Out of the Mouths of Babes

So yesterday, my husband taught my daughter - who is a little over a month away from being 9 years old - how to correctly say "substitute". I have to admit, I am kind of sad! I LOVED the way she said "sub-a-toot". It was so cute and endearing. Granted, she is almost 9 and probably should say it the right way before she starts getting made fun of...but it was always so cute that I did not want to correct her! Just as I always wished that she would call chocolate milk "chow mill" for the rest of her life and a spoon a "boose". I miss those little ways that they say things...then they get older and just make up lame jokes! :)

Twin Stitchers

Hey guys, I wanted to share a very cool blog with you! They have the CUTEST stitching templates I have EVER seen! Right now they are having a really cool deal!

First, look how cute this is...

They are having a limited time offer to get this pattern for FREE! Please go to their blog, check it out, check out their other patterns and learn how you have have this pattern for yourself!!

HURRY!! Time is almost up!!

www.twinstitchers.blogspot.com

My Birthday!

It is hard to believe that I am already 31 years old! I seriously do not feel old...but I do remember when I was younger thinking how "old" I would be once I hit my thirties! Weird!

Anyway, with my cake making ways lately, I really, REALLY wanted a KitchenAid! And my mommy delivered! I was SO excited I could not wait to put it to work! And I am so glad that the height of our cabinets allowed it to be placed underneath them on the countertops, nicely displayed!

Also, on the day of my birthday, as I came home, I seen my husband bounding into the house with a huge grin on his face! I knew he was up to something! Plus he told me to walk in through the front door and not go through the garage to the back door...

As I walked in, this is what I seen...
Streamers and balloons hung from the ceiling and railing (and my cutie little Dixie waiting at the top of the stairs for me!)

And some pizza (so I would not have to fix dinner) with candles in it and a cute little ice cream cake! My favorite!
Jason also bought me a new IPod nano - my favorite color of blue - and gave me some money to shop for some new clothes! What a good husband! (Obviously, Kaitlyn thought she was getting out of the way for this picture! Funny)
What a great birthday! Thanks everyone!!!

First Day of School and School Pictures!

So here we are almost to the end of the 1st quarter and I am just barely getting the first day of school and the school picture day pics posted on here! Jeez, I need to get my butt in gear! :)
Anyway, here are the pics of my kids on the first day of school!
HERE IS BOWE! FIRST DAY OF 9th GRADE!!

AND KYLEE - FIRST DAY OF 6th GRADE!!

AND NOW MY KAITLYN - FIRST DAY OF 3rd GRADE!

They are all getting too big!

Now for school picture day. The Junior High does their pictures at registration during the summer, so I did not get a picture of Bowe...but here are the girls! So cute!!

Cake, Cake and more Cake!

So it has been a while since I have posted on here! Busy, busy at work ya know!

There have been several cakes that I have made that I just have not gotten around to putting here on this blog...so I thought I would do a blog today with these cakes! I am also taking my friend Emily's idea and putting together a blog JUST for my cakes and other things that I make...it will take me a while to get them all posted but the blog will be under http://www.stephaniessweetcreations.com/ So check it out in the next few weeks!

So let's start with my final cake for the Wilton Course 2 class. In this course we learned how to make several types of flowers out of royal frosting - which makes the flowers hard and easily movable. We made flowers like daisies and roses - among others. On the night of the final we learned how to create a basket weave design on the cakes. It was a little time consuming but definitely NOT as hard as you would think...or as hard as I thought it would be anyway!

You have to start out the basketweave by dividing the cake into equal parts...

Next you work your way around the cake - 3 sections at a time, making the basket design

And finally, add a border and top with the flowers made of royal icing, any way you choose!

Next, was Kylee's birthday. She was looking through my Wilton Course booklets and found a cake that she wanted me to make her. The book showed this cake all covered in fondant and all white - we mapped out a few variations that we could do....Kylee wanted the colors to be pink, blue and purple!

I covered the cake in buttercream instead of fondant (tastes better!) But I did do the bow and streamers in fondant.

Kylee was extremely happy with it and said that it was exactly what she wanted! Happy Birthday Kylee!! :)

We had Kylee's "friend" party the following weekend after her birthday. So for that, I wanted to attempt doing the cupcakes with my decorating tips from class. I used a large star tip and swirled it on and put some of my left over flowers on the tops!

The blue ones were the favorite by all!

I tried the striping in my bag with purple coloring for the white frosting. I definitely need to not be so shy with the color! Not enough came out onto the edges of the frosting!

I had some more cake batter than I had cupcake tins, so I put the rest of it into an oval cake pan!

I put semi sweet chocolate chips into the batter so it made a yummy layer of chocolate in the cupcakes and cake!

Next was Course 3 for our Wilton cake classes! This is all about fondant. We learned how to cover a whole cake with fondant and how to make smaller bows.

Pretty easy!

My birthday was next. I found some really cute ribbon in the 2 for $1.00 rack at Michaels, so I picked it up and decided since my favorite color is blue, I would use it for my birthday cake! I also used the same technique that I learned in my cake class for the yellow bow on the top of the cake.

I made the little flowers to cover up where the ribbon met up. I make one larger flower and one smaller and softened them with the fondant tool we got in our course 3 kit! I love the flowers!

And for the finale...my last cake for the Wilton Course 3 class! We had to start be making about 40 fondant roses at home, varying from rose buds, to medium size roses, to full bloom roses! I made some awesome orange colored fondant, so I chose to add some pink and yellow to the mix. I think they turned out really nice...as they should for spending about 6 hours on them! :)

We were learning how to make a tiered cake, so we needed a larger cake and a smaller cake already covered in fondant for class. Then she showed us how to construct the tiers.

Then, you just start applying the roses...this was very nerve racking for me! I sat there for about 5 minutes just wondering where to start! I also chose to add a buttercream dot border. I had to cover up some of the irregularities in the bottom edges of the fondant! :)

Then add in some leaves to fill in the crevices between the roses and whalah! I never thought I would make something like this when I started the classes!