The Sweet Life

Wow! (Part 2)

2010-11-29T14:25:00.000-08:00

To continue yesterday's post, I will start off with a Halloween order. For a little girl turning 3, I made a cute little 6" double layer cake with a bat just for her. Her Mom wanted a cutesy bat, nothing scary. I think she's pretty cute :)

Since Tristyn got a cake all for herself, I made a plateful of chocolate dipped pretzel rods, decorated with Halloween colors, and added some of the leftover pumpkin candies (from the pumpkin patch cake orders) to make it extra cute.

I also made LOTS of cake ball truffles!! They were having an all day birthday party, lots of people coming and going, so she wanted enough to feed everyone.

There were at least 80 on this plate!!

The next order was for a friend's anniversary. She wanted to surprise her husband with a small cake. When she first ordered it, she said she wanted something cute and simple, and I quote, "Like a 6" cake, half chocolate half pinapple cake with bright pink cotton candy icing, a fondant monkey on the top and little cake golf balls around the edge of it. Oh and can it say 'lets go boating'?"...I thought she was serious LOL!!! So, this is what I made instead...and by the way, it's red velvet, not half chocolate and half pineapple!

With the leftover batter I had from the red velvet cake, I tried something NEW. I had no idea how these would turn out, or how they would taste, and that's the important thing! But really, how can you go wrong with chocolate?!

They were a big hit! They tasted great and looked beautiful! I have made them a few times since, and even filled some with cream cheese icing, and WOW were those good!!

Next, I made a little girl's first birthday cake and smash cake. I had made this one before, only in boy colors. They are to match a party napkin, plate and decor set you can order. They turned out so cute! And the little girl completely demolished her smash cake!!

Next I did a set of pink and green cupcakes with the pretty little pearl candies on them for a baby shower! Those little candy pearls are popular! And I love them!

When I worked at Kroger, we did many, MANY Sponge Bob cakes, it almost became monotonous. Airbrush a cake yellow, slap some flotsam arms, legs, face, and the pants on him and call him D-O-N-E! So I was really excited to make one without the luxury of an airbrush machine or plastic pieces to complete Sponge Bob's square physique :) I was a little stumped with what I'd do about his nose. I thought about that for at least a week, and still didn't have a plan even when I started decorating the cake. Then it hit me like a ton of, well, pretzels! I colored some melted white chocolate yellow, and dipped a pretzel in several times, and, VOILA! I had a nose!

And lastly, I made another set of cupcakes for a girl at our church. She just had a sweet baby girl, and they had a Sip-n-See baby shower for her. These also had the pretty pearl candies on them, and sadly, I ran out while finishing the cupcakes! Only one sad little cupcake went without the pearls, so I guess it was ok :) You can see the invitation in the top part of the picture, I did my best to match the colors from it. They were pink, aqua, orange and green.

And now I think I am all caught up. I will be taking December off so I can spend my down time with my family and enjoy the holidays. I do have a few orders, but they will be the only ones I am taking for December. I will be back as of Jan. 1, 2011. If you need something, book a few weeks in advance because my weekends book up quickly! Thanks so much!

~Sara

Wow!

2010-11-28T19:20:00.001-08:00

Has it really been 2 months since I last posted?? My goodness, time flies!! Well, I have been super busy, and I am anxious to show you what I've been up to :)

First, I made a little girl's first birthday cake, but it wasn't your ordinary theme! I loved her Mom's idea of something fall/Halloween-y themed, but not scary, so I came up with a pumpkin patch, and I used the little candy pumpkins and pretzel sticks to complete the look. It was great! And I even got an order a week later for the SAME cake for someone else (pics of that one will come later)! We joked that she started a trend :)

Next, I had a friend want me to make her girl's each a cake of their own for their birthdays, and cupcakes to share with the rest of the party. The girls are not twins, but their birthdays are close together. Such sweet little girls, too, and they are growing up way too fast!

The cakes really are both the same size, they just don't look like it here!

Here is the other pumpkin patch cake I made, (the second order I mentioned above). This one I added a bat to one corner.

The next order I had was for a set of 3 cakes for a bridal shower. My friend sent me a picture of the napkins that they would use at the shower...

And these are what I came up with...

