishies back to back. I finished it off with a tiny bobber.

I think Kitti enjoyed the fishing poles the most....

Fish Cake

I made my mom's favorite chocolate cake for her birthday. But I decided to make in into the shape of a fish this time!

I wanted a basic fish shape, and it was really rather simple to do. I just baked the cake in a 9x13 pan, used a template I made to cut out a fish/oval shape, then used the extra piece to make the fins and tail. Then I covered with yummy frosting and ganache!

Outside Food Tables and Decor

While digging around for my mason jars, I found a few fun fishing items of my husbands: fishing poles, tackle box, a minnow bucket, etc. They helped complete the look!

Mason Jar Fishie Straws

I found some cute paper straws at the store, and decided I needed to put fishies on them! I printed out a bunch of fish, cut slits into them and slid them on to the straws.

Some of these items are on sale in my Etsy Store! Check them out here: 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CreateShareRepeat?section_id=14006941

We definitely surprised my mom and had a good time. I love themed parties and coming up with all the decorations and little details that make it special. I wish I could do it for a living, but I wouldn't know where to start!

Blowing out the candles!

Mother and I with some stinky little kids... her grandchildren/my nephew and nieces: Lucas, Maddie and Natalie

❤ Emily

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St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Burlap Door Hanger

This weekend is St. Patrick's Day so I thought I would share a recent project I made!

I had been seeing pictures of door hangers lately made out of burlap so I decided to make a shamrock!

My supplies

Green Burlap

Green Paint

Paint Brushes

Scissors

Hot Glue Gun

Raffia

Brown wire

Shamrock Stencil

I made and printed out a stencil on my computer.

The shamrock is about 20in x 20in. 

Download template here: Shamrock Door Hanger Template

This will need to be printed using the "Poster" settings.

You will need to cut and tape the pieces together to make the shamrock.

I cut out two panels of burlap into the shamrock shape.

I painted one panel to my liking.

I started hot gluing the two panels together.

I left a large opening at the top and stuffed the middle full of plastic bags.

After it was stuffed, I finished gluing the panels together.

Lastly, I added the brown wire and tied a raffia ribbon to it.

Finished door hanger!

This was SO easy to make! Took me about two hours. I want to make one for each holiday! :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

❤ Emily

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Ghostbusters Birthday Cake

It's never too late to post a cake that I did back in July, right? While I was searching through pictures from the last year to start blogging about all my wedding projects, I can across a birthday cake I made for my husband (my fiance at the time)! It was his 30th birthday, and since Ghostbusters is one of his favorite movies, I made him a Ghostbusters cake!

My man loves two things: Funfetti cake and chocolate chip cookies. So I decided to incorporate BOTH into this cake! The top and bottom layer were Funfetti and the middle was a giant chocolate chip cookie!

 I covered it in "slime"!

On top, I wanted to put the Ghostbusters logo, so I used a cookie as the base!

I cut the shape out using an X-Acto knife.

I used the Wilton method of transferring images using piping gel to put the outline of the logo on the cookie.

Then I outlined everything in black icing and then filled it in with red and white icing!

Thought I would throw this cake in for fun. In September, fiancé (now husband) and his friends went to Gulf Shores for his bacholer party weekend. I decided that they needed a cake, but didn't have a lot of time to work on one because I was busy getting ready for my wedding shower! So, I threw together this cake. I think he liked it. :)

I need to make more cakes..... I love it so much! :)

❤ Emily

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