Audrey Cate

I'd like to take a moment and welcome the newest member of the Williams family to the world.  Audrey Cate, was born Saturday morning to her proud parents, Bryan and Anna.  Little miss Audrey was ready to come see us, a little sooner than we expected, but we're glad she's here.  She is doing well and gets to see her parents twice a day.  Would you please pray for her over the next few weeks as she gains her strength and grows bigger?  Thank you so much!

Lights! Camera! Action!

I did it!  My first, real cake order that was going to someone not in my "inner" circle, therefore making it a real cake order.  A few weeks ago a lady who is moving to Saudi Arabia with us saw a picture of one of my cakes on Facebook and asked if I would be willing to make a cake for her daughter's 9th birthday.  I said yes, of course, just so that I could practice with cake decorating.  She told me their party was going to be at the movies and she wanted to know if I could make a cake in the shape of a popcorn container.  I did some research and decided that I would use her popcorn container idea as the cake topper and make a cake that had edible pieces surrounding it.   Here is what it looked like!!!

 

I took a class on fondant and gumpaste about a month ago and learned how to make homemade fondant which tastes 10X better than the store bought kind in a box (not to be confused with Satin Ice's brand in the containers).  Anyways, I drew out my pieces and began working on them early in the week so they would have plenty of time to dry by Friday.  The movie ticket, reel, and clapper are 100% fondant.  I used rice krispie treats as the structure for the popcorn container and sealed it with royal icing (to keep the RKT from shifting), gave it a layer of butter cream, then covered it in white fondant and added the red stripes.  The popcorn was miniature marshmallows cut up and sprayed with yellow icing coloring called color mist.  

Since the birthday girl was turning 9, I tried "diva-ing" the cake up with a red carpet and made miniature fondant balls to look like lights.  The border of the cake had alternating colored stars and bigger stars were put on the side of the cake! It took some time to cut out each one of these pieces, but it was worth it! The little girls face was PRICELESS!!   

Now, I can't go through this post without mentioning that Brooks helped with this cake, just like he helps with all my other cakes.  Brooks, being an engineer, has an eye for straight lines, the ability to calculate ratios,  determine proportion sizes, and pays very, very, very close attention to the small details.  Therefore, when it was time to place the popcorn label on the front of the container, he got that job!!!  He did an awesome job measuring out the distance from the stripes to the circular label, did some cutting, then gluing (with food safe glue of course) and VOILA... it turned out perfect!!  I even let Brooks ice the edges of my cakes because he can get them to be exact angles and smooth as can be. He is really talented with it!  Thanks babe for all your help!  I couldn't have done it with out you and thanks for being so understanding that the house wasn't cleaned, didn't get picked up, and no laundry was done all week.  I appreciate you more than you know!

Heads up: my next cake is due April 10th and it's for a crawfish boil.  I can't wait to show you what's happening with that cake.

I totally had a.....

A New Moon Party.  

So, unless you've been living under a rock (as I was told over a year ago), you've probably heard of the Twilight Series books by Stephanie Meyer.  It's about a "love" triangle between a girl and two guys, who just so happen to be a vampire and a warewolf... I know, I know... dumb, right!?  That's what I thought until I spent 2 months listening to all 4 books on my IPOD (I downloaded them from http://www.audible.com/) and became hooked.  They are really, really easy books to read and the authors use of writing is intriguing and catching.  Well,  a majority of my friends are into these books and we've invested in many discussions about our thoughts and feelings on the characters and their "story".  New Moon (book #2) came out on DVD this past weekend so I decided to throw a New Moon party.  The whole reason I decided to have a New Moon Party in the first place was all because I saw pictures of Twilight/New Moon inspired cakes online for a cake contest and decided that I wanted to try and make one of the cakes, not for the contest, just at home... therefore, I needed to throw a party!  

Here is the cake.... because of this...

