Happy Birthday Owen

Sorry there are a ton of photos in this post. I have a hard time picking favorites.
Yes I am almost a month late on this post, but I'm finally getting around to it. Owen had a wonderful 1st birthday! Due to scheduling conflicts, and other family matters we weren't able to have one big party for him. So he got to have his birthday for 2 days. He had birthday cake and playing in conjunction with our niece Teagans baptism on his actual birthday. And a family BBQ and cake and presents with Chases family the next day.
I had spent the few days before his birthday baking like a mad woman. I think after all was said and done I had baked 72 cupcakes and 9 4" round cakes ( to make 3 smash cakes for him. 1 for my sisters house, 1 for grandma and grandpas house and one for the studio). I had decided that since we weren't having one big party I would just do a primary colors cake, and cupcakes. I think it turned out adorable (minus the bottom layers falling apart.) Owen didn't really want to touch his smash cakes when there were a lot of people around, but was more than willing to rip one apart when there were just a few of us around.
I made his little birthday shirt to match the primary colors cakes, and didn't have time to wash it before he wore it. That is why he has blue skin in some of the photos.
He got some really fun gifts, and has really enjoyed playing with them since.
It's crazy to think that he's already 1. We love our little guy and can't imagine our lives without him.

Busy Busy

Sorry everyone for the lack of posting on our part. After my last post everything got pretty busy. Things have calmed down now. So here's a recap of what we've been up to.

I spent the month making a wedding veil, ring pillow, garter, flower girl basket, bouquet for bridals, and two wedding cakes, as well as a few custom orders for etsy. Somewhere in there I also canned peaches with Brena.

Chase has been studying like a mad man (he's taking a Japanese class), working hard, and taking pictures like crazy.

Kyle and Chiaki were married on Saturday, and we are so excited to have Chiaki as part of our family. I've never seen Kyle so happy or in love since I married Chase. Congratulations guys!!!

Kyle and Chiaki engagements

Ella's princess party

Tullos wedding cake

Chiaki Bridals

The beautiful bride on her wedding day

Just Married

Kyle and Chiaki wedding cake

First gum paste flowers

Photo of the day 10/365

Wow, we have reached double digits in the photo of the day! I will let my wife explain todays photo. It is a photo of a wedding cake she made and we delivered to the wedding late this afternoon. She is amazing and very talented! 
Kinda crazy, I'm here blogging on the blog that was basically just mine till 10 days ago when Chase hijacked it. I'm still in the process of learning to decorate wedding cakes, and I get pretty frustrated sometimes. Today was no exception. I have been sick this week, so doing this cake was a struggle. I got it all baked on Tuesday, put it in the freezer till Friday, and finally got to work yesterday morning. Yesterday I got it all stacked, thawed, and frosted. Mom helped me with the fondant (mostly because I wasn't feeling fantastic), and we left it to sit till today. This morning I got the bottom two layers stacked together, and the top on the pillars. I've never done a border before, so I practiced a lot on a plate. I finally sat down at the cake and got the border on, walked away for a few hours. Came back upstairs 2 hours before we had to leave to make the delivery, and my borders were melting. YIKES, I had a little freak out. Mom helped me scrape off the border and we changed the type of frosting I was using. I was able to re-pipe the border, and calm down. We got the cake delivered on time, and the above picture is the end result. The bride and all her brides maids loved the cake.

Happy Birthday Kyle

It was Chases brother Kyles birthday today, he turned the big 24! After the birthday cake that I did for the in laws, and the hit that it was I decided to try another. It was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and blue and green fondant as can be seen in the pictures. Thanks Brena and mom for all the help, and your ideas.

The birthday boy enjoyed it!!! I think he had the piece on his plate eaten before anyone else had even gotten any. I'd say it was a hit.

The Cake

So today was the day to cut open the cake, everyone was excited to see what kind of cake it was. I wasn't about to tell. It was a surprise. Yum to Neapolitan cake. Everyone loved the cake and the fondant, and I hardly saw any go in the trash.
I also wanted to let everyone know the changes mom and I made to the recipe. Instead of using 2 Tbsp of water in the beginning we just used 3 Tbsp, we also added 1tsp of clear vanilla after heating and before pouring the marshmallows into the powdered sugar. Also only 1/4 Cup of shortening, use about half for greasing your hands and mix the other half into the melted marshmallow mixture. Sift the powdered sugar into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour in the marshmallow mixture, and grease hands. Fold the powdered sugar around the marshmallow mixture, it will still be messy. But you won't have the mess on your counter to clean up, you can do the whole process in a bowl.
Make sure after you have covered your cake and trimmed the bottom that you poke a few small vent holes with a needle or pin, or the sides of your cake will end up full of air and bowed like mine did. (sorry don't have a picture to prove my point.)
I'm sure learning a lot about cake decorating, I think I'm ready to try doing a cake all on my own now, guess we'll see.

A tasty creation

A birthday cake for my inlaws.

It was both of Chases parents birthdays this week, and since they have been enjoying the sun in Mexico we haven't been able to celebrate yet. I headed over to my mom and dads on Monday to bake the cake and get it in the freezer, as well as make fondant. I'd found a new recipe on my sister Brenas sister in law Lara's blog, for this yummy looking marshmallow fondant. Moms been making cake for longer than I've been around, and always used the regular fondant, which I think tastes like play dough, yuck!!! So we decided to try the marshmallow fondant out, and since I needed a birthday cake it was the perfect time to try it out. Mom came over today to help me decorate the cake, it was way too easy, usually we have to fight with the fondant. Not today it just fell perfectly on the cake, didn't crack and took a total of maybe 2 minutes to make look perfect. Even better this fondant tastes delicious (I want to actually eat it off my piece of cake and not throw it in the trash), and is quite inexpensive. Mom and I are both converted, she will be using this stuff on every cake she does from now on.
I think it turned out pretty cute, What do you all think? Hope Guy and Vicki like it, If not I'll be in sugar heaven for a few days.

If you didn't get all my links to the fondant recipe you can find it here!

The Cake

Chases uncle Tyson and his girlfriend Vanessa headed to Las Vegas a few weeks ago and got married. Grandma Jill decided to have an open house for them on Tuesday while they were here for a visit. (They live in Seattle, so we don't see them much). I offered to make them a wedding cake, since every couple needs to have a wedding cake. Everyone was so excited for me to do it, and I got to choose how to do it. Even better I thought. So I decided to use chocolate fondant, with a plum ribbon and some white flowers. Easy enough right. Not so, apparently chocolate fondant doesn't really work if you make it yourself. Mine fell apart into tiny little pieces. I moved on to plan B, there wasn't really a plan B so mom and I had to make one up. Here is what we came up with. Tyson and Vanessa loved it, what do you all think?

It was a good plan I think, come to find out Vanessa isn't a fru-fru type of girl. Congratulations again Tyson and Vanessa.