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Giant Cupcake Cake for Michelle’s Birthday

Jul30

Giant Cupcake Birthday Cake

 

Michelle turned 12 a few weeks ago and she wanted a pretty girly cake to share with her friends at her party.  I made the giant cupcake cake for her and iced it with a creamy vanilla icing before adding flowers and butterflies in pink and lime green.  I added a few orange and yellow blossoms and lime green embossed leaves to make her cake really pretty.  I wrapped a green ribbon with white polka dots around the middle of the giant cupcake cake and added some flowers around the base of the bow to complete the cake. Hope you had fun at your party Michelle!

Vintage and Scrapbooking Cupcakes for Lisa

Jul25

Lisa's Birthday Cupcakes

The silly celebratory season has hit our Wednesday morning scrapbooking class in earnest as we celebrate a few birthdays quite close to each other.  After the celebration for Lisa(TQO) it was the turn of our awesome scrapbooking teacher and guru, Lisa Myburgh.  Lisa has a heart of gold and a superbly talented eye for everything beautiful around her.  She loves anything vintage so I made some Orange velvet cupcakes in small vintage cupcake holders (http://www.ingoodcompany.co.za/ for her birthday as well as Orange Velvet  with the prettiest scrapbooking inspired sugar paste decorations I bought from Baking Bitz in Randburg.  As you can see in the pictures above Lisa, never too far away from her camera, captured some gorgeous pictures of these birthday cupcakes and  I  managed to take this beautiful picture of her.

Lisa's Birthday Cupcakes

 

Again it was a privilege to make these pretty cupcakes for someone as special as Lisa who humbly and generously gives of her talent, her time and her spirit in everything she does.  We all love you madly Lisa and thank you for making our lives all the more special just because we know you.

 

Lisa's Birthday Cupcakes

Photographs (Lisa Myburgh, Lisa Cunningham)

 

Tracy’s Bookclub 50th Birthday Cupcakes

Jul15

Tracy's Bookclub 50th Birthday Cupcakes

This year is a big birthday celebration for Tracy from our Wednesday scrapbooking group and she has had fun celebrating with her family and friends.  The week before the big day was her bookclub week and Shaunagh asked me to do cupcakes for the bookclub evening to celebrate Tracy’s 50th.  I made pistachio and honey cupcakes in lime green and purple cupcake holders and then used the same colour scheme for the decorations.  I combined bought flowers from Baking Bitz in Randburg with my own lime green roses on these cupcakes and added the pearls to complete them.  Glad you all enjoyed the cupcakes girls and look out for Tracy’s big 50th birthday pictures from our Wednesday morning scrapbooking gang!

Monkeying around with these Cupcakes!

Jul13

Monkey Cupcakes

When Tersia asked me to do these monkey cupcakes for her baby shower I was intrigued by her  naughty monkey theme for her party.  She had collected soft toy monkeys for her baby boy’s room and she wanted a monkey theme for her baby shower.  These monkeys were a tricky task at the time for me not being 100 % back into the swing of my baking but I really wanted to help her as she was recommended to me by Hester and she had seen my cute smurf cupcakes and knew she wanted cute cupcakes for her friends attending her baby shower.  I knew I couldn’t make all these monkeys myself so I asked Paige if she would help me as she is beautifully artistic and has a great eye for detail.  I was delighted when she agreed and with no help from me she handmade these 25 naughty little monkeys.  On seeing them I fell in love with their naughty expressions and gorgeous faces.  If you look closely you can almost hear what they are thinking.   Congratulations Paige, you just made your debut  as a sugar artist with these crafty little guys!

Sugarpaste Monkeys

These cute monkeys jumped from the photo shoot on my book straight onto delicious chocolate cupcakes iced with a creamy vanilla icing and were delivered in time for Tersia’s babyshower.  I had such a wonderful email response from Tersia which I have quoted here as it was the perfect thank you to Paige for all her time and enthusiasm creating these characters for me and for Tersia.

“The monkeys were great!  They have stolen the show.  I  put the cup cakes on a cup cake stand in the middle of the table, and the people couldn’t stop looking at them.  Almost nobody ate their cupcake at the restaurant.  Everybody asked for a “doggy bag” to take it home and show it to their family first.”

Monkey Cupcakes

Sugarpaste work (Paige)

Photography (Lisa)

Pink Pepper and Pink Roses for a Family Memory!

Jul13

Pink Pepper & Pink Roses Cupcakes

It was such a great evening Saturday 2 weeks ago when Eddie and I were invited to a delicious dinner with my uncle Dieter, Genee, Pete, Gill, Brendan and Christen-Jenna.  It has been a while since we were able to catch up with family and we were able to share family news, reminisce and generally enjoy each other’s company.  Genee is always a gracious and gorgeous host and her delicious roast dinner reminded me of the beautiful roast dinners my mom would prepare so lovingly and with a great deal of food-fussing about for us.  I wanted to make  really pretty but fun cupcakes for Genee so I chose the pink pepper and citrus chocolate iced cupcakes that I have made before and added a pink rose and pink pearls to her cupcakes.  Dieter has always been a chocolate lover and I remember him eating all the desserts I made when I was a child for family gatherings.  He always had high praise for everything I made so I love him for that as I am sure there were times when not every dessert was up to scratch.  For his cupcakes I added a piece of the Madacasse Pink Pepper and Citrus chocolate that I had melted into the icing.  We enjoyed a beautiful dinner finished off with these cupcakes so once again thank you for inviting us to share in more family memories.

Hydrangea Cupcakes for Lisa (TQO)

Jul9

Hydrangea Cupcakes

A few weeks ago we celebrated Lisa (TQO)’s birthday – TQO short for The Quiet One!   As per our usual Wednesday scrapbooking birthday celebration it was anything but quiet and we celebrated Lisa’s birthday with the usual array of gifts, blowing of candles and an assortment of delicious goodies to eat accompanied by much laughter and fun.  Lisa (TQO)’s presents were unusual this year as she requested pritt glue and crayons for the pre-school children  she teaches at the children’s home.  I have to mention here that Lisa (TQO) apart from being the life and soul of any party or celebration she attends is also an inspiration in the humble way she shares her ideas, time, knowledge, recipes and laughter with us and always makes us feel that life is a total blast.  She opened her presents of pritt glue, crayons and stickers with such excitement knowing how much joy the children were going to get from using them.  While I was off my feet I kept myself busy exploring new cupcake ideas and I chanced on a youtube video one afternoon in which a delightful Anh demonstrated how to pipe a hydrangea cupcake.  She did go one step further and place the cupcakes in a bouquet but due to time limitations on my feet I didn’t try that. For really clear instructions visit Anh’s youtube demo on Sonata 333.  I mixed violet and royal blue icing into a piping bag  and piped my version of a hydrangea for these cupcakes and topped each one with an embossed white butterfly. Lisa Nadene took  this pretty photo of the cupcakes that portray the colour and joy that Lisa (TQO) brings into the lives of everyone she meets.