Carnation

Carnations make a great filler flower for wedding sprays.  I usually make them in white so that I can color them as needed.  First roll out the gumpaste and cut with Wilton's carnation cutter.  

I use a Cel-mat and the small Cel-stick to ruffle the edges.  This is done by taking the round end of the stick and pulling the paste to the outer edge.  Notice in the above picture that a pre-preped bud is used to insert into the petal. 

You simply pull the gumpaste ruffle up around the center.  With one row of petals on the pre-preped bud, I allow this to dry overnight.  

Depending on the size needed will determine the number of ruffle layers you will need to attach.  Once the first row of petals has dried overnight, you will be able to add all the additional petal layers making the flower as large as you would like (I sometimes use an egg carton which I cut into cups as a final support, I then allow the finished flower to dry several days)  

When the flowers are needed I can color them by airbrush or petal dust. 

Browning Camo

  The first cake of the new year was a Browning Camo theme for a 16th birthday.  The client sent me several pictures of cakes in this theme as I was unfamiliar with the term. 

A few days before the pick up date, I rolled out black gumpaste and cut the browning pattern for the top of the cake, allowing it to dry solid.  (I did not get a picture, grrr)  

Several hours before pick up, I colored about 8 oz. of fondant in several colors of green and brown to create the camo pattern.  I pinched off small pieces of fondant and began by putting the pieces in a circle on The Mat.

This is the final rollout.  I was very pleased with the pattern!

This fondant was for the bottom tier of the cake.  The top tier was done in pink fondant.  As Kendra is celebrating her 16 birthday, her name was cut in pink fondant from the funky letter cutters and the 16 was hand cut as my number cutters were not large enough.  Fondant balls were used around at the base of both tiers.

the UGLY Christmas sweater

Just for fun I made a few Ugly Christmas sweaters for the family cookie boxes this year. What a big hit they were!  The frosting is cookie frosting which allows for multi colors to be added together without bleeding into one another.

At the top of the pan I have taken the round cookies and made sweater prints on some and wreaths on others.  

Snowflake cookies

This was an exciting cookie season!! This order was for a company which sends a sweet treat to their clients each Christmas, thanking that client for a year of working together.  

The theme was snowflakes.  

First I cut all the snowflakes from blue fondant and allowed them to air dry for several day.  

I  decided to use a round cookie cutter instead of the snowflake cutter to give a larger surface of cookie which also allowed the snowflake to be the focal point.  The company name was printed on icing images and cut to fit the center of each snowflake.  

The cookies were frosted in cookie icing and while still wet the logo and snowflake were place on.

I then stacked to trays, allowing the cookies to dry.  

This ordered required 1, 086 cookies to  be baked and decorated.  (all the shipping boxes are stacked in the corner of the picture)

 Six cookies were placed into a plastic bag and tied with ribbon.  

They were then packed into boxes which were filled with a white and silver tissue paper (the blue, white and silver are company colors) to avoid damage during shipping.  Each box was addressed and shipped.  The whole process took three, fifteen hour days to complete.  

Gingerbread Houses

Each year I would bake a gingerbread house and fill two pastry bags with royal frosting. I would set our twins sons at the table with the house, candies, and the frosting and let them construct the masterpiece of the season, while I wrapped gifts.  

While they were in college I had stopped making the annual gingerbread house.  Then about 4 years ago they asked why I had not made any gingerbread with the holiday cookies.  I figured they had just plain lost interest... NOT SO,  I was told and so the tradition is once again an annual event. 

Our sons are married with families of their own, so now we get together one evening during the Christmas season and have a competition...they even try to sabotage the others house.  We have tons of laughter and their children love helping place all the candies in place.   

This is our son Anthony and his wife and daughter.

This is Randy with his wife and three children.  We met at Randy's house and the competition was on!!!

Close to finish!

 This year I a made a few miniature gingerbread houses.  This cutter can be purchase at Fancy Flours.  They hang on the side of your mug!  

                                                 

                  I love coffee and my son Anthony gave me this BIG mug a few years ago.

                                                         HOHOHO, Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Cookies

Cookie cutters are so much fun to work with.  This is an ornament cookie cutter that I decorated in a winter theme with holiday faces.  

The Sugar Plum Fairies 

These reminded me of Santa ornament I saw while attending the Weihnachtsmarkt in Koln, Germany, its an annual Christmas festival.

Scottie Dogs

Penguins (fancy wafer paper coats)

The same ornament cutter as above decorated with fondant sugar flowers in relief.