Barney and friends cake for Luke!

This week has been really hectic for me with 3 requests for cakes all due on Saturday and Sunday, plus some cupcakes as well!! Whew! I think the 29th of November is a very very popular date and there are lots and lots of kids with birthdays due on that date considering the number of requests i got for cakes and cupcakes for this day!! Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming number of requests, i had to turn some of them down which made me a little upset So here’s a shout out to all those who i had to disappoint. I really am disappointed that i didn’t have a chance to do up your cakes and cupcakes, but i do hope that in the future i’ll have the opportunity to do up your cakes for you. Thank you so much for your wonderful support

Okie dokey… enough of my rambling… here’s today’s latest post A Barney and friends cake for Luke! I’ve had some other requests for these in cupcake form, but none confirmed the order. In the end, Gina was the one with enough faith in me to finally confirm the order for a Barney and friends cake Yay!! A new challenge.

Now to be very frank.. I’ve never watched an episode of Barney and friends and the only impression i ever had of this children’s program is that there is a purple dinosaur. So when Gina asked me to do a Barney and friends cake for her, i immediately got onto the information super highway and started researching on images of Barney and his friends. After spending an entire day looking at images of Barney, i was seeing purple (haha… sorry bad pun but i couldn’t resist :p), but the pictures gave me a good idea as to what the characters looked like and how to go about modelling them for the cake

So off i went to start on Barney. The 1st 2 figurines of Barney and friend came out too small to be used on the cake, so i ended up chucking them. But it was great practice though. Gina wanted something nice and bright for her cake as well.. so we decided on a party theme for the cake, and to give credance to that theme, i added some balloons, presents and colourful confetti circles in various colours! I thought the cake turned out great and the confetti really gave the cake a festive air Here’s a shout out to Luke, wishing him a very Happy Birthday and i hope that he liked the cake

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Super Mario cupcakes!!!

I got an e-mail from Shyna the other day asking if i could do up some special cupcakes for her. It was her boyfriend’s birthday and she wanted some special cupcakes for him. Initially she asked if I could do up some cupcakes with Porsche’s as the toppers. Haha… however after modelling my previous car in my car cake, I told Shyna very frankly that i wasn’t too great at making car toppers and they may not turn out that fantastic. So i asked if she would reconsider some other toppers :p

Luckily for me Shyna’s boyfriend loves Yoshi and Super Mario, and she asked if i could therefore do some cupcakes based on this theme. I’d previously come across several other bakers that had done some fantastic Super Mario cupcakes, and to tell the truth i have been dying to try my hand at making these myself, so Shyna actually provided me with the perfect opportunity! Yay!!! :)

So after confirming how many of each type of topper Shyna wanted on the cupcakes, i began making Yoshi and of course Mario. I was very happy with the way Mario turned out as he’s smaller than even my thumb but i actually managed to incorporate quite a number of details regardless of this fact! Think i’m getting better at doing these models now

So these are what the completed cupcakes look like.. pretty cool huh! Hee… Anyway, i do hope that Shyna’s boyfriend gets a nice surprise and that he loves the cupcakes!

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Name and thank you cupcakes for teachers!!

I had recently just found a long lost friend through facebook recently and was super happy at being able to get in touch with her again after such a long time. Funny how time flies when you think about it… it’s been nearly 8 years since we last met and funnily enough, when we did get talking, everything just clicked and it’s funny how at ease you just feel with the person even though it’s been so long since we last met up or spoke.

Anyway, a couple of days after meeting up with her, she contacted me and informed me that her friend, Wen, was actually interested in getting some simple cupcakes from me. These were supposed to be some cupcakes for a Thank You to the other Teacher’s that have helped Wen on some of her projects. I didn’t realise that even Teacher’s had projects to do!! Did you??!! haha…

So anyhow… Wen contacted me and asked if i could do some colourful Name and Thank You cupcakes for her as she wanted to bring them to a Teacher’s meeting the next day. As you can tell.. i’m no expert at piping but i thought these ended up looking great and so cheerful and bright Wen seemed to like them too when she came to collect them… so hopefully the Teacher’s she was giving them to liked them as well as she did!

