Double Gate Fold

I tried this double gate fold card for a friends birthday. I used stampin up 12x12 cardstock sheet of paper for the base. You can also use a sturdy 12x12 designer paper. Here is the card. 

The base was pretty easy to make.  The cutting of the DP to fit was a little bit more difficult. For the DP I started off with 2- 1.75"x 3.75" and 2- 1.75"x 5.25" and cut the angle after eyeing and penciling the cut.  Below is the diagram of the base card. 

 

I am contemplating make SVGs of card folds and the DP cuts so I don't have to cut and measure in the future. I will see what I can do over the holiday break.  

Sofia's Birthday Cake - Ga Ga Gourmet

It's been a while since I blogged.  I haven't done many scrapbook pages but I have made a number of cards.  When I can find the time, I will have to upload the images.

A few weeks ago we celebrated Sofia's 7th Birthday.  This year Sofia asked for a shopkins cake.  I asked her to pick out her favorite shopkin, she chose baby, Ga Ga Gourmet.  She also decided on Vanilla, Red Velvet and Chocolate.  So this cake had two vanilla layers, two red velvet layers and the top was chocolate.  I fulfilled all her wishes.

Here is the cake.

 This cake was so cute and not very difficult to make.  She loved it and all enjoyed.  A big thanks to our friends who came out to join us in celebrating.

Hugs Dee

Karate Cake

I helped my friend Virginia make this Karate Cake for a function.  The cake was chocolate with vanilla buttercream, Virginia did all the work, I was just there for advise, support and touch ups.  She did a great job and I can't wait to see what she makes next.  I made the patches, one for the front of the gi the other was the patch that is on the back.  I found that to be the most difficult part since I can't draw and that dragon patch was very detailed.  

Not a bad match, right?  I used edible markers and then colored in using gels mixed with alcohol. 

Thanks for looking. Have a great day.

Dee

Lauren's Instagram Birthday Cake

My friend Michelle asked me to make a cake for her daughter's birthday.  While talking to her I asked what her favorite color (blue) was and tried to get ideas for what kind of cake she wanted.  While looking at all kinds of girly cakes she saw an instagram cake and said that was soooo cool.  So there sprung the idea. When we looked online at other cakes she pointed out a cute emoji.  I said "what's an emoji?" Yeah I am so up on today's lingo lol. I realized she meant the smiley faces....so hence this bright idea was born, she had no idea what I planned so it was a surprise for her.  I made 10 inch vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. Covered it with fondant and made cake balls.  The cake balls were perfectly round but I had trouble with getting the coating smooth on each ball (hated this) and if you must know, cake balls are just too darn sweet with melted coating (yuck).  Anyway I had fun decorating each and making little faces on each emoji.   My kids helped with the faces, lots of fun for all.  The emojis took up most of my time, next time they will be flat disks on the side of the cake.  I wrote all over the cake and each written word had a # or an @.  This was just a fun cake to make. Happy Birthday Lauren!!!

Enjoy and have a great week.
Delia

Cake for a friend

My friend Pat asked me for a small cake, something simple.  It had to be green and purple with the balls on the bottom.  She decided that the cake should have a cheerleading bow.  I looked online found a great tutorial and made my first bow.  The cake was 3-6 inch layers of vanilla cake with buttercream frosting with homemade fondant.  Here is the cake, no card for this post. 

Came out cute although I had some trouble with the fondant, I heard it was still delicious.  Happy Birthday Tiana.

Delia

Princess Sofia's 5th Birthday!!!

Sofia turned five this year and I wanted her to have a special birthday party since she hasn't (as she told me) had a birthday party "in her whole life". So she decided on a princess party which my friend Michelle had mentioned a few times.  LOL she had all the princess decorations and tea set for the table.  We got together on New Year's Eve and discussed the venue, games, decorations etc.

I made the invitation and sent it out.  Here it is:

The address of the place and my phone number was removed.  I loved how it came out.  My cricut was not happy cutting glitter paper, I needed to change the blade several times.  Next time, I will have a few tricks up my sleeve for this type of cutting.  

