Project of the Week: Wedding Cake and Photos

Hello! Long time, no speak! I know, I know... I haven't been updating my blog like I should... BUT! Rest assured! I have been VERY busy and creative! Planning a wedding is like working on one HUGE art project. The most fun/biggest/hardest project of my life! I have been working on my invitation, save the date, website, decorations, etc.... So many things! I can't wait to show y'all everything, but I can't yet! :)

My wedding hasn't been the only thing on my plate. I made my first ever wedding cake a couple of weekends ago for my dad's wedding. It came out nice. I just did a two tier cake with some piping ( I piped a bunch of S's to represent my dad's last name). I tasted great! Chocolate cake with white buttercream icing! Yum!

Also, in March I had a little photo shoot with my two nieces, Maddie and Natalie. Here are some of my favorites!

I also would like to recommend the leisure classes at the Louisiana Culinary Institute. I have taken a pie making class and two cake baking classes. They are a lot of fun, and you learn a lot of good tips that you wouldn't know just looking at a recipe!  They have other classes besides baking. Check them out!

♥ Emily

Read More

Projects of the Week: Baby Shower Cake, Baby Room Wall Art and Maternity Pictures!

I  have been a very busy girl this past month, and I am just getting around to posting some of the projects I have been working on! All the projects revolved around my friend's Monica's baby shower. I posted her baby shower invitation I created in an earlier blog, and now I will show you all the other projects I worked on for her!

First I will show you the cake I made her. I made the cake from scratch (white cake, butter cream icing and a strawberry butter cream filling), and I was very happy with the taste. It was a HUGE cake that had to ride 4 hours in the car with me in the middle of August in Louisiana! Even though it was hot outside, I managed to get it there just fine!

I wanted to put the paisley pattern that was on the invitation on the cake as well, but there was no way I was going to spend all that time piping icing to do it. I decided to send a jpeg of the pattern to be printed on edible cake stickers at http://www.fillyourheartediblememories.com/.  It was really easy to use and recommend it if you have an image you want on a cake!

Monica wanted me to make some wall art for the baby's room that spelled her name. Using the same paisley theme, I printed out sheets of the pattern and was able to trace and glue the images to letters I purchased from Hobby Lobby. I added some paint to the sides, a layer of mod podge over the top and some ribbon to the back. It was super easy and made an awesome addition to the baby room!

While I was in Bossier, I also took Maternity pictures for Monica of her and her husband, Josh!

It was a lot of fun working on all of these projects for Monica! I can't wait to meet her little baby girl in October!

In other news, I wanted to mention that this blog is officially one year old!

My first blog post was on August 30, 2010. So far, I have posted 46 times and have shared over 30 projects! I have very happy with those numbers! I am looking forward to sharing more projects with you over this next year! I excited about the upcoming fall and Christmas seasons because I always have fun projects to do around then! Also I can't wait for it to COOL OFF! :)

Have a great weekend!

-❤- Emily

Read More

Project of the Week: Daffodil Photos

So it's been exactly one month since I last posted... one month! I know, I know... I have been slacking! But sometimes you need a creative break. I filled my time with reading, working around the house, cooking, and just being lazy!

No more creative break for me now! I have a few projects this month focused on my baby niece Natalie's Christening. The first thing I thought of was that I would be making the cake and invitation. Then it turned into a photo shoot as well!

I wanted a really nice photo of Natalie for the invitation, and I was really anxious to try out my new camera! So this past Saturday, Katherine and I loaded up the baby and her older sister Maddie and went to one of our favorite places, St. Francisville, LA. There are plenty of beautiful plantation homes in St. Francisville, and we love roaming around the grounds in the beauty gardens surrounded by giant oaks. We brought the girls to one of Katherine's favorite places, Afton Villa. Around March every year, there are over 100,000 daffodils that bloom here. We thought it would make the perfect backdrop for our photo shoot!

We had a blast, and I got some really good shots! Here are some of my favorites:

For more pictures, click HERE!

Keep an eye out next this week for when I post the Christening invitation featuring some of these pictures!

♥ Emily

Read More

My New Toy

I gave in. After years of longing, I finally pulled the trigger. I have purchased my first ever DSLR camera.

I choose the Canon XS. I do believe it is the best affordable choice out there for me. Also, with the help of my friend Amanda,  I chose this lens to accompany my new camera! My other talented friend/photographer, Jane, posted some of her tips that I am looking forward to putting to use!

I am looking forward to finally be able to learn more about photography. I may even take a photography class. I am excited to use it to take better pictures for this blog and to take pictures of my beautiful nieces!

Here are a few pictures I took with my new camera this weekend!

Cap'n Jack!

Kitti

My sweet niece, Natalie!

My niece, Maddie
I am lucky I even got this picture. She hasn't been very fond of us
taking pictures of her... probably because we took SO many pictures
of her when she was a baby!

Natalie

Maddie
This picture makes me want to draw it. 
Maddie has been the subject of several of my drawings.

 

Can't wait to learn even more about photography!

Tomorrow I hope to post a blog about my brother's birthday cake! Stay tuned!

♥ Emily

Read More

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I know I haven't written in awhile, but I think that is because I have been taking a creative break! I needed a rest after all the Christmas festivities! I had a wonderful holiday. I hosted a Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve party at my house this year. Lots of cooking, cleaning, etc. But what made this Christmas extra special was this little niece of mine...

 

This was on of my projects from Christmas time! A "stick Natalie in a stocking" photo session. She wasn't very happy about it. Get use to it kid... Auntie Em is going to be taking a LOT more pics of you! :)

2010 was a really great year for me. New house, new niece, a fun blog, a new found love of cake decorating. I can't wait to see what 2011 has for me!

