Well, I sold the MR2. I noticed that since most instances when I would drive the MR2 I was riding the motorcycle instead.  I was still making payments on it and it was taking up room in the garage.  I still loved the car, but responsible thinking prevailed and I sold it.

Alie has been doing weight watchers for the last few months and she has been doing great!  She just passed the 25lbs lost mark and she’s not stopping yet!

I made this cake as a part of one of my Wilton classes at Joann’s.  I used royal icing to make all of the flowers in advance.  I tried to make gerber Daisys by stripping the icing bag with a different color.  They turned out pretty good.

The basket weave technique looks much more difficult than it really it is.  This cake is impressive!

This was a 2 layer cake.  One layer was a white cake that I colored orange to be consistent with the Harley Davidson colors.  The second layer was chocolate which I added additional black color to make it a true black.

I printed the logo from the internet and then created it out of fondant.  It was very tedious, but turned out okay.

My favorite part of this cake was the fondant and gum paste replica of “Marsha” (my sister in-law on her bike).  I had never made a figure out of fondant so this was a learning experience.  The head, helmet, sunglasses, hair blowing on the bike was the easy part.  The hardest part was the hands to hold on to the handle bars.

Jim helped me with the flames and airbrushed them to make them look realistic.  It was a nice touch to the final cake.

Lesson Learned
I wouldn’t do the tread on the wheels in the fondant. I should have carved the cake and then put the fondant over the cake to form the tread.  The fondant started drying and didn’t look like tire tread as much as I would have liked.

I enjoyed creating this cake and it brought tears to Marsha when she first saw it.

A Ball for Little Billy!

I made this cake at the same time I made the princess cakes. I used the ball pan and then decorated it with buttercream icing in blue, grey, and green. I love the grass that surrounds the ball. It’s so cute. I had so much fun with this cake.

Lesson Learned
Because the cake is so thick, it took this cake almost an hour to bake…even longer than the directions specified.  How do you know when the cake is done?  Touch the cake lightly with your hand and it should bounce back.  You can use a knife or tooth pick and insert into the cake and if it comes out clean then the cake is done.  The last sign that guarantees your cake is done is that the sides will start to pull away from the cake pan.

Lastly, I had to level this cake with a large knife as it was not flat.

First-Time Using Fondant!

It was yellow cake with buttercream frosting. Then covered in pink homemade marshmellow fondant and purple decorations. I was so proud of my first cake!  I really like the simple look of this cake.

Lesson Learned
If you have the time and are comfortable with the marshmellow fondant, it is definitely cheaper.  As an experiment, I have tried all types including Wilton, Satin Ice, Buttercream fondant, etc.  I find the Wilton fondant is the easiest to work with.  It is less sticky and easier to roll out.

I just finished this cake for New year’s eve.  Me, Jimmy, and some friends will cut into this cake after our dinner on New Year’s Eve. This is a yellow cake with strawberry filling. I have been torting my cakes and trying different fillings. Also, covered in buttercream icing and then purple fondant. I made curlicues and stars and air brushed the stars with silver and gold food color paint. There is lot of confetti in preparation for the BIG celebration tomorrow.

Lessons Learned
I used the circle cutter to measure the fondant to ensure the fondant balls bordering the cake were about the same size.  Some of the fondant was a little thicker so it did alter the size.  The rings on the fondant roller are very helpful to ensure you have the right thickness.

The letter fondant cutters work better if you put crisco on them before cutting the letters.  It makes for a clean cut letter.

The curlicues and curly ribbon are all made out of fondant. Next time I would add gum paste to make them dry faster.  I would also add tooth picks or candy sticks while still soft so it can dry with the stick attached.   All curlicues were attached to cake with toothpicks.  Ribbons were inserted directly into cake.

For gold and silver fondant, I used my air brush tool and purchased the sparkly food paint to color my decorations. 

I used gum glue to attach all the decorations.  Gum glue is water and a small amount of gum paste dissolved.

A Birthday Cake for 2 Princesses! I’m just learning to decorate cakes professionally and I love it.   I have taken a few of the Wilton courses at Joann’s and I really enjoy them and have learned a lot. 

It was time for my 2 nieces birthday parties so I had to offer to create a cake for my 2 favorite little girls for their birthdays in September. Jessi and Ashley loved these lovely pink and purple creations!

This cake was a white cake with buttercream frosting. This was the first time using the cool shaped pans. I had my fingers crossed that the cake would come out of the pan…and it did! I was very impressed with how good this cake turned out. My hand hurt…that’s lots of stars in icing!

Lesson Learned?  I love the Cake Release you can purchase at Joann’s or Michaels in the cake aisle.  I use a pastry brush and liberally apply to the pan.  My cakes come out of the pan every time.  Also, I don’t let my cakes cool in the pan, I turn them out of the pan on to the cooling rack immediately out of the oven.  So far so good!

Alie and I drove over to Maryland over the past weekend.  I was looking for a Lexus IS350 with a relatively specific combination of features.  There wasn’t anything within 200 miles even close to what I wanted, but I did find a few in the Maryland/Virginia area so decided that was where we would go.  On Friday, I called a few different places and started the first stage of negotiation to see how much room I had to work with the price, realizing that I would be able to get them at least a little lower once I showed up in person ready to buy.

The one in the pictures below was my first choice of the ones I was looking at.  It is a Lexus Certified car, so it comes with an extended 100k mile warranty.  It was also my first choice of color and had nearly every available option.  I chose a price going in that I thought I could get them down to and was able to do so relatively quickly since I talked to the same salesmen as the day before when I did my initial negotiating

We left the dealership with the car and went to find a hotel for the night.  After circling the area, it was laid out very oddly if you didn’t know your way around, we finally the found a hotel and got a room.  We then jumped in the new car, grabbed a late lunch, and headed to downtown Washington D.C. as Alie had never been there before.  We were tired (left Columbus at 4:30am that morning) so we didn’t get out and walk up to anything, but we were able to drive right by many of the monuments and buildings.  We then headed back to the room to get some sleep.  We got up at 4:30am again the next morning.  Including a couple stops for gas and breakfast we pulled into our driveway right around noon.

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