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
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.
I made him a birthday banner too.
What inspired this theme... the drinking horn I got him for his birthday!
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