They were a labor of love, I tell ya! I was really proud of how they all turned out; probably some of the most detailed work I've ever done :)

The next order was very, VERY special. A dear friend and her husband have been working on adopting for about a year. They had finished up all their paperwork, jumped through all the hoops they were told to jump through, yadda yadda yadda, and they get "the phone call" telling them that they were finally getting their little girl. My friend and I were already friends, but since I am adopted, I feel kind of connected to her somehow, just from the other side of things...I really hope that makes sense! Watching her become a new Mommy has been nothing short of amazing. Even though her circumstances were not the same as my parents circumstances, and her daughter's situation was not the same as mine, it gave me a new insight into what my parents went through, and how they felt. So, after her daughter was finally here, her friends had a baby shower for her, and since the little girl's favorite things are Mickey & Minnie Mouse, that's what kind of cake she wanted :) In the picture, the figurines were not placed on the stars because I didn't want them to fall over in transport, just use your imagination! (The name has been edited for privacy).

They also had some yummy chocolate dipped pretzel rods to go with their cake :)

Ok, that's got you updated to about the middle of October LOL! I will have to continue this post another day. Until then, thanks for checking in!!

~Sara

Some of my most recent cakes

2010-09-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone :) Here's what I've been busy with the past couple of weekends!

First off, my little girl turned 3!! I can't even believe it - I'm a little sad. She is growing up SO fast, and I know as she gets older, the time will fly by even faster! I had a hard time deciding between Hello Kitty and Miss Spider and the Sunny Patch Kids. Hello Kitty won :) I was a huge Hello Kitty person when I was a little girl, so I made her the cake I would have loved to have as a child. It was a strawberry cake - pink, to match the colors of the cake :) She LOVED it!! It was a small 6" one layer cake since it was only the 3 of us celebrating this year. I have been so busy, I dropped the ball big time in organizing a party, but really, it turned out rather nice with just the 3 of us!!

A sweet friends of mine, Jeni, from Jeni Hendricks Photography wanted me to make a small cake for her daughter's 6th birthday, and some cake ball truffles. There was no theme or anything, just something cute. In the pictures you won't be able to see the entire cake, but it has flowers and a moon and stars on it. I thought it turned out really sweet :) **The third and fourth picture are ones that she took, and I love them!**

The next weekend I made a cake for one of my dearest friends for her baby shower. The baby's room is decorated in a Hawaiian / surfer motif, so she had a tropical baby shower. The top layer of the cake was pineapple flavored with a strawberry filling, and the bottom layer was vanilla flavored with strawberry filling. A hibiscus on top with a "grass skirt" (icing skirt LOL). All of the colors in the cake matched the colors in the nursery, too.

And here is the beautiful Mommy-to-be :)

A lady I know had seen some picture's of my daughter's 3rd birthday cake (the Hello Kitty one from above) and wanted me to make one for her 6 year old granddaughter. She went with the Hello Kitty traditional colors. Just before I took the cake to her, I ended up putting some edible glitter on the hair bow, and it was really cute! Made it sparkle :) I have not uploaded those pictures yet, or the ones of her granddaughters enjoying it, but if I get to it in the next day or so I will update this post with them. The cake was vanilla - that is my favorite flavor of the cakes that I make!!

I hope everyone has a nice weekend!! Thanks for checking in!!

~Sara

Lots to post! ~Picture Heavy~

2010-09-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

I am a terrible blogger LOL! I thought that this blog would be easier to keep up with than my personal blog because I only write a small bit about each cake, but I was WRONG! Sorry it has been a while, thanks for sticking around :)

I have lots to show you! I have been very busy this past month or so, so this post will include everything I have done, lots of pictures.

1.) First off, FROGGIES! The one of cutest little guys I know turned one year old, I can't even believe it! He had a frog themed birthday (Ribbit Robert!). His sweet Mommy had seen some cupcakes I had done a year or so ago, and wanted some like those. Instead of piping black icing for eyes, I used M&M's, and they turned out great!

His little smash cake was decorated to match. As cute as it was, he HATED it! LOL! I guess when you are the birthday boy, you can decide that ice cream is better than cake...especially if you have never had sugar before!

