Cap'n Logan's Pirate Adventure

Ahoy Buccaneers, Cap'n Logan Invites Ye to Set Sail with Him in Honor of his 3rd Birthday. He'll need Shipmates to Swab the Deck, Raise the Sails, and Batten Down the Hatches. The Jolly Alison will be departin from Pier 308 on Decatur Lagoon at 11 O'clock sharp on the Seventeenth Day of July in the Year Two Thousand and Ten. It be requested that ye send a message to the first mate to confirm yer desire to exercise yer sea legs and search for mighty treasure. Wear yer swimsuit in case you have to walk the plank!? A sailor's lunch and a pirate cake will also be there for your pleasure! Please say you'll come for a swashbuckling fun Pirate Birthday Adventure!

 How cute is that invitation? I wish I could take credit. My fabulous friend Nicole seriously throws the best parties, so naturally she took her son’s pirate themed 3rd birthday party and ran with it. Other than it being a million degrees in Santee this past Saturday, the event was a huge success! She’s always taken a liking to wedding coordination, but I think she may have found her niche in special, themed events. Take a look….


Kid's table:



"Pin the eyepatch" on Cap'n Logan:












Dress Up! I think the adults enjoyed this the most:


Monica, Nicole and I <3


MY CAKE!!! *I'm patting myself on the back right now as I reminisce about this cake, and how awesome I am. =P Mostly because that sword, and that skull are handmade and edible...



And lastly my fave picture of all...
He blew and blew on those candles that were just a tad too high for him. LOL

Pretty in Pink

Cathy designed this kick-ass invite featuring a real photo of the mom-to-be!

Baby Princess Paden has a whole bunch of Aunties who are not only wedding freaks, but party freaks in general. Naturally, we went all out on a Pretty In Pink baby shower for our dear friend Yvette… as we have for each of our beloved Beta Mommies.

The group came together with tons of yummy food, awesome party favor 80’s CD’s, record chargers with custom labels, balloons, flowers, pink crystals, pink everything really, and loot for the mommy-to-be. My main contribution was this cake:

I loved how it turned out! I covered the cake with fondant, and made the record with fondant as well. Then I surrounded the base with a sparkly silver ribbon, and added the rhinestone details with a little buttercream-glue. I don’t know how non-toxic using scrapping supplies on cake is, but I figured we were safe so long as we just removed the outmost fondant layer. I haven’t heard of anyone dying yet. *check*

Here are a few photos from the day of celebration. (Note to Lindsay – send us the group photo we took, slacka!)*Updated*

Veda makes lots of fun faces now, and noises. Just imagine her growling here. hehe

Intruder Plus Friend

I don't usually blog "on demand" but I just wanted to make sure to get this ultimate traumatizing experience on paper before I settle down and realize what a lame-o I am.

I just got home after a very long day of work and class. Oh wait, first you have to remember Intruder Incident Numero Uno. Ok, now we can get on with it..

The gate to our front yard was closed, so being my lazy self, I just parked on the street and walked in. As I slide the gate open, I hear THEM. And they are just chilling at the bottom of the tree in the middle of our front yard... staring at me. Give me the look of death. I know they were plotting how to tag team me and eat me alive. Those little bastards!

My heart was racing. How was I going to make it from the end of my driveway to the front door?!?! I would have to run through a section of sidewalk where there would only be about 10 feet between me and the killers. I stomped my feet loudly, hoping to scare them up the tree so I could at least have some distance between us. But to no avail, they remained... seemingly enjoying the grass, and new company. They thought I looked tasty.

Ok, I'll admit, for a very SPLIT SECOND, I may have thought they were kinda cute

But back to them killing me.

I decided if I weren't going to make it my house alive, I may as well stand back, wait for them to leave, but take some pictures in the mean time. Of course my phone couldn't capture the pre-homicidal evidence. I realized that my only option was to chance it. My babies were hungry and needed their mom, after all. So I darted to the door. Their eyes followed me and I feared they would think I was starting a game of chase and follow me right inside. Thank goodness they did not!