My focus then became the cake and cake table.  With the princess theme, Sofia decided on a castle cake.  I searched out all the castle cakes I could find.  Looking at different turrets on the castles I knew what didn't want.  Nothing that would easily lean (so many of those in my search) and nothing with paper towel tubes.  Trust me I am no expert, I don't get sharp corners but the kids love it when they see a cake that is out of the ordinary.  I like the "wow" from the kids, it totally makes the hours of work worth it.  I like to have a totally edible cake, so I decided on making the turrets out of Rice Krispies (RK).  I was going to use a PVC pipe as a mold but being that it is not food safe, I canned that idea.  Instead, I decided to use ICE drink bottles and Pringles cans.  I sprayed the inside with Pam spray and compacted warm RK and added a skewer to the middle.  When they were almost cool, I  pulled out the RK and let them cool completely.  The next step was to cover the RK with white chocolate and let cool.  I was then able to smooth the chocolate out with my warm hands.

The cake took a while to put together and I had some great help.  Besides Sofia wanting to help out every step of the way, I had my niece Denise and my friend Mel stay up with me until 3AM and only stopped because I stated I was going to bed.  My sister Helena stepped in at about 1AM with her "helpful advise" and when I kiddingly told her to stop "criticizing", she said "I am not criticizing, I am just telling you what to do".  Well we couldn't stop laughing.  Helena always has the best intentions and she really knows how to jazz anything up, I love her dearly, thanks Helena for your thoughtful ideas LOL. 
 
I made the layers of vanilla cake a week before and froze them.  I covered them in buttercream frosting and let it harden in the refrigerator overnight.  I took out the cake and made the cut outs for the turret and again covered the whole cake with buttercream. 

Sofia and Mel kneaded and rolled out fondant and we covered the whole cake and the RK turrets.
 
I didn't finish everything I wanted, the top of the cake was suppose to have another tower/turret, just a small one to finish the look but I was too tired and I didn't have enough time, so I used a glass carriage that Michelle had for the top of the cake.  I think it looked great when it was finished.  Sofia LOVED it and that is all that counts in my book.  The kids at the party also love the cake and there were a lot of excitement over it. 


This was the table set up with all the princess decorations, seat covers and all the sandwiches were cut using a crown shaped cookie cutter.  We had pink lemonade in the tea pots and served it to all the girls their own tea cups.

The carriage in the background was painted by Sofia and I on a snow day.  I went down to the fabric store and obtained all I needed.  My idea was to have all the little girls peek their heads in for a photo. I am including a photo of each girls in their "thank you" cards.


Sofia walking in with Logan took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes, she was so happy and she is getting so big.  Logan didn't want to do it, but for $25, he was willing to escort his sister down the red carpet and walk back to escort each girl down the red carpet.     

I realized once the cake was on the table that I  forgot to bring photos to cover up the photos on the wall.  No one noticed but me but in everything I do, there is always something I forget no matter how organized I am.  

We had several games throughout the party and after each game each girl received a royal prize.  We had a total of 18 girls and my beautiful little girl was so happy and the smile on her face all day really was worth all the time it took to pull this party together.

The cake!! I was worried about it traveling.  I have never traveled with a cake before and this cake had to go 6 miles away, up a hill.  I was sure it was going to fall apart but it stayed together.  The two skewers into the RK horizontally and vertically through the turrets helped it all to stay together. 

 

Thanks for reading all about this great day.  Have a great day.  Hugs to all.  Dee 

 

 

Graduation Party!!

Logan graduated from George Washington Elementary School this past June and my friend Michelle asked if I wanted to do a pool party at her house for both Logan and her daughter Lauren.  As soon as the word "yes" came out of my mouth, we started planning.  Michelle is amazing, she really knows how to decorate and throw a party.  She ordered goodie bags, candy, decorations and paper products all in red and white.   She put up the tents in her yard and did all the decorations, the yard looked great!!  She ordered an inflatable slip and slide and water bucket drop.  The kids loved it all.  

While she was doing all the work, I was home decorating the cake and making little red velvet cupcakes which were iced with cream cheese frosting and a cherry.  They looked so cool, I just loved how they looked on the table. You can see them in the photos below.  We put them on long popsicle sticks and placed them in glass jars. 