2.) Next, I had the pleasure of making a wonderful friend's anniversary cake. She sent me a picture of their wedding cake, and wanted it to look like the top tier. (The roses are actually a deep purple, but my camera insists that they are blue!)

The next day, I delivered two baskets of cake ball truffles and chocolate dipped pretzels (the colors even matched their anniversary cake!) to her husband at his work. Her message to me that evening was, "My husband (the diabetic) could NOT put them down!".

3.) Next up was a baby shower. Lots of cupcakes! Some vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing and colored sugar sprinkles on top, and chocolate cupcakes with colored icing and those wonderful sugar pearls that I love so much!!

4.) And then, I got to make the cutest Curious George cake and smash cake for a precious one year old little girl!

I just love this picture :)

** All of the above EXCEPT the Froggy cupcakes were all done in one weekend! As much as I love doing this, as much joy as it brings me to make people happy and see their faces when they see their cakes/treats, I will never do that to myself again LOL!! That was one stressful week and weekend! I am very proud of myself, though, it all got done and it was the quality type work I would have served to my own family. I lost some sleep, sure, but I'm a Mom...when do I NOT lose sleep :)

5.) The last one I'm going to post tonight was kind of a special order, something I wouldn't ordinarily do - a single smash cake. Since this lady is such a great customer of mine (not to mention, her little girl is gorgeous!), and has been such a pleasure to work with I made an exception. Thanks J, for letting me use this picture!

Thank you, also, Michael Frady Photography for the above picture! Great work!! If you are in the Houston area, you should give him a call :)

Hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! Stay safe!!

~Sara

P.S. I almost forgot to add...If you have not already, please visit my Facebook page, The Sweet Life ------> CLICK HERE :) Thanks!!

For my Sister-in-law

2010-07-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

I made my sister-in-law's baby shower cake. Needless to say, I was just a little nervous about doing it. I wanted to make something that really made her special day *SPECIAL*. This was (part of) my gift to her. We don't have much, so we couldn't give her much, this was the least I could do. I wanted it to be perfect! The top tier was carrot cake, and the bottom tier was french vanilla, both with cream cheese icing.

~Sara

Skateboarding Half-Pipe Cake

2010-07-11T23:45:00.001-07:00

This is one of the first cakes I made after Raia was born, when I started doing them from home. Not the best, I'll admit. I look back at this and see just how far I have come, and see how I would do it differently now. The half-pipe is made of mostly icing...yeah, that was tricky. The tall parts of it were two layers of cake, and all of the middle section is icing. I don't know what I was thinking LOL! If I were to do this cake today, I would either make the half-pipe out of Rice Krispie Treats, or I would carve it out of a frozen cake, and ice it quickly! Then I would eliminate that awful yellow stripe down the length of the half-pipe, or at least make it look better than that!

I really don't know why in the world I am posting this cake, other than to show how far I've come. It is one of my least favorites. If you were to order this cake, what would YOU want done differently about it?

~Sara

P.S.
If you could keep me in your thoughts and prayers this week, I'd appreciate it. First off, I am playing single parent this week while Nathan is in Canada for work. Second of all, and cake-wise, most importantly of all, my sister-in-law is having her baby shower this weekend, and I am making the cake. Please pray it turns out fabulous! I also have one other order (for the same day!), so I am going to be busy this week - and this kinda goes back to the single parenting thing. Pray that I can get it all done and that Raia will let me!! Thanks so much!! xoxox~

Baby Shower Blues

2010-06-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I got to make some of the prettiest cupcakes I think I've ever made! My customer and I had been planning these cupcakes for a few months now, emailing back and forth, tossing different ideas around, and finally deciding on what they would look like. (For the record, I love having so much notice and having someone work with me on ideas! This was an awesome experience!) I was really hoping I would live up to everything she expected. That can be the stressful part of this: not knowing whether the person liked it or not! Thank goodness she loved them, and she said they were a big hit at the baby shower - WHEW!!

This ranks up there with one of my favorite jobs done, I was really proud of the way they turned out. She even helped by providing me with the neatest little pearl decorations, and little sugar candy toppers. I had SO. MUCH. FUN. :)

Cream colored with baby blue pearls

M&M's!

