Textiles to Die For

Fancy Moon - Fancy Fabrics

I just had to do a quick post on one of the best online fabric stores I've found. You may well have come across it before but it was new to me when my sister gave me a link to it, accompanied by a very very large hint for her christmas present. It's called Fancy Moon fabrics, and here's the link:http://www.fancymoon.co.uk/
 Those who know me know I have a slight fetish for beautiful textiles, new and vintage. Anything with beautiful, colourful prints and patterns reduces me to a childlike state of excitement, and this site definitely had fabrics fitting the bill. If only I had enough money to buy a bit of everything, I'd be a happy woman! Here is a selection of some of my favourites, enjoy:

Roses Galore

Wedding Cup Cake Delight

Another relatively short notice cake job, this time for a friend of the family who decided she didn't want a long engagement and gave me two weeks to come up with a design and then make everything. I didn't mind though, I seem to work better under pressure and it was a nice job. She wanted ALOT of cupcakes, but something simple and straightforward, decorated with red roses and other delightful objects, a bit of a fresh summer tea party look. If I'm being honest, I wish it had been a nicer venue, but that wasn't up to me, and the wedding was lovely. I wish I'd had a bit more time, and there are things I would have done differently, but that's the way it goes. I really enjoyed making the roses and doing something pretty, and every job is a learning curve.

Quick Cake Update

I got asked at rather short notice to do a relatively small birthday cake for a friend of a friend, which is usually how I get work. They had seen a picture on the net of a cake design they liked and asked me if I could do something similar. I don't generally like to copy other peoples designs but they had their heart set on the one they saw so I based my design around that, although still not exactly the same. It was for a little girls first birthday, so something super pretty was in order.

I have to say that if ever there is an opportunity to use edible glitter, I will! There is a part of me that absolutely relishes the indulgent feminine side of life, and to me edible glitter encapsulates that. As you can see in the detail underneath I used it on the cut out letters of the number ONE and the little girls name on the toy blocks made from fondant icing. Everything was edible, apart from the curly wires and the candle, of course.

Poor Neglected Blog

Life Stuff

Poor little blog, I have neglected  you, but I'm here to say sorry and try to make up for lost time. Sometimes life comes along and drops a bit of a bombshell in your lap, but then once you're over the initial shock of it you realise that every challenge is really an opportunity to explore some other avenue in life, and I have definitely been exploring! I have also definitely been creating! I have a lot to put on here to update my creative adventures, or misadventures in some cases, which is great. I'm excited to have things that I hope will provide some visual pleasure and inspiration as well. 

Owl Softie

A Little Friend for a Big Friend

 I have to admit I have been a bit slack on the blogging front lately with the school holidays meaning the children are at home and also with various other commitments. I have been trying though in different ways to keep the creative momentum going with smaller projects. I was browsing Etsy one day when I happened across some delightful owl softies by various toy artists and I felt an overwhelming urge to make one. I decided it would be perfect as a thank-you gift for a friend of mine who had been kind enough to gift me with a couple of T-shirts he'd designed and printed himself. 

As seems to be the way for a lot of people at the moment he has a love and fascination for owls, although he has more of an attachment to them because of the association they have with his father who passed away when he was young. I wouldn't always feel the urge to make a cute softie for a mans present but I felt he was the right person, being creative in his own right. I think the outcome was possibly on the too girly side but oh well! 

So I spent a bit of time looking at various designs I'd seen and drawing out a pattern I thought would give me the shape I wanted. I also looked through my various bits of fabrics for patterns and colours I thought would go nicely together, I wanted it to be pretty colourful in a patchwork kind of way.

This is her having a little rest on my duvet cover, I thought it suited her, although it does accentuate her girliness!

This is her resting on my fireplace amongst various floral paraphernalia.

I shaped the bottom of her by darting her underneath and giving her a kind of square 'bottom' so she wasn't just flat and would stand upright unaided. I thought the finished softie was pretty and cute all in all.

Sugar Rose Wedding cake

Fancy Rose Wedding Cake

I have to admit I have struggled lately to stay on top of my blogging since I have just been so busy! But I'm determined not to let it slide since where else do I get to talk about the things I love and do so much?

This post is to update with pictures of my latest cake, a rather large wedding cake, which I enjoyed designing and making very much.

