Secret Cake Business

Yesterday my Mum and Dad celebrated 50 wonderful years married.
They were not going to do anything to celebrate so I decided that at least we should get my brothers down from Christchurch and go out for a meal.  last Thursday mum rang and said her and dad had been thinking about it and since it was really a bit of a milestone she wondered if she should ring the "boys" and see if they would come down - so much for my surprise!
But I have been making them a card for a little while and so here is my effort:

So when you lift the lid off this is what is on the inside, I just LOVE the Mo Manning image of the "old couple" on the bench.  I have decided to enter this into the challenge this week as the theme is "travel" and they sure have travelled the last 50 years together!
My present for mum and dad was cake, made just like the one I had made in the card, right down to the pearls on the bottom.  I have to say a BIG thank you to Faye from Homestead Motel & Lodge (if you are in Timaru and need a great place to stay - here is the best)  Faye is the president of our local cake guild and showed me how to make the Mo Manning image in icing - not to mention advice on everything else as well - so from the bottom of my heart Faye - Thank you!
Here is my cake:

Mum & Dad today cutting the cake :-)

Last night our family went out for a lovely meal at the Steam on Inn at Pleasant Point - it was DELICIOUS beautiful meal and not to expensive, lovely open fire roaring and some Glen Campbell playing in the background - perfect for our occasion.

Today I had organised a "Surprise" afternoon tea for them at their place which I told them about last night, it was organised in a rush as I had been really busy the last couple of weeks making cakes, but we had about 30 for afternoon tea so this morning we made 4 dozen cupcakes, we had chocolate mint, chocolate caramel, carrot and cream cheese and boysenberry.  Abby helped me decorate and this is what we ended up with:

The photos don't show it that well but there was lovely little gold hearts sprinkled on the carrot cupcakes, the boysenberry had gold flowers and the caramel has the gold "50" we decided to do the bride and groom ones and in the middle is mum and dad's initials and the "50" years - 50 wonderful years is such an achievement but of course the best achievement was ME! ROFL.
My mum and dad mean the world to me, they love us all unconditionally and have ALWAYS been there when I have needed them and I am truley blesssed to have them as my parents - LOVE you mum and dad!

Thanks so much for popping in, have a great week!

Cheers

Rachel

Playing Cake

I have been busy for the last couple of weeks playing with trying to make a mountain bike cake.  WHAT a mission, the mountain bike I spent five nights putting together and in the end it broke and just had me beat!  So yesterday I made a make shift bike and ended up having to glue it to the side of the cake.
I made a three teared cake the bottom layer was chocolate with chocolate butter cream in layers, then carrot with cream cheese icing in layers and top was chocolate with gnache again in layers.
The cake ended up looking ok even though the day in the kitchen was a complete DISASTER!
My carrot cake broke in half (because i was impatient!) , the bike broke I honestly thought it was going to beat me, but in the end it looked ok!
Here is the picture of the man i was trying to copy:

 And here he is on his cake - not the best picture:

And here is the cake in full:

I have just had a txt to say it survived the car trip and i was most impressed, that it was still standing this morning lol.

Now I am off to do secret cake business again it will be a full on week and i will be able to share the card that I have made and hopefully the cake that will match the card!
Have a great week everyone!

Thanks so much for stopping on bye!

Rachel

Happy Mothers Day

To all you Mothers out there I hope you had a nice relaxing day doing what you best like to do!

I have spent the day catching up on the groceries and then playing in my "room".
But last night I made this card for my mum:

I just love this fairy from Mo's Digital images - she is just so "real"  Mum loved her card and I brought her 4 cushion's that she had seen at Smith City - lucky for me they were on special as at $40.00 each she would not have got the four that I managed to buy - now I am the favourite daughter - LOL I am the only daughter!
Abby made me a gorgeous card and a cd with my favourite music on it with a poem recorded in her voice with background music at the beginning of the cd, Jamie came home at tea time from work with a box of my favourite chocolates and they both gave me some cool new "icing toys" to play with also.
So to say I was spoilt is an understatement - lucky me :-)
I have been playing all afternoon and made a cyclist which is still drying but since this is my first "real" figure that I have made I am really happy - I will share with you later.  I also iced a two tier Christmas cake which I can't show you for a couple of weeks as it is a "surprise cake" for my family.
So that's all from me for now - happy mothers day and thanks so much for stopping on bye!

Rachel

Anzac Day

We have been watching some of the Anzac services that have been held around the country on the TV today and am amazed that this year the participation is up on previous years - which is great to see.  It is good to see that people don't forget what the solders did for us and our country.

I have a couple of things to share with you.   Last weekend I made a card - this one only took 2 hours that being said the image was previous coloured in, here it is:

See those very cool bling love hearts on there - they are Prima and Jo at Embellish It has just got them in her new shipment so hurry in and grab yours today!

