Countdown to Thanksgiving: 5 days!

5 days until Thanksgiving!  Like much of the rest of the year, November has FLOWN by.  I'm in disbelief that it's Thanksgiving Thursday, which I believe has a lot to do with it feeling like August just yesterday and that there isn't really a dramatic change of seasons in Orlando.  Thus, I never feel the queues from nature that it's fall like severe cold weather, leaves falling off the trees, gray skies, etc.  It's always bright and sunny in Orlando!  

I made another cake this week!  For one of my 2 boss's daughter - she turned 11 this year and celebrated with some friends with an ice skating party. Naturally, the cake has a figure skate on it.  Inside it's a marbleized vanilla cake with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream.  I decoreated the outside with fondant, gumpaste bows, a hand-cut figure skate, applied her name, "Sage," in fondant and put lots of luster dust on this baby! 

I really enjoy when my sketches and cake ideas that I have in my head come to life.  They always turn out looking much better than the sketch, I'm happy to say, I really enjoyed seeing this cake come to completion to see the finish product.  I really liked it!  I liked how "girly" it was too with the pink and purple.  Hopefully Sage was surprised by it (her dad was surprising her with this cake) and her friends and family loved it as well!

In scrapbooking news, I just finished a layout (the glitter glue is drying!) and I'll post some photos tomorrow.  I'm also uploading some stuff to my Digichick store, finishing a kit with fellow designer Tara Sroka, and enjoying being home in my apartment for the evening!  Oh yes...and some awesome ravioli I got from Whole Foods today!

I just remember that I bought some stuff (mostly Maya Road things) from Two Peas yesterday!  More on that later...  Enjoy your evening!

New layout and a baby shower cake!

I was a busy cake decorator last week.  Three cakes in one week is the most that I've ever had to do within a few days but I enjoyed it.  It was a good test for when I have a similar series of sugar arts to do in December. :-)

Here's a photo of the baby shower cake I made:

The cake inside was chocolate with a vanilla buttercream filling.  Otherwise the cake was decorated with fondant (the blue base, buttons, rubber ducky, and shoe laces) and gumpaste (the pacifier, key teething ring and shoes).   I was really excited to do this cake because I've had the cutters to make the keys and shoes for over a year and haven't had the opportunity to use them until this past weekend.  I really loved how it turned out and, from what I hear, so did the guests at the baby shower!

I also finished another 12x12 layout this weekend!  Also LOVE how it came out.  I used a lot of Pink Paislee things (the papers and rub-ons), some Prima flowers, Memory Makers brads, Martha Stewart blue flocking powder (first time I used that stuff - it was cool!), Maya Road scroll sheer (the journaling) and heart slide (the metal one on the right), and even some STICKERS that I hardly use! (The orange hearts are stickers I mounted on chipboard, cut out, then put flocking powder on the perimeter.) 

I took color queues for the layout from the photo.  My boyfriend and I "took" the photo ourselves on self-timer when we were the only ones on the beach a VERY cold morning in Pensacola, FL the third weekend in October of this year.  It certainly made for a memorable sunrise though!

I'm going to start photo documenting my layouts and put up step-by-step instructions to how I achieve some of the looks on my layouts.

HAPPY MONDAY!

Friday the 13th!

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! I don't care so much that it's an "infamous" Friday the 13th, as much as I care that it's almost the weekened!  And today's the big Maya Road online crop/chat that I'm excited about!  Check it out here.

Have a great Friday!

One day away from the weekend!

Happy Thursday, everyone!  It's actually chilly and gray in Orlando, FL which is VERY atypical.  But I have to wear my sweaters when I can around here and I think once in a while a gray day is needed - and it makes me appreciate the sunshine and blue skies more!

I had a nice, busy evening filled with cake baking and decorating, and a new episode of GLEE!  I love musical theater (watching, not participating) and grew up going to many Broadway shows so naturally I ADORE this show.  I love that a few friends enjoy it too and we can bond over sending each other our favorite clips and looking forward to upcoming episodes together.  Tonight it's more cake decorating after drinks with a new friend!

I wanted to post photos of the cake I made the past few days.  I LOVED how it turned out. I just thougth it was really classy, loved the fall colors, and thought that the metallic luster I brushed on added some elegance.  The inside was pumpkin cake with pumpkin mousse filling and cream cheese buttercream.  I decorated it with fondant, mostly.

DON'T FORGET TO BECOME A FAN ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE!

Also, I wanted to post some scrapbooking products on my wish list!  Anyone else in love with these Maya Road sheer robots?  I'm waiting for 2Peas to get some more in - they've been sold out for a while! (I guess that means lots of other scrapbookers like them too, right?)

I've also been looking around for a cool scrapbooking kit club and have found that I really LOVE Studio Calico and Kenner Road.  I honestly cannot afford to do it monthly, but it's nice to know that should I feel the urge to purchase an awesome kit once in a while they're out there!

AND Studio Calico's coming out with their own line of products soon!  I have a feeling I'll be buying them so I can play some more (as if I need more supplies?).

Okay, so my personal projects include the following right now (so I can keep tabs and you can too if you want):

• Finish digital "Ellie" kit with Tara Sroka (I enjoy collaborating with her!)
• Finish Becca & Josh's wedding album for myself (it's my best friend and her husband - I started it a while ago and I LOVE it - acrylic album with Basic Grey papers in pinks, greens and white.  I just need to set aside time to complete it!)
• Finish Pink Paislee mini album (almost done!)
• Put my products from Oscraps into The Digichick (I'm now exclusively at The Digichick!)
• Edit photo shoot pictures of my friend Devin and his girlfriend, Bethanie
• Think about my Etsy store and what I'm going to sell

I think that's enough for now, no?  I'm just one person!  It's an exciting, creative life and I'm glad to be living it.

New layout!

I created a new 12x12 layout recently I just adore...just like the person in the photos.  I used Basic Grey's Lime Rickey papers (the blue background, plus the circle paper, which is where I obtained those circles from) and Heidi Grace flowers (the clear ones with the white outline), Prima flowers (that awesome blue one and the pink one behind the "o") and I even got to use some of my super fine GLITTER!!  I always want to break that out but seldom remember too. 

Here's a fun tip:  I didn't have "so this is" in my stash, obviously, so I used the large self-adhesive Lime Rickey letter sheet and cut it out of the letter X, since I didn't think I'd ever be using it, and stuck it on!  I penciled the letters freehand then cut them out with my craft knife and voila!

Here's some photos:

I also finished yet another cake last night (#2 of 3 for the week) so I'll post that next!  I have to work on a baby shower cake, that has to be ready for the weekend, tonight.

Have a great Wednesday!  We're halfway to the WEEKEND!