Just resting before I have to do the cake thing!

Doing the Fairy Cake Thing!

We love school holidays on a Wednesday at scrapbooking as we get to see our friends who can’t usually make it as they are dedicated teachers during term time.  Jan’s daughter, Sue, celebrated her birthday last week and we thought we would spoil her a bit with an extra celebration with the Wacky Wednesday Scrappers.  True to all our celebrations we had party packs, presents, plenty coffee, our usual photo shoot and thanks to Grace Stevens’ workshop I was able to make a naughty little lime green fairy for Sue’s birthday cake.  As Sue loves anything pretty, this little fairy was perfect for her cake and as Sue also loves her garden I added her resting on a pink picnic blanket in a garden of flowers.

Fairy Dreams!

When we did this workshop with Grace, she said to us the inspiration for her fairy came from watching her young daughter resting in this position with her feet up and seeing this little green garden fairy here captures that feeling of not having a care in the world!  I made some over-sized flowers and daisies with pearly centres to add to the garden cake and iced the top of the cake with lime green icing using a grass icing nozzle.  I know you loved your fairy Sue and I hope that every time you look at her she makes you smile and brings a tiny bit of her peace into your life.  We loved celebrating your birthday with you and we are delighted you have a few more Wednesday’s free to scrapbook with us.  May all your fairy wishes come true this year!

Feeling right at home at the Memory Shed!

]]> http://cupcakes2delite.com/2013/04/20/garden-fairy-cake-for-sues-birthday/feed/ 2 lisac123 Green Fairy Green Fairy Cake Green Fairy Cake Green Fairy Cake http://cupcakes2delite.com/2013/04/20/2175/ http://cupcakes2delite.com/2013/04/20/2175/#comments Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:04:42 +0000 LISA http://cupcakes2delite.com/?p=2175 ]]> Wendy was so excited to have her daughter, Tracey, home last weekend and as it was not only a family reunion but also Tracey’s birthday celebration Wendy asked me to make cupcakes for her.  Tracey loves pink so I iced vanilla cupcakes with a tickled pink icing and added pink flowers which I dusted first before adding a dusting of lustre powder for a hint of glamour.  It was wonderful to meet your beautiful daughter and thank you once again for the incredible enthusiasm you always great my cupcakes with Wendy.

The Fairy on a Cushion Cake was the workshop Grace Stevens of Cupcakes By Design gave on her second day here in Johannesburg.  After doing the Filler Flowers and Teddy Workshop I couldn’t wait to do the 3rd workshop.  Once again we were hosted by Vicci in Northcliff and it  was brilliant to spend time again with these 2 extremely talented ladies and meet new people who were just as keen to learn from Grace as I was.  The pictures below show our work in progress, from top left all the dusting colours and gel colours we had to decide on for our fairies and their flowers, bottom left my fairy with her feet up waiting patiently for a pretty hairdo and wings and finally Grace’s swift hands deftly demo how she covers her cushion cake ready for her fairy to rest on.

Fairies at Play!

Once again Grace taught us one of her beautiful cake designs and allowed us to express ourselves and bring out the character in our individual fairies.  Here they are below with their cute but naughty faces happily resting without a care in the world on their cushions.

Showing off our work!

I was so delighted with my cake that no one was left alone until they had seen it or at least seen a picture of it!  I do have a great group of family, friends and clients who were so supportive and shared in my excitement and thanks everyone for your facebook likes and comments they mean the world to me! When your 19 year old son shares this on his facebook page you know you are going up in the sugar craft rankings…. thanks Teigh!

Fairy & Cushion Detail

Thank you Grace for such amazing workshops and I will treasure your book and practise and practise more till your next workshop in Johannesburg. Cape Town is certainly blessed to have your talent!  A huge thank you to Vicci for introducing me to Grace and for all the laughs and the inspiration you share in your work.

Away with the Fairies!

It was so exciting to finally meet Grace Stevens of Cupcakes by Design and take part in 3 of her Johannesburg workshops while she was in our busy city.  I had bought her book, Celebration Cakes, at the National Sugar Craft Show in Pretoria and after many hours looking at each exquisitely crafted cake I was apprehensive about being able to manage the workshops.  Well I needn’t have been at all as Grace is a brilliant, funny and patient teacher who has a unique gift in being able to humbly share her amazing knowledge in a fun environment.  We started with the dainty Filler Flowers Workshop and the collage above shows Grace tenderly dusting colour onto her completed flowers on the left and our groups of completed flowers opposite.

In the afternoon we moved onto doing the Teddy Workshop and as you can see by our completed Teddies, we had loads of fun with these cute sugar craft creations.  It was my first time making something this size out of sugar paste and I was so happy with my completed teddy and her cute patches, buttons and stitching details.  Once again Grace’s way of teaching in carefully planned out steps made it a really fun class to follow.  Grace is an inspiration to all those who have a passion for sugar craft as her designs are not only fun to follow but she teaches in a way that allowed us to bring out the unique character in each piece we crafted. The picture above right shows three teddies, Grace’s teddy being a little coy, Vicci’s yellow teddy, a little shy and sad and then mine looking at me in amazement as if to say “I didn’t know you could do this!” Thanks Grace for sharing your time and knowledge with us.

