TamaraLynCakes

There has been a whole slew of cakes over the last year that I have not posted about, but I figured I could at least post some pics and little about them now.  Where to begin…

Cupcake Fun

  Hello Kitty

  Glamor night

Movie night popcorn boxes

Gotta love the mouse…Chuck E Cheese!

“You saved our lives.  We are eternally grateful!”

Baby Showers

Birthday Cakes

My daughter’s first slumber party – American Girl style!

Let’s bowl, let’s bowl, let’s rock and roll!

And last but not least, the very special first birthday of sweet Eli.  The last post I made over a year ago before my long break was about a baby shower for a dear friend who was having her first baby.  It is hard to believe how much time has gone by, but Eli turned 1 back in February.  Well, technically he didn’t have a birthday because he is leap baby!  It has been a privileged and a joy to get to watch this little boy grow over the last year and watch him with lots of firsts.  He holds a special place in my heart and I love him like a nephew, so of course I wanted to make his birthday cake!  It matched the hat he wore on his big day.  Too bad I don’t have a picture of him with the cake. 

It’s been a great year and I enjoyed the break from cake making for a bit, but it feels good to get back into the creative swing of things!

It has been a while since I have made any cakes.  It has been even longer since I last posted about them!  I have been very busy lately and given that this is more of a hobby than anything else at this point, other things had to take precedence.  I have been so absent from the cake world lately that a little rumor somehow got started that I was no longer making them.  I was highly amused by an email I received from a friend recently lamenting the fact that I no longer made cakes.  She went on and on about how she “needed” me to at least make and sell my icing to her!  She was happy to learn I was not “out of business” and a few days later I had her here at my house looking through my freezer for any “spare” icing I might have.  We joked that I was her dealer, feeding her icing habit.  LOL!!  Tracy may have an addiction to vanilla buttercream, but she is one stellar photographer!  Check out her website and give her a call if you are looking to have family pictures taken soon!  Ok, enough teasing!

I of course have made a few cakes here and there for my kids and their birthdays and I will post all of those cakes in the days to come.  But for now, I wanted to share a cake I just made for a little boy who just turned 4.  He was having a hot wheels party, so of course the cake needed to match the theme.  Of course, as soon I heard the theme, ideas started running through my head.  It felt good to jump back in and have fun with this cake.  I think it turned out adorable and his mommy told me it was the best cake ever!  I love putting that kind of smile on people’s faces!!

I was so excited this past fall when some of our good friends told us they were going to have their first baby. It has been so much fun to share in their joy throughout the last several months. As she got closer to her due date, I had the privilege of helping to host a baby shower for Ellie. They found out back in the fall that they were having a boy. Ellie is very creative and likes to sew and has worked as an interior designer. You can imagine all the cute things she has done for the nursery!! When she decided to go with a safari theme, it sent my mind on all kinds of little rabbit trails of ideas I could do for her cake. But in the end, I found the perfect plates and napkins for her shower and that became the inspiration for her cake. As with all my cakes, my heart and soul was in every little detail. It is always special for me to make cakes for people as they celebrate important occasions, but all the more so when it is a dear friend. I think this cake turned out very cute, but cutting all the stripes and spots was definitely a labor of love!!

I was truly thankful for the opportunity to help celebrate this exciting time for Ellie and Keith.  I was also glad we had the shower when we did because baby Eli decided to make an early entrance into the world!!  He is 7 weeks old today and I don’t know how, but he gets cuter and cuter every time I see him!!

Welcome to the world sweet Eli!!  We love you buddy!

February was a busy month for me…I made 4 different cakes in 3 weeks.  For this busy stay at home mom who does this more as a hobby than anything else, that was a lot!!  But of course, I loved it.  When a friend came to me and asked if I could make cakes for all 3 of her girls for their birthdays, which were all very close together, I just couldn’t say no.  For me, it was all or nothing and I had to go for “all.”  All three girls had a very specific idea of what theme and color scheme they wanted to go with, but beyond that, I got to let my creativity take over.  I had so much fun creating each of these special cakes for the precious girls.

Ava is their oldest and she envisioned a winter themed party…blue and snowflakes.  I loved the idea and I am happy with how it turned out.  I tried really hard to stay true to nature and make every snowflake different.  That was not very easy coming up with different ideas, which just truly highlighted to me the vast creativity of our amazing God!

Elana: Glam Party – She was all about girly, pink, zebra print glamorous fun.  After playing around with several different ideas, I finally came up with the perfect glam cake.

I was so happy with how all the little details and all the pieces came together.  I love this little purse!

Lastly, “Princess Annelise” – a castle for the little princess who turned 5!  This one speaks for itself. 

The look on Annelise’s face gave me such joy!  I love being able to make people feel that way about a cake.    I am so glad I had the chance to do this for Tammy and her sweet girls!!!