I have been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish this year, personal and creative. At first I was kind of lost, and while I am still not sure exactly what I want to do, I have some ideas.

Personal:

• Reading. I decided this year that I would read more. I love to read, but for some reason I just don't do it a lot. It may be because I am never sure what to read. A lot of times, I will pick out a book, start reading it then stop in the middle because it wasn't well written, or I just wasn't interested. But now I have some recommendations from friends, and have already began to read. And... being into gadgets as much as I am... I started research ereaders. I am now the proud owner of a Nook 3G + WiFi. I LOVE it... Well... I only had it two days, but I already love it. :) I think I will read more with it. No excuses. I don't have to go to a book store or order one online and wait for it to come in the mail. I  have instant access to millions of books! I already read one book, Water For Elephants. I reeeeeally enjoyed it. I am now reading the Maze Runner. If anyone has any book suggestions for me, let me know! I like well written fiction. My favorite book of all time is The Lord of the Rings.

• Evernote. Okay, this is completely random, but I came across a website literally about 30 minutes ago, and I already love it. It's called Evernote, and it has an app for your iPhone, Mac, etc. It takes notes. Organized notes. Why am I excited about this? Well, recently my boyfriend and I were trying to figure out where we had a certain Sensation Salad (I need to blog about Sensation Salad one day :) ). Anytime there is a Sensation Salad at a restaurant in Baton Rouge, we get it.... but we are having trouble remembering where the best ones we had are! So I mentioned that I really needed to start keeping notes (with pictures) about the restaurants we go to so I can remember what I had there and if I liked it. It would also be helpful when recommending a restaurant to someone. Evernote will allow me to do this in an organized way! I am so excited. Restaurants reviews aren't the only notes I will start taking. I will like to use it for notes about recipes, books, etc. I am very excited to start using this app!!

 Daydreaming:

•  Baking. I loved my cake decorating classes. I was signed up to take the last of 3 Wilton cake classes, but for the last two months it has been canceled because there weren't enough people signed up. Hopefully in February I can take the last class. But I want to learn more than just a little decorating. I want to know more about the art of baking. I want to nail some awesome cake and icing recipes. I want to have the confidence to be able to actually sale my cakes. But how? How do I do this? Teach myself? Read some books? I went as far as looking into pastry schools  around here... but I don't want to do that. I am not sure where I want to go with my new found love of decorating cakes. I think I am just waiting for an opportunity to arise.

• Photography. I LOVE taking pictures. So so so much. And I am decent at it, but I know there is SO much more to learn, technically, about it. I tried teaching myself, but I just couldn't grasp it. Maybe I didn't try hard enough?  I looked at some photography classes that I may want to take, but if I do, should I upgrade my camera to a SLR, like this one? I just don't if it's worth me paying that much money. So I am trying to decide how involved in photography do I want to be.

I do have some projects coming up that I will be working on... guess what... they're CAKES! I have a couple of birthday cakes in mind. In March, I will have a few projects focused on my niece's Christening: a daffodil photo shoot, an announcement and a cake.  That's all I can think of for now. I need to start painting/drawing again. Drawing is probably my biggest passion, but I never do it, because I never know what I should draw!

I hope everyone is having a great 2011 so far! I hope to bring you many projects this year!

♥ Emily

Read More

Project of the Week: Baby Shower Cake and Diaper Cake

Wow... So... Last week I was MEGA busy preparing for my sister-in-law Katherine's baby shower. I am excited to say that it went very well, and everyone seemed to have a nice time! The theme was baby animals and neutral colors since we won't know the sex of the baby until it is born. I seemed to favor the giraffe though... :)

Well, needless to say, I kind of went over the top with my projects for the shower. They were for Katherine so I had to! :) I am very proud of both of them, especially the cake I decorated. I will start with it first! Warning: This is going to a lot of pictures!

I first started with the bottle. I rolled some rice cripies into a bottle shape

I covered the rice cripies with fondant

Then I colored some fondant to make the top of the bottle

I formed the nipple with a combination of
fondant and gumpaste

I used a strip of blue to make the connection

Then I used some colored fondant to start the giraffe

The body and neck

Attaching the arm with a tootpick

Measuring out the giraffes diaper

I set the giraffe on the bottle and attached the rest of the arms and legs

I formed the head and ear and attached it to the rest of the body.
Then I started adding the giraffes spots.

I added hair down the back

 

 

 

And a cute little tail!

Added a flag. Congrats Katherine!!!! :)

I made daffodils out of royal icing

I baked my cake and filled it with strawberry filling

A baby green, neutral icing

Messy :)

Smoothed the icing out and added dowels to support
my heavy giraffe and bottle!

Held up perfectly!

Added a border

Added yellow dots, the flowers and leaves

Katherine cutting the cake

I am very proud of my cake. I can't wait to learn even more about cake decorating!

Now time for my diaper cake. I have seen these before, and knew I had to make one for the shower! Unlike the edible cake, this one was pretty easy to make!

I first started with 100 of these little guys. I used all but 4 I believe.

I rolled them all up and put rubber bands on them

Using a bottle as a base, I started stacking the diapers around
the bottle, using a large rubber band to hold them in place

After I stacked my diapers, I tied yellow ribbon
around each layer.

I added some animal print ribbon to match the theme.

I added some shredded paper to add texture to the layers

My friend Andrea made the giraffe on top of the
diaper cake. I place random little goodies around
the cake to finish it off

Back view

Me with my creations!

Next up... Thanksgiving! And Christmas! Let's see what I am inspired to do this holiday season!

♥ Emily

Read More