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Beach theme cupcakes!!

Jazz contacted me last week and asked if i could do some beach theme cupcakes for her. Her request was for some beach themed cupcakes for a friend who had just arrived from Hong Kong and who was feeling a little home-sick. So she wanted something bright and colourful to cheer her friend up.

As Jazz and her friend like to hang out at the beach, she therefore asked if i could do some beach themed cupcakes for her. After some discussion, we finally decided on the mini cupcakes and the designs would include some flip flops, beach hats, beach balls and beach towels

I’d been dying to try my hand making the flip flops after seeing some of these designs on the web… and i was quite happy with the way these turned out in the end although i have to say.. 1/2 way through making the flip flops my hands actually cramped up cos they were just so tiny!! haha…

Anyway, I just hope that these cupcakes did manage to bring a smile to Jazz’s friend when she received them

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La Pi Xiao Xin Cupcakes!

Jamica e-mailed me the other day asking if i could do a special request for her…. *drumroll*… a La Pi Xiao Xin cupcake. These cupcakes were for her friend who was crazy about La Pi Xiao Xin (or Crayon Shinchan as i later found out).

To tell the truth, I’ve never watched any of these cartoons other than 1 episode a really really long time back. But i know lots of people are actually crazy about this cartoon. The only thing i remember about this cartoon is that La Pi Xiao Xin is very cheeky and somehow or other seems to always be missing his pants! haha…

I had a blast doing these little figurines…  and i’m not sure if you’re able to see.. but maybe if you look closely enough.. you can see that the figurine on the left in the picture below is cheekily exposing his privates.. :p haha… I thought I’d add that bit in for a bit of fun for the birthday boy since it’s so like the cartoon!

I just hope the birthday boy liked the cupcakes… so here’s wishing Jeremy a Happy Belated Birthday!!

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Cake with an Evo 9 topper….

I know it’s been ages since my last post but i’ve been super busy this past week. :p So please do forgive me for my long absence.

Anyway, i got a call from an old friend of mine last week asking if i could do a special cake for her. The cake was for a special dual birthday celebration for her Uncle and Auntie. After some discussion with my friend, i found out that her Aunt and Uncle like to take road trips in their Mitsubishi Evo 9 and the places they usually visit is Malaysia and Bangkok. The only request per my friend was that the cake had to have the Evo 9.

I decided to keep things simple and make it so that the Evo 9 looks like it’s travelling on a little road to indicate the road trips that the Aunt and Uncle like to take. So that decided, i started on the Evo 9 car topper. From doing this little topper I now have a new found respect for people that do car cakes. No matter how many times i re-did this topper, the final product came out looking nothing like an Evo 9 except for it’s colour.. haha… My conclusion… I am hopeless at car toppers! haha…

At any rate, this is the close up of the Evo 9.. quite a lame attempt right ;p .. i would say it’s not one of my best work.. but overall i thought it turned out ok. Oh.. and guess how much this cake weighed?!… A whopping 3.3kg! Crazy huh! This was one heavy cake! :)

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A flower garden cake for an avid gardener..

(*sorry cake above was cut by the birthday girl before i managed to grab this photo :p)

Today is a very special day for a special someone…. it’s my husband’s grandma’s (aka Mama’s) birthday! She is turning 88 this year and to look at her, you wouldn’t even think she’s a year over 60! Her vivacious character, booming voice and sharp mind make her someone to reckon with. :) Plus do you know she successfully plays the stock market!!! She’s the only grandma i know that actually plays the stock market and consistently makes money at it!! haha… She trades better than most people i know come to think of it Mama… how about some stock tips!!

