Working my way through my Bucket List!

I don't know about you, but when I watched the movie, The Bucket List with the greats Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freman in, I was inspired! I began to pen my very own Bucket List of all the things I'd like to do. My theory was to start early (I was only 33 at the time) as why wait till its too late, and also my list is very long!

My list included things like complete a marathon, learn to ride a motor bike, go skydiving, visit Australia, Hike the Manchu Pichu Trail and many more! I've been getting some things crossed off the list already starting with the Marine Corp Marathon that I did in Oct 2008, all 26.2 miles of it! Following that I got my motorcycle license and a bike in Nov 2008. In May 2009 I did a mini Triathlon! and also went White water rafting.

2010 is the year for skydiving, so I'm counting the days until Saturday 3rd April when I'll make my first jump, or should I say when my jump instructor will push me out of the plane! I'm really looking forward to it and can'y even imagine how I'll feel when I'm in the actual plane, let along falling through the air with some strange man attached to me.

Hoping that all goes well this weekend, next on the list is to get a tatoo! Nothing big or flashy and I'm not going to be getting any skulls or anchors either. Its actually been quiet frustrating trying to decide what to get! I have a few ideas, but nothings decided yet.

I have some more sane items on my list which include entering a cake decorating competition! I've been doing some classes and just love making and decorating cakes (as you'll see from my other posts) so I figured it would be fun to enter a competition so I'm I've signed up for one in early May! Gonna be a busy weekend as I'm also doing the Frederick 1/2 marathon on the 2nd so will go from there back to the cake show!

My list just keeps on growing with so many things to try, places to go, and people to meet, but I don't intend to arrive in heaven in a perfectly kept body, I plan to skid in sideways, cheering Yahoo, what a ride!

Cakes, Cakes and More Cakes

Its been a while since my last blog and I don't know where the time has gone! I've been busy making cards and cakes and all the other mundane stuff that we have to do.

I've just finished my third Wilton cake class and I'm really pleased with the new skills I have learned. In this latest class we worked with royal icing and learned to make beautiful flowers for decoarting cakes with. Over the last three weeks I've been making lots of flowers for my 'homework' and so last night on the final evening of my class I had a nice selection to choose from to decorate my cake with.

Last week I met up with some friends for lunch and I brought the dessert! I used some of the pretty violets I'd made to cover a little oval cake. It didn't last long and was all gone by the end of lunch so I guess it must have tasted pretty good too.

For a friends 50th Birthday I made her a present cake! It was a chocolate and vanilla sponge layered cake with vanilla buttercream and strawberry preserve. Covered in yellow fondant and decorated with fondant polka dots and lovely big bow.

I'm entering my first cake competition in May so I'll be making a few more cakes for that and then I also have some requests for cakes for birthdays including a roulette wheel cake and also a wedding cake in July! pics to follow.

My first wedding cake!

The finale of my cakes is my first two tiered cake! I was really excited about making this as a test run for a wedding I'll be doing in July. This cake was made using tasty pound cake, filled with delicious peach filling, covered in rolled fondant icing and decorated with beautiful handmade fondant roses!

It tasted pretty good too and it was a good we had it with being snowed in for so many days during the recent 'snowmageddon' storms that came through here.

If you'd like a beautiful cake for your special occasion, I'd love to make it for you!

New Cards too

I've been busy getting creative with new cards too. I love making all kinds of cards and I'm working on Valentine's cards, UK Mothers Day cards and also some wedding invitations for the summer.

More Cakes

Its been a while since my last entry. Its flown by since then with a fab trip to Mexico, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the start of a new year.

I've started 2010 with another cake class to continue learning new skills. This course has focused more on fondant work which I really enjoy.

Here are afew pics of cakes I've made with fondant.

Christmas Card Contest

I love trying out new things so when I came across a Christmas Card Contest hotsed by Sarah Crafts I decided to give it a go. I paid my $2.00 fee to cover costs for postage and supllies and a couple of days later I recieved a little pack including a white card, 2 pieces of patterned paper, 2 scallop shaped cut outs and two circle cutouts.

The rules were that I had to use the white card and one of each of the cut out shapes, so I got my brain cells moving and came up with the following. In addition to the items recieved in the pack I used a piece of fun holiday ribbon and a rubber stamp of a decoration that I added some bling to using tiny crystals.

Its a fun way to go about making cards.

Latest Cake Creation

Following on from my previous ditto about my cake making I have now completed my first official cake order and I'm so pleased with the results!

The cake was for a friend of a friend who was turning 50 and in his youth had played football for Leeds United in the UK. I used this info to create a cake and also to test my skills and learn a few new skills along the way!

I started by baking off two 9x13 oblong cakes using a vanilla cake mix with some white chocolate pieces thrown in for good measure! Once cooled I leveled the two cake off and filled them with delicious strawberry jam!

I cut down the cake to make a football shirt with short sleeves and then buttercreamed the whole thing before covering it with rolled fondant in white. Now the shirt began to come to life and not look like a lump of cake!

I carefully iced the name and a big 50 on the front of the cake and added a fondant collar and Leeds Utd club badge which I made of fondant and then painted using food color! genius!

To add some color I iced the cake board with green 'grass' and then made a couple of footballs using the left over fondant and a pair of little football boots too!

The cake was delivered on Tuesday and the guy loved it, everyone was very impressed with my handy work and they said it tasted great too.

Now, what to do for my next cake???