July Recap

Yep, it's the last day of August and I'm just now posting photos from July. It's been that kind of summer! So here's a quick run down. 

This is actually from June, but I didn't post this quilt. The pattern is You Zig, I'll Zag. I used Road 15 fabric from Moda. 

That is Rob's mom holding the quilt. It started as a quilt for Bob while he was going through chemo, but then he ended up not having to do chemo!! So it became their 50th wedding anniversary quilt. They have been on many journeys and lived in many places, so that's why I chose the zig zag quilt pattern and the road fabric.

I taught a bunch of classes, as usual. 

 I taught this young lady and her mother how to quilt. (Her mom didn't want to be photographed, but her quilt turned out great too!)

 Then we had a BLAST the next day making pillows all day! That's FOUR different pillows that we made in one day!

I taught the Washi Tunic to a group of girls.

 And I taught the Wilton Method 1 - Buttercream class. These are the girls with their graduation cakes. We started with 7, but some of the ladies couldn't make the last night of class.

 I made this Mendhi inspired cake one week of the class. Next time I attempt a design like this I will use a smaller piping tip!

And then this cake was my "graduation" cake. Rob was in the Philippines for his birthday, so we (me and the church friends) ate the ocean cake in his honor. : ) 

 

(The sand is brown sugar, but you should use raw sugar for a better color)

Before Rob left we went to the Stuttgart Jazz Open. We went for Jamie Cullum. It was our third time seeing him, and by far his best concert that we've been to. He was so amazing that night! 

That's a palace behind the stage. One of the neat things about living in Europe!

Through a crazy turn of events I bought a VESPA!!!! Yes I did! To make a very long story short - I got an amazing deal on this and paid way less than the retail price. I couldn't pass it up. It is SO.MUCH.FUN!!! 

 When we went to the States in June we left Ethan behind. (It was planned. Don't worry - we didn't forget a whole kid at the airport.) He stayed with my parents and spent the summer running around Texas! Here he is learning to water ski - something I never did manage to learn!

So that was July. Just one more month in our crazy life!

Cake Decorating

I started my first Wilton cake decorating class last Thursday and it was amazing!! I didn't think I really knew that much more than the average baker, so every time the ladies said, "I didn't know that!" I felt really good about teaching! 

I took some cupcakes to work the other day for someone's birthday, Vanilla Chai cupcakes to be exact, and they were kind of amazing. The girl who I took them to gave me the nickname "Kelly the Cupcake Kid." I love it! I really enjoy making cupcakes because they are so easy. And the first night of the class was all about cupcakes, so I was in my zone. 

But next week is about cakes. And while I have decorated them, I'm no expert! So I wanted to get in some practice. And Marius was so gracious as to have his 16th birthday just when I needed to practice decorating a cake!! 

Red is really hard to make, FYI. It takes a LOT of food coloring.

I toyed with a World of Warcraft cake, but didn't think my skills were quite there yet. Marius likes Bob Marley, so the red, yellow and green cake was born. The layers on the inside match the frosting on the outside. (I just now realized I did the frosting upside down... red was supposed to be on the bottom and green on the top. Oops.) The cake layers are flavored almond, lemon, and chocolate. 

The top has a pink shadow because I was trying a piping gel technique to give me a guide for the lettering. But I didn't have clear gel. And the pink was pretty bright. But the good news is that technique is pretty easy to master!

Ok, so wish me luck for the next session!

Wilton Certified!

I've been dabbling with all things baking related for quite some time. I've had some successes and some big time fails! If you just search cake on my blog you'll find several examples of cupcakes, cake balls, and even a few cookies. It's fun, it's creative, and you don't have to worry about storing your art because someone eats it!

So we had a cake decorating instructor at the store for a little while and the classes were very successful! But she left. And we haven't had anyone Wilton certified since then. So I applied, and got accepted, and now am authorized to teach Wilton cake decorating classes. Crazy, right? 

So I poured through training videos so I would be able to teach their curriculum. The section on royal icing flowers was really fun! I piped the flowers with white icing because I didn't want to mess with so many colors if they were a disaster. 

But they turned out ok! And then I wished they were colored... So I hand-painted them with icing colors. (food coloring)

Now I want to hand-paint a cake! This was so fun and relaxing. I was really surprised!

I tried to use my favorite buttercream frosting for piping pretty flowers, but it was a disaster. The pure buttercream gets too melted when you try to pipe fancy stuff. 

So I tried the shortening version, but I used the butter flavored shortening. I did a taste test today and everyone at worked liked it.  I know the difference, but I guess it passed the taste test. 

 The shortening just really holds up against piping for a long time and holds its shape better than pure butter frosting. I tried the technique where you have two colors in one bag to make the flowers above.

The funny thing about the frosting is I had a super hard time keeping the CAT out of it! He normally won't come near the baking, but there was something about the frosting that he couldn't resist!

I think he licked the bowl at some point because I caught him doing that thing that animals do if you feed them peanut butter! The cupcakes themselves were safe by that time! Don't worry!

So anyway, I got my Wilton Instructor box in the mail the other day, so now I just need to read through the instructor books and start scheduling classes! One more skill in the crafty toolbox.

PS. Mary Allen - if you still read my blog, you should get certified too!