I have also today been playing with some icing and trying to make a tabby cat with a bit of character here is what I have done:

Not exactually what i was after (and the bottom one needs some more eye liner lol!)  But i might give it another try - any sugestions please share!
If you would like to have a look at a tutorial that shows you how to make a pig - Zarlene does an awesome job, and thanks to Dianne I now have her on my blog reader so I don't miss any!

That's it from me - I hope you have all had a great day off and the weekend is now so much closer :-)

Thanks for stopping bye!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter :-)

I hope you are all having a fantastic break and are enjoying the fantastic weather out there.
I went for a run today just after 10am and could not believe that it was 21 degrees already - hence my 10km run ended up being a 6km one - far to hot for me!  Yesterday I had run hard trying to run my hubby down lol.  Nigel left 15 minutes after me, I did the 10km circuit and he did a 7km one that had us on the same roads, I was pretty happy with my time of just under 55 mins when I had several BIG hills, for those who live in Timaru I included Mountainview Road and Selwyn Street then the slow incline up Pages Road, so 55 mins I was happy with.  On the last leg back down our road I could see Nigel in front of me but my legs just could not speed up fast enough to run him down. So today my legs were screaming at me with the heat and the fact I had made them work hard for me the day before so my run was cut short, but I did also go for a 5km walk later in the day so I made up for the shortcut lol.

I have been busy this weekend and here are a couple of the things that I have been making, the above are creme egg cup cakes :-)  The icing is one that Bo - you would love it is a mixture of cream cheese icing and one made with golden syrup tasted similar to the cream egg filling.

These Easter eggs have Moro, Pinky's and M&M's inside them, the kids loved them, it has been a few years since I made them easter eggs and it was fun playing again!

This is a card that I have made for Mum, one of our family friend who I call Nana Lotti is turning 100 next weekend, and as you could imagine trying to buy a card is hard - they just don't seem to stock them - I am guessing they are not big sellers!  So I made one for mum as she is attending the 100th birthday party.
I hope nana lottie likes her card and has a fantastic birthday.

Well that's it for me - hoping to have a day playing tomorrow probably with icing as I brought some tutorials online and can't wait to have a bit of a play.

Have a great day tomorrow and if you are travelling home - be safe :-)

Thanks for dropping in

Rachel

Wow I can't Belive it!

I can't believe it but I've received a blog award.  The lovely Rachel from Lerwick in Shetland has chosen me to receive this award.  Here is a run down on the award:

The origins of the Liebster Blog Award are somewhat unclear but the general consensus is that it originated in Germany, Liebster meaning favourite or dearest, to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. Upon accepting the award the recipient must then pass it on to five more blogs of note

Here's what to do on receiving your Award
1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
3. Copy and paste their blog award on your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Blog award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve recognition
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

 

Here are the well deserved blogs (in no particular order) I have chosen to pass the award to :

 

Diane - Today for Tomorrow 

Trace - Just Because

Sonya-  Pickles Patch

Jo - Jo-Jo's Crafty Place

Claire Murphy

Congrats ladies - I hope you are as excited as I was to think that someone thought enough of me to give me this award!

Hope you are all having a great weekend and thanks so much for stopping by!

Rachel

La La-la la la!

WOW it has been SO hot here tonight - it is the summer that we thought we had lost!

Last night and this morning I have been helping Abby make her cake for her School Fairs, cake walk.
When I was making the character for the last cake Abby had a play and made a Smurf (hence the title as she has been singing that ALL morning). So when school needed a cake we decided to use her icing smurf and make a smurf mushroom house:  Here is how it turned out:

I thought we did a good job, and the school ladies were impressed they decided that it looked to good for the "cake walk" so they did it up in cellophane (thanks Tracey) and they are going to put it in the Auction instead!
It is actually 2 chocolate cakes (well with some left over after we carved it!)
Abby did so well learning to pipe and coming up with some great ideas on how to assemble the cake - it was harder than it looked!

Also this is a box I made a few weeks ago that I made for one of my mum's friends. Jennifer has been so kind to me. I brought an expensive duvet cover from Harvey Norman about 3-4 years ago and refused to put it on my bed until our bedroom was done (just over a year ago) now this beautiful bedspread is satin and it keeps on falling apart (and I paid GOOD money just under $300-00) but because i had it in storage for so long meant i could not take it back and complain. So Mrs T as i call her, keeps sewing it up for me - it has been back like about 5 times and that won't be the last! So I made this box and filled it with my home made cards for all occasions and told her when it gets empty just bring the box back and I will fill it again!  Here is the box:

Again I was quite happy how this turned out as it was an Rachel original!

Well that's it from me, hopefully you are all having a great weekend and thanks so much for stopping by!


Rachel