How to dress cupcakes in a hurry...

To learn how to dress cupcakes in a hurry, go to my Cupcake-Stylist blog at:
http://cupcake-stylist.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-dress-cupcakes-in-hurry.html

For those of you who keep asking, "Are you still breathing?"

the answer is, "yes." 

A lot of time has passed since my last post, so I can understand the question.  Life has a way of continually challenging us to grow.  Sometimes we excel in a particular challenge, and sometimes we fail.  My response to recent challenges has been to withdraw, re-evaluate and refresh.

Last year provided some great highs, (the children's book I illustrated for Lee White was published), and lows (my husband and I had to make the extremely difficult decision to put down our German Shepherd, Kip, when he could no longer walk or stand, and I had hand surgery)...

I will write more about Kip in Zoe's blog, but wanted to share a little about the hand surgery and the impact it has had on my life...

First, I had injured my hand in what I thought was a very minor household accident.  I was on my hands and knees cleaning the floor of the panty and when I went to push up to stand, my hand slipped on the wet floor and my right index finger jammed into something.  For the next year I dealt with pain, clicking, minor swelling, and certainly the feeling that something just wasn't right with my finger. 

I felt kind of silly even giving it any attention, after all it was just a finger, but after a year of "dealing with it" I contacted a surgeon to have it evaluated. Surgery was scheduled immediately to repair my right index extensor hood and to do a tendon transfer.  The surgery was November 3rd.  Going into it I thought I'd have the surgery, a few weeks of rehab and then I'd be back to normal with a perfect hand.  I learned that my PolyAnna thoughts were just that and it is now almost 6 months later and I still have pain, numbness, swelling and clicking.  In fact, I refer to my right hand as the, "the big giant knuckle."

So how has my big giant knuckle impacted me?  Well, for someone who has gone through life pretty easy-breezy, my big giant knuckle threw me for a loop!  I can't paint currently and that has left me feeling somewhat out of sorts.  I am a creative being and not being able to paint has been so difficult. I have withdrawn a bit -- I found I needed time to regroup and re-evaluate.  I have been spending more time with my husband, God, and figuring out a way to be creative even with my big giant knuckle = ) 

You may remember that I took some cake decorating classes last year.  I found that I really loved the decorating part, but didn't necessarily like the baking part.  I found that working with icing was difficult because it irritated my big giant knuckle even more, but working with fondant was almost like therapy -- it requires kneading and shaping, which seem to actually help my hand a bit.  Anyway, as I worked through the process of determining what I could and couldn't do, I found that I could make cake and cupcake decorations out of fondant, that could be used to decorate cakes and cupcakes that OTHER people have made. 

...and with those thoughts, the CUPCAKE STYLIST was born = )  As the CUPCAKE STYLIST, I make edible toppers (decorations) out of fondant to stylishly dress YOUR cakes and cupcakes!  This allows me to use my artistic and cake decorating skills to create, and it provides you with a means to obtain custom made decorations to complement your theme or party idea, without the time and hassle of making the decorations yourself.  It also allows you to say, "I made it myself" when you receive all of the oohs and aahs that are sure to come your way from your family and friends!

I  am making designs in four basic categories:  Cut-outs, embossed, hand painted and 3D sculpture designs.  The designs will be offered on my website (which is currently under construction at http://www.cupcakestylist.com/), and are currently available at http://www.cupcakestylist.etsy.com/ .  A Facebook Page is in the works, however I must confess that Facebook pages are still a mystery to me. Once I figure them out I'll add the address/link also. 

Each design can be customized to match your particular party theme and color scheme.  To give you an example of what is available, please continue...

And so, yes, I'm still alive...still breathing...still creating. 

In the midst of my re-evaluation period my husband gave me a little wall hanging that I'll share with you... "Life is not waiting for the storm to pass, it is learning how to dance in the rain."  I'm dancing...

All Things Cake!

That is just what we are learning, thanks to Mary Pallister, our wonderful Wilton cake decorating instructor!  Mary has such a passion for what she does...and her enthusiasm spreads throughout the class each week, encouraging us on in our attempts to mimic her flower making and cake decorating skills.

Class 1 involved four 2-hour sessions, each designed to teach us how to bake, level and split a cake, frost it, make buttercream decorations and decorate a cake.

Sounds easy.  Well like anything, it takes a lot of practice! 

In my last "cake decorating" post I shared my experience with attempting to frost my cake -- well I have finally moved beyond the neanderthal stage and can actually frost a cake a little more smoothly now.  I imagine that as time goes by and I frost more cakes, it will become even easier -- oh how I look forward to that day!

In class, we used the practice board and flower nail to learn to make various buttecream flowers and border...