I made invitations, a banner, cake, found downloadable quote signs and put into frames, had door prizes, made a trivia quiz, and pretty much themed everything around the book (welcome sign, bandaids, food, etc).  The sign at my front door was copied from the City of Forks actual sign (where the movie takes place).  I used copies of the books, candles, and apples as part of my decorations.  All my guests received the New Moon soundtrack, as well as a goody bag with lipstick, nail polish, and sweets (all of which, went with the story line of some sort).  I absolutely had a blast planning this party and putting it together.  I had even more fun getting to hang out with all my sweet, sweet friends.  Several of the girls had never read the books or seen the movies, but came anyways for the girl time.  A few of them left, with copies of the books and asking to borrow the movies.  They may get hooked if they aren't careful.  Of course, after we ate, played trivia, and gave away door prizes, we watched the movie New Moon.  It was fun to listen to girls giggle over silly parts in the movie.  

I must say that I did go over the top for this... a few people, including my wonderful husband, mentioned several times that I have too much time on my hands to have been able to do all that I did, however, I'd like to think I was just focused with my time.  Brooks was wonderful throughout the party planning, creating, decorating, etc and I'm grateful that he was willing for me to do all of this for my awesome friends.  It was a fun party and a blast spending time with everyone.  Now, if only June 30th will get here!  

PS: If you know of anyone who is in need of any New Moon/Twilight decorations please tell them to call me. 

Kids these days...

A few weeks ago, Anna and David (my sister in law and nephew) came to Houston for a few days while my brother was out of town.  We had a fun time shopping and hanging out together.  The boys played around and got to spend some time with Kimmie and got spoiled, of course!  

Last weekend the weather here in Houston was BEAUTIFUL!!!  Gavin has loved getting to play outside and run around.  Here is my new favorite picture of Gavin... he looks like a little boy (no baby in him at all) in this picture.  By the way, he is so proud every time he gets to wear those crocs.  It's precious.

I meant to post this pic on St. Patrick's Day, but was busy making a cake and planning a party (pics and post about that to come soon) that I wasn't on my computer much.  Gavin was willing to stop sweeping the kitchen floor for me to take a picture of him.

This weekend my brother Kyle, sister in law, Liz and their daughter, Neve, came to visit us before going to the rodeo on Saturday.  Gavin and Neve played all day with each other, sharing toys, chasing each other, swinging, etc.  We even took a walk around the block with them in a double stroller (Bryan and Anna bought it from my neighbors who had a garage sale a week or two ago and it hasn't made it's way to LC yet) and they loved it.  We had a blast watching Gavin and Neve taking turns with the toys... of course, if one of them was playing with a toy the other one wanted that same toy... go figure, huh!?!?  We were glad Kyle and Liz got to come and stay with us.  It was a fun and eventful weekend!  Neve even helped me decorate the cake I made for my party Saturday night.  That girl can use those cookie cutters!  

Cricut Time

Did you read my post last week about a Cricut Machine?  It's used for cutting out words, letters, designs, etc onto scrapbook paper.  If you've never heard of it and are an avid scrapbook person OR are into crafts, this is the machine for you.  I have a Cricut Expressions which can cut 12x12 paper, it can also cut vinyl, and other materials.  I LOVE IT and am really starting to use it more and more.  In the beginning I used it just on pages in Gavin's scrapbook, but then I used it to make two banners for different parties (I'll show those later), as well as invitations for a party I'm throwing next week.  I was at Hobby Lobby looking for black cards and envelopes and found a pack of beige cards and had the idea to make my own greeting cards using my Cricut, too.  So, in one day's sitting I decided to tackle these projects all at once.  I loved getting to use my different cartridges and try new things with the Cricut.  

Here are two of the cards I made so far!   

   

Can you guess what this invitations for? I'll tell you more about this later... let's just say March 20th can't get here soon enough!

By the way, if you have a Cricut of any kind and are tired of buying cartridges for $60-80, there is a program called Sure Cuts a Lot... it's a computer program you purchase and download onto your computer. It allows you to use any standing font that is on your computer (which means you can download any free font and your Cricut can cut something out for you using that font).  You just hook your Cricut up to your computer and VOILA... there's the program!  Try googling Sure Cuts a Lot and search for coupons and deals.  