Well.. as this was her 88th birthday, I wanted to surprise her with a special birthday cake. As I knew that one of her biggest passions is her garden, it was easy enough for me to decide on the theme of the cake. But i wanted to go a step further an include some subtle elements into the cake that makes it uniquely her cake. First off, it was to include the specific flowers or plants in her garden into the cake. Her favourites included ferns, ixora’s, and one of her favourite plants, the Anthurium. In addition she has a wooden bench that she usually sits on to admire and appreciate her own flower garden. Every now and then, her favourite pet, Tyra, would join her. Tyra’s a little Jack Russell that just never seemed to grow. I would describe her as one tiny, sly, evil and scheming and dog i tell you. You can literally see her thinking up her little schemes with just one look from her. I will see if i can get a picture posted up of what she looks like so you can see what i mean :p Shucks.. couldn’t find any.. put here’s a picture of the real Mama holding Tyra

Well, based on all the elements, i decided to make a 2 tier cake, with grandma sitting on the top of the cake on her bench with Tyra in her arms and her being surrounded by all her glorious flowers on the bottom tiers. After confirming the design, i began work on the flowers and my little miniature grandma figurine or “mini Mama”. As i know that Mama usually wears baju’s and has a bright red one with white flowers splashed all over it, i decided to make my mini Mama wearing that baju. I then added the little details such as her accessories like her little jade bangle, watch,  earrings and rings.  Once those were completed, i started on the bench, and added some wood prints on the bench to give it that woody look. This in itself took 2 days for me to complete. Thinking everything was all set, i left them out to dry.. lo and behold it started raining.. and raining and raining for 3 days consecutively!!!! Aww man…. i could see my little figurine starting to sink into itself with the high humidity.. wahhh!!!! Praying for the sun to come out or at least for it to stop raining, i kept my fingers crossed the next few days and finally it stopped raining and though there was no sun, the humidity did lighten up a little allowing my little “mini Mama” to dry. Whew!! Here’s a close up picture of my completed mini Mama.. so does it look anything like the photo above?

So now i only had left to bake the cakes, tort them, frost them and cover them in fondant, which though it sounds easy, takes me about 1 day to complete. The part i hate most, kneading the colour into a huge chunk of fondant… it’s a serious work out on the arms and wrists!! haha.. oh well.. at least i get to work off some of the calories that comes from eating the chunks left from levelling the cake :p

Well.. after all that work, this was the final product. Mama was very happy when she saw it and you can see her in the picture below pointing out all the little things that made the mini Mama recognisable as her Happy Birthday Mama!!! And may you have many more to come

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Cupcake faces and Starbuck’s Coffee Cups…

Amy e-mailed me the other day asking me if i could do some cupcakes for her friend’s birthday. Desiree had recommended me to her and she had been impressed with the work she’d seen on my web. As such, she asked if i could make some cupcakes representing her and her friends plus some Starbuck cups. Why Starbucks cups some of you might ask? Well.. Amy told me that her and her friends always hang out at Starbucks all the time and they are known as the Starbuck girls. So she wanted the cupcakes to be designed to include their favourite hangout.. thus the Starbuck cups.

After thinking about it, i remember previously coming across some gorgeous face cupcakes someone else had done and thought this would be perfect for Amy’s cupcakes since she wanted the cupcakes to represent each of her friends. Amy had even though ahead and provided me with a photo of her and her friends as a guide for me. So once the idea was pitched to her and confirmed, i went ahead and started thinking of ways to make the cupcake look like each of Amy’s friends. After doing up some really bad sketches which i’m not going to post up here :p  i began on the cupcakes.