Wilton's site has intructions on making all of the flowers we learned, so rather than reinvent the wheel, I will provide links to the Wilton site for instructions on how to make the... half-rose, leaves, ribbon roses, roses, rosettes, shell border, stars, sweet peas, swirl drop flowers, zigzag border, basketweave, carnations, as well as a few other designs.

And at the end of class 1, session 2, here is my first "decorated" cake...

I know...kind of bland, huh.  As we learned to make flowers and borders, we used white frosting.

Well, my hubby and I aren't eating sugar right now, so I knew that this cake would not be in the house long.  I also knew that an anemic looking cake wouldn't be well received, so I took the cake home, scraped off the flowers, colored some icing, and redecorated the cake so I could give it away....

it was a hit. 

For just picking up piping bags and learning the difference between a #3 round tip and a #18 star tip, Mary had us moving right along.  In week three, she asked us to bring some iced cupcakes, marshmallows with a dot of frosting on the flat end, and pocky sticks...

So what do you make with iced cupcakes, icing dottd marshmallows and Pocky sticks?  Clowns...of course!

Mary showed us how to paint the face of the clowns using food coloring, (the dot became the clowns nose).  Then Mary had us stripe our frosting and pipe out the body of the clown.  The painted clown head was attached to the body, by running a Pocky stick through the body.  We then piped on the remaining details and ta-dum, here come the clowns!

Mary also taught us how to pipe bears....

for character cupcakes...

A lot of information had been shared between weeks 1 and 3,so our final session for class 1 seemed like "CAKE" = )

We were asked to bring in an iced cake to decorate in class.  Mary reviewed some flower-making techniques wth us and turned us loose.  So here it is...cake number 2

So there you have it...Wilton Cake Decorating Class 1 completed.  Thank you, Mary! 

Everyone in the class did a great job, learned lots, and we can't wait for Class II to begin!

Cake Decorating 101

I shared previously that I attempted to decorate cupcakes for a bridal shower. The cupcakes weren’t bad, but definitely not what I envisioned in my head!  So, what to do, what to do…that’s easy, sign up for a cake decorating class! Thankfully my local Michael’s store offers Wilton’s cake decorating classes, so I signed up and spent the last 4 Saturday nights learning the basics of cake decorating.

I purchased the “Class 1 kit”, which included just about everything needed to begin this new endeavor, including:

7 Decorating tips:

Round decorating tips #3 & 12 – these tips are used for outlining, lettering, dots, balls, stringwork, lattice, lacework.
Open Star Decorating Tips #16 & 21 – these tips are used for “star” techniques, drop flowers, borders, and whole host of decorations.
Leaf Decorating Tip #57 – in addition to making leaves, this tip can be used for “shell-motion” borders.
Petal Decorating Tip #104 – used to create realistic flower petals, dramatic ruffles, drapes, swags and bows.
Drop Flower Decorating Tip #2D – used to make….drop flowers.

3 Decorating bags - 2 reusable and 1 disposable. The bags hold the frosting and are MOST important to the decorating process!

2 Standard Couplers - The couplers are made up of two parts the coupler and the coupler ring - the coupler fits inside of the decorating bag.  A decorating tip is placed on the outside of the bag, over the coupler, then the coupler ring is screwed on over the decorating tip to hold the tip in place. The couplers make it very handy to change decorating tips without having to use a new bag filled with frosting each time.

1 Flower nail – used to make roses, daisies, carnations and other flowers

1 Practice Board – used for just that, Practice, Practice, Practice! It is a vinyl covered piece of cardboard with a clear vinyl overlay. The overlay lifts so you can place a practice sheet beneath and copy the various shapes and decorations. It is a very handy little tool for testing things out before actually putting icing on the cake!

1 Decorator art brush – used for “brushed embroidery” work

1 Tip Cleaning Brush – essential for getting all of that frosting out of the decorating tips!

1 Straight Spatula – used for mixing, stirring your frosting,. It can also be used for frosting your cake, although a bent spatula is better…and a special Cake Frosting Decorating Tip is even better!

