Sunday, November 23, 2008

Speeding Away


I had the pleasure of doing a cake for a friend of mine's husband's surprise 40th birthday party. Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. The whole family is in to racing, so we decided that a speedway cake would be perfect for the occasion.

Monday, November 17, 2008

My daughter's 1st birthday


I decided to go with a butterfly princess theme for Livvie's birthday. Its more or less tradition for girls in my family to get a princess doll cake on their first birthday, so I thought it would be nice to keep that alive. But since there were going to be alot of people at the party, I decided to add in cupcakes. And what girl wouldn't like butterfly cupcakes on her special day? The vanilla cake and frosting were a hit. The butterfly theme was carried over to the princess cake with some piping on her dress and the butterfly wings were made out of chocolate.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

WoW Birthday


As many people know, my husband and I are gamers; specifically computer games, but we do enjoy 360 games every now and again. For my husband's birthday this year I decided to bring his WoW (World of Warcraft) character to life. He played a shaman. The gist of it is, shaman have special abilities called totems that do special things. One very saught after totem is the mana spring totem. To his surprise in front of lots and friends and family, I revealed the Totem cake. Made from scratch vanilla, chocolate and lemon cakes, with vanilla frosting.

Friday, September 5, 2008

The Farmer's Market: revisited

Back in June I was working part-time at an organic co-op farm in Amherst, NH. I thought attending the co-ops farmers market would be a great way to promote The Sweet Life. So I set up my table, printed out some flyers, and presented an array of sunflower and ladybug cupcakes on my cupcake tree. Making both ladybug and sunflower cupcakes seemed quite an appropriate expression for the co-op's first farmer's market of the season....afterall summer was in full swing, ladybugs were flying around, and flowers were all in full bloom.

Everyone commented on the creativity and appeal of the of cupcakes. Since I was not the only vendor at this farmer's market, I was able to talk with other vendors for some tips and tricks. Several flyers were distributed and out of 48 cupcakes made, I sold 20....and there was only 25-30 people there! A successfull venture indeed.

4th of July: revisited


Back in July a friend of mine, Jennifer Williams of Sheer Elementants Salon in Manchester, asked if I could make some birthday cupcakes for one of her friends.  Every year they go camping over the 4th of July.  She normally brings a cake but this year she was looking for something different.  She wanted the cupcakes to be festive, and then have a special birthday cupcake for the "guest of honor."  So  I decided to go with patriotic fireworks cupcakes.  The cake and frosting were both vanilla.  And after the camping trip was over Jennifer said the cupcakes were perfect and everyone loved them. 
 

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Barn Yard Friends


A few weeks after the first cake, we got our second order! Another good friend of ours Rachel and her son Jude. Jude's first birthday party was going to be outside at a park on the ocean. Since there wasn't a specific theme, we came up with a few ideas that would be cute for a boy's first birthday. Rachel decided to go with the barn yard animals. She liked the idea of having cupcakes since there would be alot of kids at this celebration. Again, we went with the yellow cake from scratch but this time we used a buttercream frosting. The barn stood about 8 or 9 inches high. The animals included pigs, sheep (the small marshmellows were a hit with the kids), cows and chickens.

For the Baseball Fan


Back in the middle of July a good friend of mine (we were preggers together) asked if I would make her son's first birthday cake. Of course I jumped at the opportunity. My sister and I had been getting in to cupcakes and were/are trying to open up a small bakery in downtown Portsmouth, so I thought what a great way to show people what we can do. It was decided that Evan was going to have a Lil' Slugger birthday party, and as far as the cake, Lindsay (the mom) gave me total creative control. After spending about a week brain storming ideas for a cake, I came across a cool website that had some unique cakes pictured. While I can't take credit for the inital design, I did add my own touches. The cake was a yellow cake made from scratch and vanilla cream frosting to top it. Lindsay and Evan both loved it, as did the rest of the party goers.