]]> http://cupcakes2delite.com/2013/04/18/teddy-flower-fillers-workshops-with-grace-stevens/feed/ 2 lisac123 Teddy & Flower Fillers Workshop Teddy Workshop http://cupcakes2delite.com/2013/04/17/pink-yellow-flower-cupcakes-3/ http://cupcakes2delite.com/2013/04/17/pink-yellow-flower-cupcakes-3/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:39:46 +0000 LISA http://cupcakes2delite.com/?p=2151 ]]>

Cupcakes have become synonymous with birthdays at the Memory Shed and this time Lisa and the girls were celebrating Glyn’s birthday.  Lisa left the design and colour of the cupcake decorations up to me on this order for Glyn and I chose a combination of this soft pretty pink contrasted with the sunny yellow.  I added smaller yellow veined flowers to the centres of the pink veined flowers and then topped the combination with pink pearls.  I made pink and yellow smaller flowers with my quick frangipani cutter and added pearls to their centres in their matching colours.  As Glyn likes a bit of bling I dusted all the flowers with a lustre powder before popping them onto the strawberry pink iced cupcakes.  Happy birthday Glyn and hope you had a brilliant day celebrating with your scrapbooking friends.  May your year be filled with great scrapbooking days, loads of bling and a sprinkling of cupcakes for good measure!

Thanks to Caitlin for my new label/tag design for Cupcakes2Delite! Now I can surprise my customers with a custom addressed label for special occasions. Caitlin’s company is Design Symmetry and she specialises in design and print, www.designsymmetry.co.za.  I used the label/tag design here to wish Jess a Happy Birthday and below to wish Ashleigh a Speedy Recovery.

Wendy asked me to do cupcakes for her daughter, Ashleigh, who is recovering from an operation she had a few weeks ago.  She said that Ashleigh loves the colour turqoise and also loves butterflies so I made vanilla cupcakes with a light turquoise icing and bright turquoise sugar pearls.  I made all the flowers, roses and butterflies in white sugarpaste which I then dusted with my Rolkem powders.  I veined some of the larger flowers with my FMM Flower Veiner and then dusted from the centre of each flower first with Rolkem’s Rainbow Spectrum Peacock and then with the Rolkem Sparkles in Aquamarine for a hint of shine. For a strong contrast I added the turquoise bright pearls as the centres to the flowers and butterflies. My inspiration for these cupcakes came from the excitement Wendy showed in ordering these cupcakes for her gorgeous daughter.  Wendy is so proud of her daughter and the way she is recovering.  Of course colour always inspires me, making this a perfect week to blog these cupcakes with it being Holi 2013, the Indian Festival of Colour.  Ashleigh’s love for the colour turquoise and having recently caught up with Andries and Rolkem’s beautiful range of colours for sugarpaste work at the National Sugarcraft Show made it easy to create these pretty cupcakes for Ashleigh.  Wishing you all the best Ash for a speedy recovery!

If you have read my previous Mermaid Cupcake post you will know how thrilled I was with Vicci’s help with my mermaid’s face.  Well to add to the excitement of the week, Vicci told me about the National Sugarcraft show which was held in Pretoria.  I made the great trek from Joburg to Pretoria and visited all the exhibits at the show and was thrilled to see such exquisite sugarcraft on show.  Even more fun were all the stands with new products on display.  One of the products I purchased from Incredible Crafts was a fmm Multi Fower Veiner which I have used on some of the flowers above.  I simply cut out my flowers and then popped them between the veiner which left them with a detailed veined surface.  I combined turquoise, lime green and purple flowers and colourful centres  for these cupcakes inspired by Byron and his girlfriend’s 4 year anniversary.  I thought these funky flowers were a perfect addition to cupcakes celebrating young love.

Happy Anniversary!

This is a hugely exciting post for me for a number of reasons.  This little mermaid started off with a very cute but very funny looking face with over-sized rather googly eyes.  In fact she looked like she had just taken off a pair of goggles after a good few hours under water.  Those of you who saw the initial picture will know exactly what I am talking about.  Realizing I was hopelessly off course with this little mermaid I called Vicci who willingly showed me how to create a face with better eyes, nose and mouth.  Vicci is a gem in the South African sugar art world and is a brilliant and willing teacher.  Her work is so inspiring and creative and I can’t wait to learn loads more from her talented hands, her page is well worth a visit on Victoria Bean.  My mermaid’s face was a huge improvement which was so exciting even though I still have a long way to go with crafting faces.  Thank you Vicci for your time and patience with me.

A Swish of Tails!

The mermaid tails are also sugarpaste, some I made with different colour sugarpaste and others I made with white sugarpaste which I then dusted with Rolkem food colouring before adding a lustre to them all.  I added half of a butterfly to the end of the tails and then popped them into light blue iced red velvet cupcakes using a toothpick to support them.  The blue and white sugar beads and curled green sugarpaste seaweed were the final touch to these pretty Memaid Cupcakes.  Further excitement for me was the reception with which these cupcakes were met.  Jess, the birthday girl, was delighted with her cupcakes as were her friends and I have had so many positive comments on this little mermaid from everyone who has seen her.  Of course I couldn’t resist photographing this display of swishing mermaids’ tails with Russell’s pretty wrought iron cake stand as the clear crystal beads remind me of droplets of water and were perfect as a backdrop.  Happy birthday Jess and thank you for your inspiring order and here’s to the excitement of something newly leaned!

Thank you Celeste for another birthday order of Cupcakes2Delite cupcakes for your birthday.  I loved that you chose cupcakes that you had seen on one of my photographs on whatsapp and that the pretty soft pink and green flowers appealed to you.  It is brilliant to be able to make a variety of flowers for a single order as it keeps me on my toes and is more challenging and of course makes for gorgeous photographs too!  I love this pretty place mat I found with the French calligraphy and thought it was perfect to show off these cupcakes in their quirky polka dot cases.  I am pleased that everyone enjoyed your birthday cupcakes.  Happy birthday to another excited cupcakes customer!