You will notice that I said the kit contained “just about” everything needed to begin cake decorating. Other supplies needed were:

• Gel food coloring (I had the liquid type at home, but learned that the liquid thins the icing too much and makes it impossible to use for decorating. So stick with the gel type – you will get MUCH better results!)
• Toothpicks – for dipping into your gel food coloring and coloring your frosting. Note, it is important that you use a toothpick only once – you can contaminate your colors AND “mess up” your gel food colorings if you use the same toothpick to get more/another color.
• 1-1/2” squares of wax paper – these are used to put on top of your flower nail when making flowers
• Double stick tape – used to hold the wax paper onto the flower nail
• Scissors
• an Apron – definitely needed!
• Extra couplers and disposable decorating bags
• Paper towels
• Buttercream frosting…lots of it! The instructor provided us with a recipe, however I must confess that I used Wilton’s premade Decorator icing throughout most of the class!
• a Turntable (or lazy susan) – we learned that it is MUCH easier to decorate a cake when you could turn IT rather than have to move your body around it.
• Bent spatula (easier to use than the straight spatula when smoothing the frosting on your cake)
• Cake boards (to put your cakes on)

And so, with supplies in hand, I showed up for the first class. The instructor passed out the Wilton Class 1 book, which included frosting recipes, cake baking/preparation tips, icing coloring tips, and a number of how to’s for creating lines, dots, borders, flowers, and other fun decorations.

I love it when people are totally into what they do, and this instructor certainly LOVES what she does! She handed out a number of frosting recipes, cake recipes, a pricing sheet so we would know what to charge for the beautiful cakes that we would ONE day create, a sheet which provided the number of servings per cake, popular websites, flavoring company information, etc.

Once we were loaded down with information and everyone was as fired up as the instructor, we began…

She showed us how to cut the tip off of the bag, place a coupler inside, place a tip over the coupler, secure the coupler with the coupler ring, fill the bag with frosting, and finally how to burp the bag. (click here to go to the Wilton site for a visual on how to fill the bag).

With filled bags in hand, we were ready…or so we thought. We quickly learned that there is a right way and a wrong way to hold the bag, and “position” is everything in cake decorating. Rather than fill up more space with the particulars of bag positioning, click here to go to the Wilton site for a visual on proper bag positioning.

With proper bag positioning behind us, we pulled out our practice boards and started in on stars, zig zags,  the Fleur de lis, Shell border, and the Basketweave.

Each session is 2 hours long, so after practicing the above, we had just enough time for the instructor to show us how to frost a cake, so we could bring a frosted cake to the next session.  She placed the cake on a turntable and showed us two methods for frosting a cake: 1 using a bent spatula, and the other using a special cake icing tip...

I have to confess, I like to take the easy route and when I saw that you could fill a bag with frosting and essentially squeeze out the frosting in three easy steps

and the instructor had that cake frosted in a matter of minutes, I knew this was the method for me!  So I went out and bought tip #789, baked my cake, let it cool, leveled it, placed it on a cake board, and put it on my turntable for a "quick" frosting -- HA!  What I forgot is that the instructor has YEARS of experience and what took her just a couple of minutes to do BEAUTIFULLY, took me too many minutes to confess here.  Have you ever seen that episode of "I Love Lucy" -- where Lucy and Ethyl are working at the candy factory?  Well, I felt just like that! 

I did eventually get my cake frosted, however it didn't look nearly as smooth (or balanced) as the instructors...

And that was just the cake...I will share more about the actual decorating next time.  Until then,

Today's Quote:  "I went to the store to buy a candleholder.  They didn't have one so I bought a cake."  ~Mitch Hedberg

Break Time is Now OVER!

Not that I’ve actually taken a break in life, but the blog break is officially over. These past couple of months have been busy with work, household chores, the book, family and friends. In other words, LIFE!


My finger is doing better, but I have a feeling it will never fully recover. I have limited strength and an ever-present “pop” every time I bend it. So, I guess I just need to put on my big girl panties and move on!

My jewelry wardrobe continues to grow, as I “experiment” with the whole jewelry-making process. My sister gave me a jewelry making book for Christmas and a charm bracelet book for my Birthday. All my husband has to say about it is, “Oh No!”

Last month I had the pleasure of organizing a bridal shower with a friend, for a friend. It was a small, intimate affair, and so instead of a cake we had cupcakes. I made them, and wouldn’t you know, it led me in another direction. Cake Decorating Classes! In my attempt to make something “pretty” for the shower, I realized I hadn’t the skill to create what I wanted, so I did my best

and signed up for the Wilton Cake Decorating class at my local Michael’s store. You can be sure I will now include cake decorating as a topic for future posts.

Work on the book continues.

Zoe's PawPrintArt will be expanded to include paintings painted with a paw print paintbrush the I made in Corel Painter.  The paintbrush was created using an image of Zoe's paw and will be used to paint entire paintings.  It's kind of a strange concept, I know, but here is a very fast, very rough painting that I painted so you could see what I'm talking about.  It is a Celtic Knot, done in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

If you look closely, you will see that every bit of this painting was painted using Zoe's PawPrintArt paintbrush that I created in Painter! 

Well, I guess that's the past couple of months in a nut shell.  I'll be back with regular postings about art, jewelery making, cake decorating, the book, and whatever else I can share with you.

Today's Quote:  "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."  ~James Dean