While we're talking about fonts... I'm always looking for cute fonts to put on my computer (especially when I was teaching) and I've come across some websites that have a lot of different types of fonts that are free!!!

Check out www.fontface.com , enter the website, then search font archive.  You can click on any letter and it gives you all the fonts that start with that letter.  Download them to your computer and voila!

I also found this website that has a TON of FREE and really cute fonts that you can download to your computer AND incorporate it into your blog.  This site has some really good ones.  The website explains how to download them to your computer and use in blogger.  I hope that you find these as useful as I have.  Enjoy!   http://kevinandamanda.com/fonts/fontsforpeas/

Birthday Celebration

Last Monday was Brooks 26th Birthday and it seems we celebrated all week.  On Monday, while Brooks' mom was still in town we had a birthday dinner with chicken enchiladas and birthday cake.  Brooks was blessed with money for his birthday, a super hero card from Gavin, and tickets to see the Houston Rockets vs. Los Angeles Lakers basketball team this month!  He was really excited.  My favorite part of his birthday was being at his office (for my Saudi Wives Meeting) and we got to see each other!!  Here are some pics from Brooks' day.

Friday night, we went to dinner with some friends to celebrate Brooks' birthday.  It was a blast.  We loved hanging out and visiting with everyone.  Here's Brooks and our friend Nathan.  

All in a Day's Work....

The title of my post says All in a Day's Work, but I actually meant to write All in a Week's Work.  I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this week making icing, baking cakes, and experimenting with fondant (I tried making my own- it was an interesting process and one that I plan on learning more about in the days to come).  I actually have 4 cakes scheduled from now until the middle of April (two of which are commissioned) so if you need me I'll be in the kitchen!  

Have you heard about a Cricut Machine?  It's an electronic machine that allows you to cut out words, letters, designs, images, etc from scrapbook paper to use instead of stickers.  It's really neat and has a lot of potential to make some really cool things.  It doesn't have to be used just for scrapbook pages, as I'll show you in a future post.  Anyways, Cricut, is coming out with a machine called Cricut Cake.  I've been really interested in seeing how it's used and what it can produce on cakes and I've been very impressed with it's capabilities.  I'm not very good with hand work, so the idea that a machine can cut out words and designs for me.... YES, please!  I'll take it.  The only problem is it's like $500 and since I'm NOT planning on opening up a shop, I don't think I'll be pre-ordering one.  However,  I recently learned that the Cricut Machine I have has the ability to cut gum paste and fondant using a different blade and tweaking a cutting mat.  I'm sooooo wanting to try it out on my machine and have been doing a lot of research about it.  I'm in the process of getting some needed supplies to try it out!  I just have to decide if I'm willing to take off a few rollers from my Cricut and I'm not quite sure I'm willing to do that.  We will see though.  

To get back to what I did this week, sorry,....

I had a meeting on Monday for just the wives going overseas so I decided to make a cake for the event!  I didn't tell anyone I was bringing it so all the women were surprised!  It was a fun cake for me to make and it was my first sheet cake... isn't that odd?  

I also made Brooks his own personal cake for his birthday.  Out of all the things I could have done, he wanted a white cake, with white icing for the borders, and the base to be teal.  Random, but it's what he wanted so that's what he got!  

However, since we were having a birthday party with our friends I got to make another cake! I wanted to make a more elaborate cake so I decided to try out carving a shaped cake.  Brooks always wears ties to work.  Everyday, no matter what, he has a tie on.  NO ONE in his office wears ties.  At several company meetings that I've attended, many of the men have commented on Brooks' ties!  So, for his birthday, I made him a neck tie cake!  I picked out one of his favorite ties and recreated the cake to copy the tie!  I think it turned out cute!

Here's the tie I used... what do you think?