Cake number 4 was a baby shower for a dear friend…stay tuned for more!!

My second daughter turned 8 this summer.  This year we decided to do something a little more extravagant for our kids’ birthdays than we normally do.  Tyler had a gymnastics party and Kami got to take her friends ice skating.  As we were talking about what to do for Madison’s party at the end of the summer, we came across a great groupon for a birthday party at an indoor swimming pool.  It seemed like the perfect party, with one exception – Madi didn’t want a pool party!  I was bummed because I had visions of flip flop cupcakes all planned out in my head already.  Instead of swimming, she wanted to go rock climbing.  Really?  Rock climbing?  How in the world am I going to make a them cake for a rock climbing party (after all, it’s really about the cake, right?)?  But rock climbing she wanted, so it was rock climbing she got.  At first I thought I would just cop out and make cupcakes and some cute little topper for them, but my sweet husband said, “why don’t you make a rock wall?”  I thought, “Umm, because I have no idea how to construct a rock wall?!?!”  But, I set my creative juices working and I have to say I am very proud of what I came up with.  Steve says it’s my best one yet…but he is biased!

As in the past, I cannot take credit for the adorable “fondant Madi” on the cake – that was the handiwork of my friend Jamie Tanner.  She did such a great job making it look as much like my sweet girl as possible, and I have say, I think she did a fabulous job!!    Here is a close-up alongside one of Madi with the cake.

As I’ve said before…the joy on the face of my baby girl says it all!! 

So, after Madison chose rock climbing over the great pool party deal, I forgot about my cute flip flop cupcakes.  But then one of my good friends told me her daughter was going to have a pool party for her birthday (gotta LOVE groupon!) and wanted to know if I could make some cute flip flop cupcake toppers!!  I guess this is where it would be appropriate to say I got to have my cake and eat it too!!    Sorry…couldn’t resist that one!

After getting one of the napkins she was going to use, my mind starting to spin with all the different color combinations I could make for these little flip flops.  I had so much fun this week making them and putting all the little special touches on them.  Kayla was thrilled with them and was excited to pick out the perfect pair to sit on top of her cupcake. 

I LOVE being able to do this!!!!

I love girly things and all things pink.  It is so much fun when I have the opportunity to create something special for the girlyest of little girls.  Back in May, I was asked to make a My Little Pony cake – and not just any pony, Pinkie Pie.  If you have little girls, you probably know all about the special ponies and how each one is unique, from the color variations in the mane down to their “cutie mark,” which is a tatoo of sorts on their side distinguishing them from the other ponies.  I was given specific instructions that it had to be Pinkie Pie and she HAD to have her cutie mark.  Plus, the cake needed to be pink (very reminiscent of the book Pinkalicious)!    SO I went to work on making sure I had all my research done so I could get all the details just right.  I knew that this little girl would notice if anything was amiss.    After all was said and done, I was happy with how Pinkie Pie turned out.  And, if a little girls’ face is any indication, I hit my mark.  Emma was thrilled and the joy on her face when she saw her cake was worth it all…I LOVE making people happy with my creations!!!

After my 9 month hiatus, it has felt really good to jump back into my cake batter and buttercream world.  Even with the aching hands and mind swirling with details, I have loved putting my creativity back to work.  I have been able to make two cakes in the last few weeks for some very special events.  The first was for the daughter of a friend who was taking her first communion.  I was honored that she would ask me to be, in a small way, a part of this special even in her daughter’s life.  I was glad I was able to find the time to help her out.

First Communion

The other cake I made was for a dear friend, Jamie.  She has three boys 5 and under and she is pregnant with her fourth child…a GIRL!!!!  We are all so excited about this sweet baby girl that the Lord is blessing this family with and we couldn’t wait to celebrate her.  When plans were being made for throwing a baby shower, Jamie called me and asked me if I would make the cake for the shower.  It was a very sweet request that I could not refuse.  In  her words…”I would much rather have you make a gorgeous very personal cake for the shower than just some stranger at a bakery.”  It was so much fun to come up with something that I thought Jamie would love and that went along with the theme of baby Elleanor’s room.

Cherry Blossoms

It has been a busy few weeks but I have enjoyed it so much!!  I have one more cake I am making this week and then I will take a little break for the summer.

It has been quite a while since I sat down to enjoy posting about cakes I have done.  Actually, it has been a long time since I really had any cakes to write about.  The last 9 months, I have been taking a much needed break and trying to cut out a few of the extras in my life.  While cake designing and decorating has becoming a fabulous creative outlet for me, it was also, in some ways, the most extraneous thing in my life.  So, in early September, I went on a temporary retirement of sorts.    Over the last 8 or 9 months, there have been a few cakes I have done that I thought I would share with you now.

