Farewell, 2009...

I admit it, I totally got Christmas-brain! I completely forget I had a blog for awhile. Before this year is up I think I should just upload a whole lot of pix I haven't had a chance to share here. It doesn't seem right to leave these hanging till the new year. Here are a collection of cupcakes...

A run for the Hills

I love it when customers want to be a little adventurous. There are numerous Hollywood themed cakes out there but I haven't come across any that have made the Hollywood Hills and paparazzi into a 3D diorama cake. This took a little creativity to visualise but we got there in the end. I particularly like the fact you can see 'around' and 'in between' the cakes, complete with waiting limousine!

Love And Christmas

This week has been THE scariest cake week of my life - 2 wedding cakes, 5 birthday cakes, a couple of Christmas orders... *eek*! But it's all done and iced and all customers are happy as am I! Now on to the edible Christmas gifts for this year... everyone I know is goin to get fat. This is where the Christmas fun starts!! As you can probably guess I love Christmas and look forward to it with open arms, holding rolling pins and piping bags. Here are some I prepared earlier ;) Please have a peek at Love And Cake's Christmas catalogue.

Most importantly, there are so many who won't see a smile or a present this Christmas day and the real spirit of Christmas means doing what little (or a lot) we can to make their situation just a little bit better - sharing the love we have been blessed with. 10% of all proceeds from the Christmas cakes and cookies will go to the Salvation Army who DO do that - every day of the year. That's one small way Love and Christmas goes hand in hand!

Formula for a muscle cake

One of the muscliest cakes I've done, this Formula One racing car belonging to Mark Weber (yes that is his head in that lil white helmet there) was for an F1 fanatic.
Vroom vroom!

The accountant wears Prada

Yet another friend in accounting, I seem to attract them! This accountant loves her Prada handbag so in this collaboration with the girls again, we decided a posh designer + corporate numbers theme would be most fitting. The good thing about having mini cakes is that the main cake can be saved for a later date while we munched on the mini ones that night. The birthday girl was nicely surprised so our job was done. She even showed it to the restaurant owner and left my business card with him! Nice work, BDM!

Baby cookies

A boxful of cookies hand-cut for Baby Rico, whose parents' cakes have made a few appearances on this blog already. First the wedding then the baby shower then the baptism! What a journey I've been on to be able to cake their milestones, I feel so honoured :0)

Hmmm must be on the lookout for onesie and baby bottle cookie cutters now, I'm sure there will be Rico #2!

The hole package

If good things come in small packages, then delicious things come in big spotty-holed fondant-covered bow-adorned packages!

Feast your eyes

For a girl who's been on the receiving end of a couple of cakes and cupcakes from me, I wanted to give her something different. I came across the idea of mixing cupcakes with lil mini cakes and loved the idea. This was my first attempt. I like the focus they bring to the set - from my point of view, they are a different canvas to decorate altogether thus an opportunity to introduce something different, eg words, colours or decorations. Variety IS the spice of life, gotta play up those assets! If the balance is right, it should be a feast for the eyes as well as the tastebuds.

High on peepy-toes

You can tell what sort of girl this cake was made for... a girl with great taste and impeccable style for sure! The shoe was modelled on the birthday girl's actual Peeptoe shoe. I was especially nervous drawing in the Peeptoe logo - one chance is all I get. But it was surprisingly easier than I expected. Luckily no sudden sneezes or an unfortunately timed 'boo!' or I'd have to start all over again... right from baking the cake!

Wonder if this girl saw the chinelas cake... might be an idea for her high-heeled nights out...

Naruto no keki

How many of you recognise this guy? I'm feeling rather not with-it as I had no idea who Naruto was. I don't mind so much not knowing the kids' characters, but this one was for someone my age!

I'm quite pleased with the way this turned out, it looks sufficiently like the real character for my liking. Bit mischievous. To make the 2D pic pop out, I added a layer of 3D hair to give it a little texture and some folds on the bandanna.

I was at a loss for what to do around the base, but when in doubt, use an extension of the main feature. So I used the idea of the bandanna and dusted it over in silver to make it look a lil snazzy and dangerous like the Naruto pix I found online. Wonder if he's like hero-dangerous or naughty-streetkid dangerous.

A standing occasion

This was done for a dinner party at my house, so I was allowed to go with a colour scheme of my very own choosing. Pink is always a shoo-in for a girly girl. Remind you a bit of Neopolitan? hehe

A cake stand adds so much to a cake or cupcakes. When presented nicely it's like the icing on the top. I encourage anyone who buys a cake to think about how they can display it to create the wow factor. This cake stand could even be played up with a couple of bows or maybe a string of beads... think Sportsgirl accessories. Such inspiration to be found there. It's all up to your imagination!

I have my cake and eat it too...

The sweetest friends in the world tickled me pink by their adventures in cake-making for my birthday. I cannot ask for better gal pals and if you're thinkin of stealin them, you can forget about it. They're mine!! *hugs* This is what they surprised me with at dinner. Totally me and totally them. I LOVE IT!!! xoxo

A rose to the occasion

We wanted something soft and pretty for a friend's mum's 60th. I thought a rose theme would be nice (roses always the classic!) without being over-the-top about it. So I scattered mini roses on the giant cupcake with matching rose-style swirled icing on the pink and yellow cupcakes. It's a little difficult to see in the picture, but it's the first time I've tried those swirls and it came out as I'd hoped - a bit ruffled around the edges and in imperfect circles.

Party bags

A great idea for giveaways when you find yourself hosting a party of laydeez are these mini sized cakes made to any theme you like. Handbags is an obvious one and here are some I prepared earlier...!

Crane cake stance

I hope you recognise this throw-back to the Karate Kid movies! I was especially tickled by this request for the birthday black-belter who can obviously use the crane kick stance to his advantage. And thinking of his reaction made it even funnier. An especially tricky figurine to do but it kept me laughing all the way. I wore an extra bright grin when I could finally see some resemblance. Two white slightly bent legs without any body, arms or head takes a lot of imagination to shape! Oh and I didn't mean to give him such a flat-top, though that's how it came out (hehe).

Bapt-iced

An open Bible for a lil baby's baptism. My first attempt at an 'open pages' effect and there were no surprises, thank goodness! The cake was unbelievably heavy and was carried all the way to Queensland by plane for the service. Kudos to the messengers! A lil boy topper was added on later.

Spot the princess

For a gorgeous lil girl on her one month celebration. We were going for simple with a touch of sweet... and the building blocks were a must. Behind them are matching cupcakes stacked to mirror the blocks. The inspiration was a similar cushion design I'd seen somewhere and thought it would be cute for a baby. It has a princess element to it too - think royal crowns resting on deep red velvet cushions. Princess Bernice!

Snow better way to say I Do

A wedding present for friends of mine - a great couple who got married this year. They've been avid snowboarders for as long as I can remember so it's only fitting that something on their big day alluded to that passion. I tried to capture as many details as possibly down to their goggles' colours. Too fun!

Cookie-enabled

I've recently ventured into the world of cookies. It's a whole new concept altogether (for me) and utterly inviting! Design-wise it's similar to decorating cupcakes with fondant. But shapes-wise, the sky's the limit! Well, the cookie cutter section of the cake shop is the limit. They can come as a matching set with cupcakes too, such as the two pix on the left. And they can carry any message you like. Only setback is I tend to 'taste-test' too many in each batch... *hehe* oops!

Birthday cupcakes

A few sets of birthday cupcakes... the top two were gift boxes, the bottom was for a children's birthday party. Hope they shared!