As for the Starbuck cups, i did a google search to see what the Starbuck’s logo looked like since i never really studied it before. So after finding some great pictures, i begain the painstaking effort of slowly painting on the logos onto the cups.. which trust me is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done due to how tiny i had to make the Starbucks cup in order to fit it onto the cupcake. Trust me, painting on the logo onto a cup that is smaller than my thumb is not the easiest thing to do. I could feel my hand shaking with each stroke of my brush and i had to hold my breath every time i lay brush to cup. Whew!! So once the cups were finished i began on the faces which took me longer than expected. Overall i was very satisfied with how they turned out Can any one guess which cupcake represents which girl in the photo? Haha.. a little hint *the cupcakes are arranged according to the sequence of the girls in the photo.

 From the photo, Amy is the girl on the top row extreme left and the birthday girl is the girl in the top row extreme right. So according to the cupcakes, Amy is also the girl on the top row extreme left Did any of you guess it right? :p

Anyway, here’s a shout out to the birthday girl, wishing her a very Happy Birthday. I hope all you guys liked the cupcakes!

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Natalie’s 1st Birthday cake!!

Well.. to start off this post, i just had to say that this past week has been a pretty slow week for me and the continued economic slowdown has been depressing me as well as my cakes apparently.. this was a chocolate cake i baked the other day.. apparently my mood was affecting my baking so that the cake ended up not rising and sinking ever so slightly in the middle… aargggh!!! :( Luckily it was just for us to eat at home so it wasn’t too bad :p

However, the week was soon looking up after I received an e-mail from Ko Chen. Ko Chen had stumbled across my cakes while surfing the net and asked if i could make her daughter’s 1st birthday cake for her. She had loved the pyjama themed cake I made for Valerie and wanted me to make Natalie’s 1st birthday cake for her. She even provided me with a picture of the cake she wanted!! Wow!! I was so impressed since it’s not easy looking after a 1 year old, working and still having to look for cake ideas on the net!!

Anyway after several discussions with her as to whether she should have a 2 tier cake or a 1 tier cake with cupcakes on the side, etc, Ko Chen finally decided on a 9″ cake with a little girl clutching Piglet and some complimenting cupcakes to finish it off. The reason for the Piglet, well it is Natalie’s favourite soft toy and she carries it whereever she goes so of course you had to have it on the topper right?! So after confirming the design with Ko Chen, I immediately started work on the cake topper. As usual I went on a hunt for ideas for a cute little girl topper and one of the first places i searched was to Lorraine McKay of course!!! Her cakes are a constant inspiration to me and I always hope that i would be able to someday make cakes as gorgeous as hers.  I’m still a long way off but i think I’m slowly getting better Guess what! I hit the jackpot on my first try.. Lorraine done a little girl topper that I thought would be perfect.. so using that as a model, i began modelling my own little Natalie clutching Piglet. This topper is, to date, the figurine with the most details I’ve ever attempted, and took me a good 3 days to complete to my satisfaction. So I was actually pretty happy with the way she turned out although i still think i need to improve on the face… :p

Oh and just for fun, i thought i’d show you a picture of how tall the little girl figurine is. That’s a Nivea lip gloss tube next to the little topper, and well.. i’d say she’s about the same size as that topper 

As for the cake itself, as I wanted it to look really sweet, and keep in line with Ko Chen’s request for flowers on the cake, I decided to use little flowers all around the border of the cake as well as having a matching border on the top of the cake. This was very time consuming to do as each individual flower had to be positioned on the cake exactly so to get the pattern and effect i wanted. Plus, to give the cake that extra shine, each individual flower had to be dusted with some luster dust to give it that nice glisten in the lights.

However, once everything was assembled i was very happy with the cake. And everything was even more worthwhile when i saw Ko Chen’s delighted expression with the cake I made. As for little Natalie, she was too distracted with my little schnauzer, Jasper, to look at the cake.. haha.. But all in all, seeing Ko Chen’s delight with the cake just made all the time and effort put into the cake worthwhile

Unfortunately for me, stupid little me forgot to take pictures of the little complimenting cupcakes i had made as well… they were on nutella cupcakes with piglet and little girls as toppers. Arrgghh.. Ko Chen do you have any pictures of the little cupcakes to share? :p

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