The camera happened to be sitting on the counter so I figured "hey, why not? I almost died once already.." I turned on all the outside lights and tried to catch them. Just before they headed up the tree, I got this lovely image.


Of course it's just their evil eyes. EVIL!!

Know what the most ironic part is? This afternoon I happened to schedule tree trimmers to come cutback that tree tomorrow... Karma's a bitch. =P

Practice Time

It’d been a month or so since I took my fondant class and I hadn’t yet tried covering a real, edible cake with fondant. Figured that taking a test drive might be beneficial before I tried (and quite possibly failed) at making the cake for Yvette’s baby shower and Logan’s birthday in the weeks to follow. It was fourth of July weekend, so naturally I just went with it…



I know, nothing fancy. I just wanted to try a few things out, like covering the cake, obv. But also adding stuff to the sides, cutting out shapes and transferring them… stuff like that. I did learn a few things that helped me out big time the following weekend with the baby shower cake (coming up next).



Lesson #1 – Don’t worry about rolling the fondant out paper thin. It’s so much easier, and flawless looking, when it’s a tad thicker, and most people don’t eat it anyway.

Lesson #2 – When you roll and cut any sort of shape, and then try to peel it up and move to the cake, it stretches, deforms, gets ugly, makes you sad, frustrated, compulsive.. all that stuff. It’s much easier to roll on wax paper (or vinyl mat), cut, flip over onto cake and then peel back the surface you rolled onto. Then this way you also get the smooth bottom surface on the outside. I’m not sure what I would do with a non-symmetrical piece in this case, but for not, this is my tactic!

Lesson #3 – Work in a nice cool environment or everything will be too soft and sticky to work with.

This cake went with Ian to the fire department a couple days later. When he came home, he had a few special requests for next time – particularly an inappropriate cake for one of the guys. Of course I’m open to such requests, and a lot of you have seen my past talents in this regard. =P

Master Bath: Part 3, Re-Build

I can’t believe it’s been 2 months since my last bathroom update! My dad has been pretty busy with work, hiking trips and various other things, but does manage to come over a few hours a week. He’s getting ready to go on a big vacation this weekend, so things will be on-hold for a bit. It’s shaping up to look like a real room though!

I left off last time with D-day. Here’s what it looked like after being stripped down to the bare bones:




At this point there was a fair amount of work to be done.

Plumbing – Moving shower drain to fit new base, replacing sink and toilet valves, and re-working the shower for a single valve fixture.

Electrical – Triple switch outlet to separate main light from the fan, and fan light. Also moved fan/light to be centered over the shower instead of the room. Moved vanity light up a bit.

Construction – Enlarge inset for oversized medicine cabinet and create shower “nook” for shampoo and whatnots.

After all these odds and ends were taken care of, dad installed the new shower base, and followed that up with walls. Yay, walls! The non-shower surrounding walls have gotten primed, textured, and primed again and are ready for paint.








Right now we’re mid-tiling of the shower so I’ll post pictures of that later. So I think the plan is to tile, paint, do floor tile, install shower doors/vanity/mirror/lights/toilet/etc.

Irish Car Bomb

In the form of a cupcake..


This is the same recipe that you can find all over the net now and I think it did originate at Smitten Kitchen. The cakes were certainly good, but a lot of work. I'm not sure it's really necessary to take out the middle of the cakes prior to filling them... I think I could probably just jam a piping tip in there and force the goodness in. We'll see about that next time!

One of the coolest things about making these was that I stumbled upon O'Connor's Irish Cream. Of course I had to try it! Had a big ol' glass on ice while baking up a storm and it was just as good as Bailey's, and nearly 1/3 the price. Can't beat that?




Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
Source: Smitten Kitchen

1 c. Guinness
1 c. unsalted butter
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2/3 c. sour cream

Ganache Filling
8 oz bittersweet chocolate
2/3 c. heavy cream2 tbsp butter, room temperature
2 tsp Whiskey

Baileys Frosting (I would double this part if you like some height to your cupcakes)
3 to 4 c. confections sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 to 4 tbsp Baileys