Blue with white candy pearls

Little baby booties

Sweet baby blue onesies

Chocolate with candy pearls

A special cake for the new Mommy-to-be

I may or may not have gone a little crazy with the pearls, I couldn't rightly say...

One of each of the cupcakes - not all varieties are posted above. I made ten different kinds, four of each.

~Sara

FROGS!

2010-06-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

These are some of the cutest cupcakes I've ever made :) Frogs, frogs, and more frogs! A matching little birthday cake for the birthday boy! These were super easy to make, too. Green icing, marshmallows for eyes, a bit of red icing for the mouth, and a dot of black icing for each eye, though you could use M&M's or something, too. Did I mention how CUTE these were?!

~Sara

Cornelli Lace Chocolate Cake

2010-06-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite designs for a cake. It is called Cornelli Lace, and it's pretty simple, yet elegant. The way I was taught to do this cake, the "Kroger" way, was to use one color icing for both the base and the Cornelli Lace. Blah :P I really like the slightly contrasting colors. To me, it just looks better.

~Sara

Caterpillar Cake

2010-05-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

This cake was so much fun to make! It turned out so nice, and is one of my favorites! I even gained an awesome friend out of this cake :) She sent me a picture of a HUGE caterpillar toy that was the theme for a baby shower, and this is what came of it. I'm telling you, that caterpillar was so big, it wrapped from one side of a recliner to the other! I wish I still had the pictures she sent me. She loved the cake, and the other ladies at the shower did, too. She has become great friend, and a great customer, too!! Thanks so much Tracie!!

Go Astros!

2010-05-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

Growing up in Alabama, and having the family I have, I grew up watching the Braves. Out of all the sports out there, baseball is my favorite, and I use that term loosely. I am NOT a sports person at all, but I understand baseball, and can actually get excited about it.
Since moving to Texas, I have learned to love the Astros. My love for the Braves still remains, but I have room in my non-sports-loving heart for both. When I had a mom come to me wanting an Astros themed birthday cake for her little guy who was turning one, I thought this would be perfect!

~Sara

My Favorite Cake

2010-05-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

I was asked to do a 3 tiered cake for a little girl's 4th birthday. She wanted bright colors and polka dots - very simple and very sassy! I think they turned out great! My friend who requested the cake is a fabulous photographer ~ hence the awesome pic of the cake (Thanks Jeni!!) This was before I had my own turntable, which is very helpful in smoothing out the icing, and working on cakes in general. Jeni was so surprised I had done these without a turntable! These cakes were intended to be stacked, but once I got there with the cakes, we decided they looked great the way they were.

The tops of each cake were sprinkled with edible glitter to give it a little sparkle!

She provided the candle and the photo toppers, which really turned out cute! If you'd like to visit Jeni's blog, please visit JeniHendricksPhotography, we just love her!

~Sara

Airplanes!!

2010-05-21T02:02:00.000-07:00

About a year and a half ago, I did a birthday cake for a little boy turning one. Just so happens, his father was a pilot, and of course they wanted airplanes! This is one of the first ones I made from home after I decide to do this as a hobby. Not being in an environment where I have lots of counter space to work, nearly unlimited supply of icing at my disposal, and all the pastry tips and bags I could dream of, I quickly realized that this would be much harder than I ever imagined, but I made it work, and continue to do so :)

The cake had regular buttercream icing (as most all of mine do, I HATE fondant!). Most of the clouds are white chocolate pieces, save for the one big poofy one on top for the candle. The airplanes are iced sugar cookies.

Lots more iced sugar cookies for the party.

A cute little smash cake for the birthday boy!

~Sara

Welcome to The Sweet Life

2010-05-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hi! Thanks for visiting The Sweet Life! This will be a place where I can proudly display my "works of art" in cake form, and some of my other yummy treats :) I am so excited to finally have a place to post the pictures where the general public can have a look.