Now for the cake, the Marty and Mike decided that a cake of the school would be cool and both Logan and Lauren decided they liked that idea.  Michelle and I protested since there isn't much character to the school but the kids insisted so a cake of the school it was.  I decided to add items to the top of the cake that were meaningful to both the kids in order to jazz it up a bit so I added: 

• two string instruments a Base (Logan) Viola (Lauren)
• Museum of Natural History, this was their 5th grade field trip
• Daren the Lion for the DARE program
• George Washington Mascot, George which was drawn by a kindergarten years ago
• Graduation cap and white tassel with 2013 drawn on
• Both kids took the 510 yellow bus to school and home so I made a school bus
• GW letters on stone that are in front of the school
• For good behavior and accomplishments, the teachers would give the kids paper cherries which could add up and they would get special things throughout the years. 
• GW motto about "Being George" on the side of the cake

So here is the cake making process.   

 

 

 I got too tired to take photos intermittently therefore, here is the end result.

 

The white cherry by the grad cap wasn't suppose to be there, someone put it there before I took the pictures.

 Look closely, with the heat and humidity, the cake started to bulge in the front.  Not the prettiest cake but the kids LOVED it.  I had trouble trying to get a photo because they were all jumping in front, some taking pictures others just yelling "look at this or that" they were so excited, I was so fearful that the cake was going to be toppled over LOL.  The thrill of making a cake this big is the reaction of the kids, they don't care that it's not perfect, they love it and that makes all those hours of work and lack of sleep worth it.   

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the photos, now that this is over I can concentrate on making scrapbook pages and cards again. 

Have a great day!!

Delia  

Happy Birthday Sofia



This past Tuesday was Sofia's Birthday and since she isn't have a party, I wanted to give her whatever cake she wanted.  So I asked her what she wanted for a birthday cake and she stated, a vanilla cake with Barbie.  A Barbie cake and it needed to come together overnight.  So Sofia went upstairs and got her favorite Barbie (thanks Virgina) and Sofia and I started baking a cake.  She had a blast pouring the ingredients into the bowl.  When we added the flour and milk some of the flour and milk in her words "poofed" back at us.  I turned to her and asked why did it "poof" and she said because we gave it too much love.  There you have it, the cake we were making had a lot of love and it was going to be delicious.  She had a blast, laughing and screaming every time any liquid or flour came out of the bowl. Daddy had to stop what he was doing to check out what was happening in the kitchen with all the laughter and screaming.  We winded up over mixing the batter but I didn't care, we had a great time together and she was so proud to have made "her birthday cake". 

Once the cake was baked I realized I needed another two layers but it was too late to get started.  I took the kids to bed, I got up at midnight to take all the ingredients out for a second cake and at 4AM I came down and made the last two layers.  By the time I had to go to work, the cake was cool enough for me to layer, shape and crumb coat it.  Here is where I started taking pictures. (Sorry Sofia, I should have taken photos of you baking with me).

Yes, I gave Barbie a plastic shower cap so her hair would not get frosting in it.  This is one of Sofia's favorite Barbie's you know  LOL.  When I came home from work, I rechecked with Sofia on the colors to make sure she hadn't changed her mind from the night before and she said she wanted a pink, white and yellow frosting. I made the frosting and Sofia watched over me as I frosted the cake.  Thanks to this great tutorial on decorating a Barbie cake, I made a cake that was nice to look at and  wasn't embarrassing to put in from of neighbors.  If you are interested you should really check out Liz's Barbie cake on you tube, it's beautiful. 

Since it was my first time decorating a cake this way, I was a little nervous but I knew my daughter would have loved it no matter what.  How do I know?  She thought the cake was done with the crumb coating above and told me I did a beautiful job.  She is too precious!  Well the cake came out better than I could have hoped.  One of these days I have to take a cake decorating class to get all the piping even but then again I might be a tad bit to impatient for it.

 

 

Here is a picture of the "happy" birthday girl!!  I forgot to mention earlier that Sofia was so excited for her birthday, she told me she was so happy and proceeded to screaming, jump up and down, clap her hands and laugh all at the same time because it was her birthday.  She was SOOO excited and had us all smiling and laughing with her.

