Share-A-Craft: Open House Wedding Cake

Something new! Share-A-Craft is just as much fun as a tilt-a-whirl, but with less stomach upset and possible vomiting. I'm going to be sharing something I've made on a regular basis. I make a lot of things that never make it to the blog, because I'm not always the best at picking up my camera. This will force me to get pictures. If you want to share right back, I'd love to see what you've been making recently.

Today's project is a wedding cake for an open house. My mom has been helping her friend (the groom's mom), plan the open house for a while now. My mom did the most incredible mural for it that I will have to share at some point. Anyway, they had someone making their cake, but they backed out at the last minute, so my mom asked me if I would help. That was on Wednesday afternoon. The open house was at Friday at six.

I was in a cake decorating kind of mood, so I said yes. Two days is not a long time to make a cake this big, even with the bottom two layers being dummy cakes. I guess I could have gone smaller, but that's not my style. Be bold or go home. Go big or die. Those types of "or" statements are the framework for my crafting philosophy. Really, I just like challenging myself, and I LOVE impressing others. It's almost a sickness. Hence the blog.

I'm not sure how well I succeeded here. My vision was big, but my time was short. I ended up rushing the most involved and time consuming steps. I figured it would take me about 3 hours to pipe it the way I wanted and I ended up with only an hour to do the piping (it's rather messy as a result). I wanted to do more of a ribbon band around the bottoms, with pipping along the bottom and the sides, but I ran out of time and had to the snake rolled things. In the end though, I think it turned out cute and whimsical, which fit the rest of the open house, which was Disney themed.

I will have red palms for a week from the food coloring.

One thing I am very proud of is the monogram. I cut it all out myself on a scroll saw and drilled the hole in the bottom for the dowel. I usually leave those types of things to David (he built me the base), so go me for doing it all by myself.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

The Impromptu Florist

David and the boys went camping for the night, so Aubrey and I are hanging out at home. I painted her nails. Then we went to Iceberg (yes, Heidi, that's two days in a row, I need an intervention). She beguiled everyone there with her eyelashes and her vocabulary. While we were sitting there, my mom calls.

I love my mom. She is fantastic, but she never calls to talk. Might be because I'm pretty much always at her house, since I, um, live in the basement and all and if she wants a chat, she just come down or talks over the intercom. So, calling means she needs something.

So, she asks me what I'm doing for the next 30 minutes. And I was planning on going to Target and ruining our budget and buying Aubrey and me each something. But, she was in a time crunch and she needed my services. As a florist. My floristy knowledge consists of looking at Princess Lasertron's website and accidentally reading a few articles a long time ago. Accidentally because they happened to be in magazines in the doctor's waiting room. I have a black thumb.

She asked me to arrange a bridal bouquet. Two of her dear friends, Gary and Laura, are getting married today. They are on a super tight budget, so my mom picked up some flowers at Costco and wanted me to do a bouquet. In less than 30 minutes.

Ack! Where's the floral tape? I know I have some because I used it to make this cake months ago. I tore through my cake stuff and couldn't find it. Luckily, my mom found a mostly gone roll. I started gathering flowers and wrapping them with floral tape. I felt like one of those cartoons where the gardener is blocking whatever bush he's trimming and bits of rubbish are flying everywhere and he steps back and ta-da! a beautifully trimmed bush in the shape of Daffy Duck or a military man on a stallion, or if you're really lucky, Daffy Duck dressed as an officer on a stallion. There was stuff all over the kitchen. And it worked out pretty well, for my first time. I love the flowers my mom choose--they are just stunning. A little ribbon later and I step aside and you'd see this:


It's not a stallion, but I'm pretty happy with it. It smells so good too, because of the eucalyptus (um, is that what it's called? the sage colored branchy stuff, told you I'm horrible with plants). I have it all over my hands and it's clearing out my sinuses.

Congratulations to Laura and Gary. May your life be beautiful together! I'm happy I could contribute in a small way to your day.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Bridal Photo Shoot

My Aunt LuAnn is getting married in a few weeks. She asked me to take her bridals, which made me nervous as I don't trust myself with big occasions. For example, I forgot my battery yesterday and couldn't take pictures up in Odgen. I also drop lenses. I shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a bridal party becuase I'm likely to mess up something important.

My Aunt Connie came down with LuAnn on Saturday. We went to a nearby orchard and to the Provo Library. Despite my fears, they turned out passable. She looks glowing and happy, which is just as it should be. Earl, (the one that is marrying LuAnn and not the one who is already married to Connie) if you happen to read this by some freak accident, back away slowly. No seeing the dress before the wedding.

Here are a few of the shots (well, a lot of shots). I don't know why, but they seem to wash out a bit when I upload on blogger. :P on blogger:

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

A Fairy Tale Wedding

Sooooo, this past week, my aunt Dixie got married, sort of spur of them moment (they'd been engaged a while, so cheering that it happened!) and Melissa was going to shoot their wedding, but since Miles is only a bitty guy, she thought she wouldn't be able to do it and so I said I would. Even though it made me horribly nervous. I wish I had my tripod. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite shots. I hope they are okay--wedding photos are very tricky and the lighting was not great. Tell me what you think.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.