It's a piece of cake

Hi everyone!

As I am working on Arielle's upcoming birthday, and as I am wondering what to make for a cake, I decided to go back in time to get a clear picture of all the cakes I made up to this date.

I went to my photo library and that brought me for Arielle's 1 year old cake, the one that I didn't make (because I wasn't making cakes yet!).

That cake is the reason why I started making cakes. I had a clear idea of what I wanted, and THIS was definitely NOT what I wanted! lol

Lucky enough I had a friend in Canada who was really good at cake making and she thought me some tricks. How to play with fondant. How to cover a cake, how to make figures, how to play with melted chocolate....

so fast forward a year later and here's my FIRST cake! :)
For Arielle's 2nd birthday.

The animals are made of Fimo clay (not edible!) and the little sign was made with some stamping, but still, the effect was good:

2nd attempt, a year later, for Arielle's 3rd birthday:

The horses are cookies.

The rest of the carousel is made out of scrapbooking papers, ribbons and gems.

No perfection here, but I like it. :)

The 3rd cake was for Maya's 1st birthday:

It was the start of the 2 layers cake. :)

The bears were made out of fondant. They were mit first  fondant figurines.

Funny to look back at these pictures from 6 years ago! lol

4th cake for Arielle's 4th birthday:

Made with a cake kit (towers, door and windows)

And I added lots of details with butter cream on that one.

5th cake for Maya's 2nd birthday:

This is when I started playing with chocolate more and with molds to make figures.

Some were made free hand too. I bet you can't tell which one is which. ;) lol

6th cake for Arielle's 5th birthday:

That's when Arielle started to wish for a theme for her cake. That year it was Arielle the little mermaid. I think she was inspired by Maya's under the sea cake.

That year I ordered a cake, covered in blue butter cream, and I decorated it. I don't like to bake! So decorating only was way enjoyable. (I have to say though, that that blue on the face and hands and clothes of the kids was not winner).

I remember this as the year I had work about 5 hours to get that mermaid look like this and I left it on the countertop and little 4 year old Arielle walked buy and liked her face! I had to start over again. LOL

7th cake for Maya's 3rd birthday:

8th cake for Arielle's 6th birthday:

Sorry for the ugly pictures of that one. I didn't even care to edit them apparently. LOL 

Olaf is pretty cute and close to reality, but Elsa... oh well.

And she was the 2nd attempt. Could have been worse, take my word for it! lol The giant snowflake behind was a struggle too, but somehow I made it happen. And moved on. ;) 

9th cake was for Maya's 4th birthday:

I really like this one. All the details!

you know, it's not perfect, but it's cute. I added lots of details on the dress and shoes. stitching lines, pearls, glitter.

I added fairy dust on the wings and flowers.

And I love the texture, and rose doorknob, and little heart shaped window + window in the door.

And the sign in front of the house...with the little vines holding it. I thought it was pretty creative :)

2015 was the year where Arielle was very much into swimming and we also had a nice pool in our backyard so we had to have a summer/swimm themed cake (cake #10):

I'll let you go see more beautiful detailed pictures of the cake + party over here: http://mpcapistran.blogspot.com/2015/06/arielle-turned-7-crafty-pool-birthday.html

Arielle helped me with the decoration on that one. 

Then Maya turned 5 with this fairy cake (cake #11):

We made the whole fairy party that went with the cake and you can see more about that here:
http://mpcapistran.blogspot.com/2015/09/mayas-fairy-birthday-party.html

The following year we were moving so we had to squeeze both birthdays together. I still made 2 cakes (call me crazy, I know!) So here are cakes #12 and #13 for their 8th and 6th birthdays:

Call me even crazier that I didn't take the time to take more pictures!
Maya got a Maya the bee cake.

I really like how these very large flowers turned out!

And Arielle got a Grand Oak (the name of their school) cake:

She made the pic nic blanket herself. The making of the cake with mommy is almost as important as the cake itself now. Probably because while she works, she can eat some fondant. ;)

Then we moved and July came and to counter the depression following the move, I decided to make another cake for Maya who had celebrated her birthday almost 2 years before her actual birthday. I was still unpacking so it had to be quick and easy. I ordered a cake and made a single and simple figure to put on top. Here is cake #14 for Maya's 6th birthday:

And this brings us to now. 

I am thinking of the next cake, which will have to be ready in 2 weeks! It's kind of panicking when I think about it. Arielle wants a unicorn.... I know, another one! It's also her golden birthday so I want it to have something to do with gold and luck.... I have some ideas, but I haven't started yet, so I have to see where this will go. I'll keep you posted for sure! :)

Talk to you soon!

Marie