Gymnastics Abounds

This cake for for a good friend’s daughter…

This was for my son’s 5th birthday.  He has been taking gymnastics this past year and he is loving it!!

Birthday on Ice

My oldest turned 9 this spring and she wanted to go ice skating with her friends.  I had a lot of fun with these cupcakes…simple yet elegant for my sweet girl.  I made the ice skates out of royal icing and “painted” the blades and laces with silver.  Then I sprinkled the cupcakes with with edible confetti.  They turned out perfect!!

I also had a fun opportunity this past spring.  A friend has two daughters that have birthdays really close together and they asked her if they could have a cake decorating party.  She called me to see if this would be something I would be interested in helping with.  I said absolutely and I am glad I did.  It was SO much fun!!    I got to teach the girls a little bit about decorating and show them how to make several different fun cupcakes.  We made watermelon slices, flowers and then did initials and other fun fondant cutouts on another.  I did the watermelon slices another time with my MOPS group and this is a picture from then.  They are so adorable!!!

I have done a few more cakes recently…I will have to save that for another post, another day.  Until then, happy baking!!

Double 7′s

Before we get to the cake, we have to take a stroll down memory lane.  The summer of 2003 was a long hot summer in Texas as I neared the end of my second pregnancy.  We were living overseas at the time but had returned to the states to give birth.  It was an especially fun time to be pregnant because my sister-in-law was also pregnant with her first.  It was a race to the finish as we both tried to survive the heat…maybe I remember incorrectly, or maybe it was just being pregnant, but it seems like we had record breaking temps.  Of course, it seems we have record breaking temps in Texas every summer anymore.

Here we are a few weeks from delivery – weren’t we cute? 

I made it to the finish line first, but only by a few days.  On August 8th, my daughter, Madison, was born and her sweet cousin, Jackson, followed just 5 days later.  It was so fun to be sitting in the waiting room (the very one where all our family sat just 5 days earlier) with my own 5 day old baby awaiting the birth of my first nephew.  It was such a special experience to be pregnant at the same time.  We would go shopping together in those first few weeks with the babies and people would “ooh” and “ahh” over them.  They would say, “Oh, cute…twins!”  We would smile and respond, “No, cousins, 5 days apart.”  It was then that we started calling them the “twin cousins.”  This was taken when they were just a few weeks old.

It is always special for Madi and Jackson when we get to celebrate their birthdays together.  We were visiting family a few weeks ago right before their birthdays and we got have a little party for them.  Of course, I had to make a cake!  I wanted to do something simple and cute so we came up with the idea of “7″ cupcakes.  If you have never seen the pull apart cakes before, they are a stroke of genius for birthday parties – cupcakes laid in a shape and iced as one cake.  You get the benefit of a cute decorated cake, but the ease of cupcakes!  This was the first time I had made them and they were so much fun.

Splish Splash

After we returned home from all our travels, it was time to plan our own birthday party for Madison.  We decided to have a good ‘ole backyard splash party.  We played all kinds of fun water games, had a water balloon fight and best of all, a slip n’ slide!  As I thought about the party, I came up with this cake design, complete with “fondant Madi!”  I was really pleased with how it turned out and most importantly, the birthday girl LOVED it!!  Although I have to admit, it was a bit strange when Madison was asking, “Can I please eat my head?!?!”

Lots of fun cakes and another one coming soon…

Wow!!  The last three months have flown by as we spent time traveling, seeing friends and family and trying to survive the Texas heat.    I have had the chance to do several cakes this summer, but not had time to write about them and post pictures.  So, this will be one long post about them all. 

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo

This cute little train cake was for a friend whose son was turning 2.  She made the invitations herself and they were so cute I tried to model the cake after them.  I love being able to use invitations and party themes to create my cake designs!

Eiffel Tower

I was asked to do the cake for a baby shower for a gal who was pregnant with her fifth child…it was a girl after having 4 boys!!  As you can imagine, they went ALL pink.  They were doing a Paris theme so and they wanted cupcakes along with a small cake for her take home after the shower.  I came up with the idea of doing a little Eiffel Tower on top of the small cake and decorate the cupcakes in shades of pink.  I LOVE how this turned out – so beautiful and elegant for the little princess!!

I loved the picture of the table of all the food and cakes at the shower – it was so pretty all together.

Pretty in Pink

I have a very dear friend who is getting married in October who used to live here in Austin.  She came back for a visit this summer and we decided to throw her a lingerie shower.  I had fun trying to create some cute and tasteful pieces to go on our cupcake tower…the hangers were my favorite! 

It’s been fun summer but it’s back to school today for the kids.  Stay tuned, I will post pictures from my middle daughter’s birthday soon.