I started working for Kroger in 2005, and for some reason, they put me in the bakery. I remember my first day I felt completely lost. My boss was from Greece, and I had a hard time understanding her, which quickly faded as I got to know her. The first task I had in the bakery was to make cake wedges - little triangles of cake rolled in icing and sprinkles along the edges, then to pipe icing onto the top and add even more sprinkles. What a MESS!! I had never "piped" icing in this way in my life, but everyone thought they looked great. I was soon deemed a cake decorator in training, and my boss sent me to the cake decorating classes that Kroger has periodically. My first day I had to be there early, and I drank some coffee on the way there, only what I thought was coffee, was actually an entire tall coffee mug full of espresso (!). (The coffee maker we had at home was actually an espresso maker, but I didn't know that at the time, I just drank it with cream and sugar and it resembled coffee to me.) Anyway, I get to the class, meet the lady teaching it, and our first task is to pipe (trace) these beautiful cursive letters on a mat. I was shaking like a leaf from nervousness and a tall travel mug full of espresso. Probably more from the espresso LOL! Months later, the lady who taught the class told me she thought I had some sort of "condition" that made me shake so bad and wondered how in the world I'd make it as a cake decorator! We had a good laugh about that :) It took a while for the espresso to wear off, but once it did, I was in the top of my class. I was by far the best student in the class. Somehow I just caught on early and was actually good at something, and I enjoyed it, too. The class was a week long, and I didn't really learn anything in the class that I didn't already know how to do except how to make a magnolia flower. To this day I still can't make a good one - oh well. I really enjoyed the class, and especially the teacher, I'll call her "D". She had been with Kroger for 26 years, and I learned a lot from her. She would occasionally visit the store I worked in, and I really enjoyed seeing her from time to time. Once, she had to come to our store for 2 days in a row. On her first day there, she decorated a few half sheets for us and then left. I had also done a few. The next day when she came back, my boss showed her one of my half sheet cakes, was sort of bragging on me, and "D" said, "No, I made that one....didn't I?" Nope. That one was mine. I was proud :)

After the week long class, I went back to working in the bakery as an official cake decorator. Before then I was helping with cakes, mostly icing them, making borders, learning how to make roses from my boss and the other cake decorator, etc. It seems like I kind of just caught on so quickly and never turned back. I had so much fun decorating the cakes! I loved having that creative outlet at Kroger's expense (LOL). After a while, I had people requesting that I do their cakes, and no one else. They wanted me, a girl who had been there less than a year over someone who had been decorating cakes for 10+ years...WOW. I felt honored, grateful, but still humble and a little unsure of myself (I still feel that way sometimes!). My only downfall was that I was "slow". I wasn't mass-producing cakes because I refused to let anything go out that I wouldn't serve to my family. I always had to have my area clean before I started on anything, and everything on my cakes had to be perfect. This didn't cause too many problems, I was just told I needed to work faster, work faster! I guess that what you get in any grocery store setting is quantity, not quality.

I worked for Kroger for a little over 2 years. When I became pregnant with Raia, the stress of the bakery (I thought) was too much for me, and I asked to be moved to cashier. I was so afraid of picking up heavy icing buckets, slipping on the icy floors in the negative temperature freezers and hurting myself and my unborn child. Plus, the stress of Saturday mornings when you get there at 4am to start on 25-30+ orders for the day, I just couldn't do it anymore. Once I got to the front and was cashiering, I was silently wishing I was back in the bakery. My big belly leaning over a thousand times a day into grocery carts to pick up items to scan was ROUGH. My pride kept me there, though. I wasn't about to ask to go back to the bakery. I had a few problems in my pregnancy that eventually got me out on early maternity leave with 60% pay. Everyone kept asking if I was coming back to Kroger after Raia was born, and I told them "I haven't made up my mind yet", but I had. I knew I'd stay home with her if at all possible. Raia was born on September 11, 2007. She has changed my life, what a wonderful blessing she has been!

As a stay-at-home-mom (for the most part), I realized I could use my "talent" to keep me busy. Cakes can be very stressful to make, but they also are a form of stress relief for me, if that makes any sense. It's almost like I can focus my attention elsewhere for a while, and let my creativity wreak havoc with icing! I absolutely LOVE making people happy, especially the kiddos when they see their birthday cake! That makes my heart swell, and it makes all the hours in the kitchen and my aching feet completely worth it!

Look at her face! That is what keeps me doing what I do :)

So, with this blog, I hope to bring you as much joy looking at my pictures as I have when creating them. Hopefully you'll get a little hungry, too!

Stay sweet~
Sara