Whenever I get a commission I talk at length with the customer about what it is they would like. I always give them a list of websites of cake designers that I particularly like and admire. Most people don't realise just what is out there, and how modern and beautiful cakes can be now. There are a few designers in particular which are the very reason I started cake decorating in the first place, because I loved their fresh and modern approach to their cake designs. At some point I will do a post dedicated solely to said designers and then people can see what all the fuss is about, although maybe I shouldn't because then they'll think mine are actually quite ordinary in comparison! 

So anyway, I sketched out various designs for the bride to be and she then narrowed it down to specific features she liked, in which turn I reworked the design to match her specifications and then tried various colour ways, which she also then approved. Usually what I do is sketch out a design in pencil, then scan it in to Photoshop where I digitally brush in colours until I'm happy with it. Below is the sketch I did for this latest wedding. there is always some variation between the final design and cake though since you have to be flexible with what materials are available and how it looks as it progresses. 

For instance the final finished piece didn't have the pearls on the top tier and the brooch was different since I had to go with what I found. I wanted an original vintage piece not a new cake brooch from the internet, so I trawled the second hand and antiques shops until I found two pieces I was happy with. I found a really beautiful old vintage diamante buckle and a diamante and ruby coloured brooch. In the end I used them both, I pinned the brooch on top of the buckle as I felt neither of them was enough on their own. I think it worked as a centre piece, which you always need.

So anyway, as always after I was finished and we got the cake there and set up I looked at it and thought of the things I'd like to do differently. I am a bit of a perfectionist but that doesn't mean I'm not pleased with my work, I just always want to get better at it. I think that is healthy as long as you don't obsess over it and beat yourself up about your finished piece not being good enough. I personally always need the challenge and the satisfaction of pushing myself and growing as an artist.

Cakes are Made of Little Boys Dreams

Something I Just Threw Together!

It was my sons birthday last week, and what a week it was! His birthday was last Tuesday and then his party on Saturday. I made the mistake of asking him what kind of cake he would like and he decided he wanted a pirate ship! Not much then! I tried my hardest to persuade him into wanting something a bit simpler but he had his heart set on the ship and how could I refuse my little boy on his birthday?

So I set about trying to work out how I could do it by googling pirate ship cakes but I didn't find any that particularly impressed me. So instead I looked up general images of pirate ships and found one of a model radio controlled ship that I quite liked the look of, so that was what I based my design on.

 I carved the basic shape from a huge block of madeira cake I baked. I spent some time getting the shape about right and then coated it in buttercream which I left to crust over. Once set I carefully covered it in rolled out sugar paste that I had coloured brown. I spent a good amount of time smoothing the sugar paste over the cake to make sure it fitted the shape as smoothly as I could.

I then started adding the details and the masts. The masts were black sugar paste rolled over BBQ skewers, and then with details added. This is the ship in part progress:

The next job was making the sails. I cut the basic shapes out of flower paste, a very fine kind of sugar paste that is much stronger than ordinary sugar paste. It's my favourite material to work with, it's really versatile and dries really quickly. My top tip is to not use cornflour to stop it from sticking but a little white vegetable fat, which doesn't dry it out so quickly. I then put them over glass jars to dry in the right shape and put holes through the top and bottom edges so I would have something to put the rope through and tie them to the masts.

After that it was a case of cutting out the details and sticking them on in the right place. It was really mostly cut and paste and then painting things afterwards with dust colours and food colouring paste. I actually would have like the gold to have been brighter but the shop had run out of rejuvenator spirit which is what you need to paint on gold dust colour, a kind of edible food colouring in dust form which you can either paint or brush on.

In the end, because I had such a busy week by the time it came round to Friday evening I still had so much to do. I didn't think it would take me quite as long as it did though. I was pretty exhausted by 2 am but then when 3 am came around I had my second wind and I was loving working on it. I got completely into the model making aspect of it and felt like I was in my element. As it turned out it took me literally all night, but I really wanted to get it just right, and I felt it was worth it in the end. My little boy was very happy and that was the point.

I know it might seem strange to some people to go to go to all that effort for something that's just going to get cut up and eaten but that doesn't bother me in the least. It's all about the moment when someone feels special because somebody went to so much trouble to create something uniquely for them. After that they can do what they like with the thing, it's job has been done. It's actually a relief, I strangely enjoy the fact that it gets destroyed and eaten, it's all about a moment, a memory.

My son Joseph eats the canon.

My nephew leigh eats one of the sails

Behold the shipwreck!