Saturday, March 29, 2014

Jillian's 12th Birthday

For Jill's early birthday celebration, Cat wanted to make custom cupcakes for the Fifth Harmony inspired "Me & My Girls" birthday party. Jill is on a dance team so Cat wanted to include the bows she wears as a part of her uniform. She also likes nail polish and mustaches.. as most kids do. Jill's favorite colors are teal and lilac so that decided the color theme of the cupcakes.

She also wanted a small cake. The cake took a bit more time and thought to design. Cat mentioned that Jill loves High School Musical and thought a cake that had their iconic red curtains and a silhouette of a girl jumping to signify her jumping into her 12th year would be cool. I put the ideas together and came up with something I felt I could make. To complete the cake, Cat came up with a favorite quote of theirs that was from the movie.


A few days before Cat was to come to pick up the cake and cupcakes, I prepped some of the decorations. To make the mustaches, I used black fondant and a combination of two cookie cutters, because I didn't have one in the shape of a mustache.


I first cut them into lips


then reshaped using the bottom of a heart and refined using a knife.


It wasn't complete without a little curling at the edges.


The night before the pick up, I baked the red velvet cake and Funfetti cupcakes.


The day of, I first crumb-coated the red velvet cake using cream cheese frosting.


So crummy. I placed this into the freezer to speed up the process.


While the cake chilled, I frosted the cupcakes. Half with aqua blue and the other half with lilac-y colored frosting.


I placed the fondant mustaches, which I had dusted with some pearl luster dust, onto four of the cupcakes.


The other eight cupcakes were to be hand-piped which I do by using wax paper cones filled with colored frosting. The only other tool I use is a tooth pick, which I use to smooth the frosting and to fix edges and lines. There would have been more pictures of the process, but I usually get too focused to stop. I need another person to take pictures for me.


The bow designs were based off of ones that were similar to ones that Jill owned.


I wanted the nail polish bottle cupcakes to have backdrops that imitated common nail designs. For the sake of time, I chose two fairly simple designs: polka dots and chevron. These polka dots were sugar pearls.



I really liked the way the cupcakes turned out. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the liners I used. They had mustaches on the bottom!


The night before, I had made the stars and little jumping girl out of fondant. The stars were made using a star cookie cutter that was actually too big. I cut them out using the cutter and then used a knife to make them smaller. The little girl was free handed using a knife, so she's kinda funny looking.


Stars wouldn't be stars if they weren't gold. To make the paint, I mixed gold dust into a bit of vanilla extract.


Using a clean makeup eyeshadow brush, I brushed the gold paint mixture onto the stars. I stuck them into an extra cupcake to dry.


After a little while, I did a final frosting on the cake, and piped "JILLLL!!!" on one side and "You can do it just know that I believe" on the other. I piped "Happy" and "Birthday" onto the stars, made the curtains out of red crepe paper, and assembled everything onto the cake. It looked a little plain, so I added some black sugar dust. 


The wires I found are suppose to be used for floral arrangements. I cleaned everything before using of course. The stars ended up being a bit heavy, and the cake wasn't dense enough to keep the stars up higher than where they ended up sitting.


Overall, I thought everything turned out to be very cute.


That evening, Cat picked everything up and took them over to Jill's. Everything arrived safely, and Cat told me the mustache cupcakes were the first to go.


The birthday girl, Jill! She loved everything :)


Happy early birthday, JILLLLLLL!!!!!

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Gabriella's First Birthday

Audrey, being the lovely godmother she is, wanted some custom Minnie Mouse cupcakes for her goddaughter's first birthday. We threw some ideas around and came up with these. The designs are similar to the ones I made for Cat's niece last year.


I prepped most of the decorations a couple of days before baking to save some time. However, silly me forgot to bring my camera, and my phone had run out of battery.. so I have zero photos of the process. -___-

I will just explain what I did. First I rolled out a bit of white fondant and used a small butterfly cookie cutter to make the bows. To make them look more bow like, I increased the space between the "wings" by cutting a bit of the fondant out. Then I laid the bows on some straws to dry and to give them more shape.


Using Foodwriters and candy melts, I made the little monogram pieces that will go on top of the mini cupcakes.


To make the "1" pieces, I melted the pink candy melts


and piped them onto wax paper. I only needed 12, but made more to have options. Then I got carried away since there was extra and made some decorations for the extra cupcakes.


The day before Audrey was going to pick up the cupcakes, I baked the cupcakes and finished the decorating.


Mmm, pink frosting on vanilla cupcakes baked with pink sprinkles.


Dark brown candy melts for the ears.


I added bow details using the Foodwriters.


Then the final touch! Sugar pearls to mimic Minnie's iconic polka dots.


To decorate the mini red velvet cupcakes, I started with frosting them with cream cheese frosting.



Also, I forgot to mention that I had dusted pretty much everything with some edible pearl luster dust. Things just look nicer with a little added shine.


Some extra cupcakes for Audrey :)


Cupcakes done and ready for pick up!


Audrey sent me some photos from the party. Here's one of the set up!


Happy birthday, Gabriella!

Monday, March 24, 2014

NATM: 68, 69, 70 & 71

March 11
"There's nothing about me that separates me from anyone else." - Cory Matthews
Zoya Bevin


March 17
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I guess this means good luck?
Orly Jealous, Much?


March 18
Added O.P.I. Polka Dot Com


March 22
Minnie Mouse Cupcakes
Essie Lilacism


Polish Count: 99

(Early 2013, I started Nails at the Moment, because I wasn't doing many crafty things, but I enjoyed painting my nails as a short and simple creative outlet. Now I've included another favorite pastime: drawing. This is my take on nail (&) art.)

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

NATM: 67

March 4

Zoya Carey
China Glaze White Cap
O.P.I. Muppets World Tour


Do you wanna build a snowman? I've seen and heard so many versions of Let It Go this weekend. I had to draw a little something from Frozen :)

Polish Count: 95

(Early 2013, I started Nails at the Moment, because I wasn't doing many crafty things, but I enjoyed painting my nails as a short and simple creative outlet. Now I've included another favorite pastime: drawing. This is my take on nail (&) art.)