 

 

 I am so happy our neighbors could come over and help celebrate Sofia's birthday on Tuesday night.  She was thrilled to have both Isabella and Lauren over and everyone had a great time. 

 

 

I love you Sofia, I hope one day you can read this post and remember what a great time we had celebrating your 4th birthday.  Happy Birthday baby!!  Love you with all my heart, Mom

 

 

The Last Cub Scout Bake off

Logan and I have participated in the Cub Scout bake off for the last three years. We have had a lot of fun coming up with ideas and trying to make the images in Logan's mind come to life on a cake. This year the Scout Committee decided to change it up a bit. The rules were meant to curtail some of us, but when it comes to baking with Logan, there is no curtailing us. The rules were simple, we had to use cupcakes and everything on the cake had to be edible. No real toys and since we weren't sure if we could use toothpicks to up cupcakes... we did without.

Since it's our last year, Logan wanted to do some kind of tribute to the scouts, at first he wanted to do all of the scouting events that he did throughout the year. Thunderbird games, parade, camping, Maritime aquamarine, pine wood derby and such. I thought this was too big and there was no way we would be able to do all that so I asked him to narrow it down. He choose camping.

We started out with a little camp site and it grew to a lake, animals and log cabins before we knew it our drawing had about 75 cupcakes. It ended up being approximately 85 cupcakes.  Below you will find some pictures of our journey.

First we start with a design which Logan and I came up with at Chili's on our date.  We used crayons and drew on one of their kid menus.  So much fun planning and seeing how excited he gets over different ideas.

The night before the event, Logan was in the kitchen making cupcakes.  I mixed the batters and he poured and placed the cupcakes in the oven. While the cupcakes were baking Logan and I started making the animals out of fondant and caramel candies and any candy that was easy to mold. Some were difficult for us, we never got the bear done or the wolf but we were able to get a few small animal together. OK we were horrible at paws, most of the animals didn't have legs but since they were buried in the icing we didn't care too much.

Animals and new idea to hold up the sugar cone trees

Logan was so proud of his skunk, and the beavers.  We aren't artists but we can follow directions.  In order to make some of these animals, we followed the directions for the molding clay packages.  When they lay it out for you, it's pretty easy to get something resembling an animal.  Hard to see but there is a squirrel and one chipmunk in there too.  Yellow duck didn't make the cut, it got eaten by Sofia.  LOL.

Tired looking little boy at 7AM

Logan's on the left and mine on the right

On Friday morning, both Logan and I got up early before school and started putting the cabins together.  We skipped on the doors and window so it was easy to put together with chocolate to hold up the structure.  By the time Logan went to school we had all the figures done, and part of the cake assembled. 

That was one bowl of icing many more to go!

Cutting the sugar cone trees and the board to fit in refrigerator

While Logan was in school I piped all the grass and the trees and realized that I needed to cut the board in half so it could fit in my refrigerator. I made all the colors of icing that we would need and and all the crumbs so when Logan came home we just had to finish up the campsite making tents, placing the animals whenever they looked good and add the finishing touches.  Logan thought this looked like the upstate Boy Scout reservation in upstate New York.  The area is called Durland, therefore I took a graham cracker added red chocolate and wrote the name and added that to the front. I thought it added a nice touch.  So we called our cupcake/cake design Durland.

Finished cupcakes design at GW

Top View of the Cake

A very happy little boy who won gold for best presentation

Logan worked really hard on this project as did I. It was big, compared to the others but then again people should expect big from me after the last 4 years of entering this event.  Did some people not appreciate it and make some uncalled remarks, absolutely! I felt the new rules were met to curtail some of us crazy bakers, but the rules were followed to a tee.  All cupcakes and all edible. 

Well Logan didn't win Scouts choice, which is what he aims for but he didn't care, he was just so thrilled to win Gold for Best Presentation and me..... I might be making a Skylander cake for one of the moms at the event.  I have never baked for money, my confidence not so high but I am willing to give it a try. It should be fun!

Thanks for stopping by I hope you enjoyed our story. 
Hugs Delia