Rylee's birthday party!

My baby (who told me today that she was NOT a baby) turns 3 next Monday but we had her birthday party this past weekend.

I did her theme in cherry blossoms and tried to incorporate that as much as I could into the party. For a more detailed look at the celebration, please visit madefromtickytacky.blogspot.com.

Now, on to the pastries!

The cookie favors:

Every year I do a cookie favor or two to give out to the guests as a way of saying thanks. The kids get their little favor boxes but we have plenty of adults who come to celebrate Rylee's birth (and several that don't even have kids!) and I feel like they should walk away with something as well.

This year I did cherry blossoms and silhouette cookies.

Unwrapped:





Wrapped/tagged:





Many thanks to Rodney who did a great job with the silhouette cookie cutter! Such a talented guy that husband of mine is...

The cake!

The idea for this cake came from one of many hours that I have spent perusing the cake-lined pages of CakeCentral (even though I have not been able to upload to that site for a year and a half because I have a Mac and they refuse to fix that bug, I still get inspiration almost daily from the many pictures that ARE able to be put up on that site). I wanted something that was a little more modern and bright than just regular cherry blossoms on piped on a cake so I based this design off of one that I'd seen that was similar.



The bottom tier is vanilla cake with whipped lemon curd buttercream and the top is vanilla with strawberry buttercream. The entire thing is covered in vanilla buttercream. The "R" on top and the leaves are fondant and I piped all of the details in vanilla b/c as well.

I'm very pleased with the way this cake turned out and Rylee absolutely loved it. She was so excited. I think this is the first year she actually understands what a birthday is and how it works. And I'm pretty sure this was a big deal for her because cakes are a dime a dozen around here and NONE of them are ever for her. She constantly asks if the cake I am working on is for her and the answer she always gets is, "No baby this cake is for so and so." This week the answer was, "YES! Rylee, this is YOUR birthday cake!" She was proud.

There were a lot of other things I did with this party so if you want to check it out, please head on over to my other blog!

End of the cake class & trial cookies

This Monday marked the last day of the cake decorating series that I taught here in my home (we will have a makeup class, date TBD).

What a great experience it was for me! I had a lot of fun sharing and helping others do things that most had not tried before. We covered mostly the basics of cake decorating and I tried to incorporate tricks and hints that I have learned over the last few years. All of the girls were great and such a pleasure to work with, I hope you all took something away from the class!

I definitely learned a lot in regards to how much work doing something like this is and I know there will be some things that I take out/add for any future classes.

Anyway, this was a lot of fun for me -- showing someone else how to do something is a great way of perfecting techniques and slowing things down a bit.

I've had a few people ask me about future classes and I definitely want to do a few more. I would love to do a more advanced class for those who don't want/need the basic stuff. (or for those who just really enjoy working with fondant/royal icing). I know that I'm definitely going to do two cookies classes when the holidays roll around. If anyone is interested in more classes or starting a new class, please let me know!

Even though this series was primarily for cake, the last week was all about cookies. I decided to throw cookies in because they are fun and it's something I really enjoy doing.

While the girls were VERY QUIETLY working on their cookies (that's not a joke, it was so quiet in here you could hear a pin drop), I worked on a few of my own. A friend of mine (whose daughter was in my class) has decided to do a cherry blossom theme for her upcoming birthday. Anyone out there that knows me, knows that I just LOVE this idea. Cherry blossoms are a favorite of mine. Anyway, I decided to make these cookies (I saw a similar design somewhere) because cherry blossoms were fresh on my mind that day.



I love the way they turned out! I'm thinking of stealing this theme and using it for Rylee's birthday if only for the cookies! I planned on doing a silhouette cookie favor already (I always give out two packaged cookies as favors for her birthdays) and I think this cookie will pair nicely. I love the sky blue and pink, love it!

*Next week brings a cake that I am very excited about. I think it's going to turn out beautifully (just so happens that I will be attending the soiree along with the hubster - which I'm sure will have me on edge the entire time up until they cut the cake, hooray for mixed drinks) and I'm very excited to get started on it!