My Other Display Samples

I know I was supposed to post pictures of the other display samples I made for the Art Sparks event before now. The thing is, I procrastinate, and so I ran out of time and didn't even get two of the dummy cakes decorated--although they are iced. I had grand visions of setting up an awesome table to promote my cake decorating classes, snapping a few photos of it to impress everybody, and then posting all about it. That didn't happen. Despite arriving with a good 45 minutes to set up, I didn't have a chance to take a picture of my booth. Honestly. I was busy the entire five hours because everybody wanted to decorate a cookie or cupcake. Some folks opted to do both, which I suppose I shouldn't have allowed, but there ended up being plenty for everyone and I even had a few left over.

Apologies for the glare on this.

Technically, since my clases are for teens and adults, the cookies and cupcakes were for ages 12 and up to decorate. However, this was a family-friendly event, and while I did my best to encourage the moms and dads to decorate a treat for their kids, I wasn't able to stick to that policy very well. I also really wanted to take pictures of cookies and cupcakes the visitors to my station decorated, but I didn't have a spare moment. There were maybe three very brief lulls, but I had to use that time to quickly reorganize and try to get things tidied up as much as possible. Whenever icing, sprinkles, and kids are involved there is going to be some mess. That just goes with the territory. But it was loads of fun.

I would like to thank Publix for providing the cupcakes, cookies, and icing, and I especially want to thank Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves for generously sending me enough cupcake wrappers so that everyone who decorated a cupcake had their choice of Valentine's Day themed sleeves, A Tisket, A Tasket, and Tickle the Ivories. I quickly ran out of the candy hearts, so it was the most popular design. I really wish I had pictures, because some of the cupcakes were really awesome.

I had to wait until I got home to take photos of my other display pieces. So, as promised, here they are. I think they held up pretty well considering I didn't so such a great job of packing them to bring back home, and I let people touch them. I also made a white color flow heart with smaller pink hearts on it, but the pink really bled into the white and looked awful, so I threw it away. I'm bummed that a string on the football laces broke off, but other than that these things stayed pretty much intact. I definitely like the laces positioned in the middle of the football as opposed to on the top edge, but I had to try both ways in order to see which would look better. I'm not so great at visualization.

The cupcakes didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I used some old Wilton rolled fondant to makes these, and they were way too heavy and took forever to dry. Next time I'll just spend the money and get some styrofoam balls or something more practical to use. I meant to pipe little pastel dots around the chick to make it look like he's sitting in a field of Easter eggs, but I forgot. Also, the dark purple grapes bled a little. I'm not sure why, as that's not an issue I've encountered before.

This is actually a cake board I decorated a while ago to put in the display case at the Rec center as an example of what students can learn in Buttercream Basics. Since I'm not scheduled to teach that class again until March, I swapped it out for the cake dummy I decorated to represent Buttercream Flowers. I wish his eye wasn't baby blue, as I think it looks kinda creepy. I should have made it black.

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, I had the obligatory hearts and love cake. Please pretend like you don't notice the dips on the top. They're not entirely my fault, as the styrofoam had some nicks and dips in it, but I still should have filled those in with royal icing before covering with rolled fondant.

I wanted to do a tablecloth cake, but I'm not entirely happy with the bottom border. I probably should've just piped simple beads, but I had already done that on the other two cakes and didn't want to be repetitive. Also, the roses aren't supposed to be a dingy grey color. I think some Nu Silver was left on my brush when I went to apply the Super Pearl. Oh, well. At least I used a better green for the leaves this time.

Here is my redux from this week's Should've Done Sunday. Yes, this cake was entirely inspired copied from my cake I did in the Fondant II class (as were the roses on the cake above). But nobody else knew that.

All in all, it was a great day, and tons of fun. Hopefully this week I'll get around to trying a recipe that's worth sharing.