Happy Fall!

I finally made another cake.  Well the weather is cooling down and since we went apple picking and had soo many apples I actually have been doing alot of baking (apple pie, apple crisp, apple sauce, apple cake, apple muffins,etc.) I finally finished all the apples.  My husband never thought that I could do it but I showed him-lol.  Anyway this last cake I made with the help of an assistant.  She has an excellent eye for cakes and designed this one with a little help from me-her mom.  My 4 year old helped me make this one.  It was a carrot cake with whipped cream icing.  I cut all the fondant pieces from the Happy Haunting cartridge and had them all waiting there while iced the cake.  I stepped over to the sink for a moment and she had almost all the pieces on the cake already!  The funny part was that she used her hands and none of them broke so it was actually amazing.  She also picked out the color for the icing-purple, and we added some purple sprinkles too. That night she told my husband and son that she made the cake and it was so adorable how proud she was of herself.  It was a good night, and it was also my birthday so we had a really great time.  I forgot to get candles for the cake and all we had was a number one shaped candle so there were alot of jokes going around the table.  I said it was perfect because I am their number one mom right? and the best number one wife-lol.  Anyway the best part of the day was that the kids were so excited about it.  It was like a holiday around here.  It really made me appreciate the moment because someday when my kids are grown and off to college, or married with their own lives I just might be lucky to get atleast a phone call from them, so its definitely a day I will always cherish.

Here are some pictures from my cake and the wonderful cards from my kids and my husband, plus a picture of the kids while apple picking.

                                                 from Jada, age 4

                                                  from Justin, age 8

                                                  from my sweet husband

                                      thats only part of all the apples we picked in the basket

Its Hard to Bake During the Hot Summer Months- Phew!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but it sure has been hot here and baking has crossed my mind quite a bit but the heat has been unbearable.  So finally it is starting to cool down and I am thinking I have to get baking to catch up my Blog posts.  Well I recently had the opportunity to make a birthday cake for someone I love.  So I made a lemon cake with lemon curd filling, topped it with whipped cream icing and some cutouts from my cricut cake machine! Lets just say that cutting fondant when its hot out is not an easy task. I used my Birthday Bash cartridge for the writing and the Straight from the Nest cartridge for the birthday hat design.  I used wilton ready made fondant because it is less sticky then the fondarrific fondant and it was already hot and sticky out so I figured it would work best.  I used a small star cookie cutter to cut out the star on the hat and all the mini stars too.  Its not my most creative work but it came out OK.  The bad part was transporting the cake.  I had to put skewers  down into the cake to keep it from sliding and move fast to get it to where it was going.  That is not an easy task while getting a 1 year old, 4 year old and 8 year old ready as well. So it made it, and we ate it, and everyone loved it, so I guess that is what counts.  Hope you are all having a great summer! More cakes soon!

Who Live on a Pineapple Cake in the Fridge? - Spongebob Square Pants!

My kids adore spongebob so I figured it was about time to put him on one of my cakes.  This cake was sooo incredibly hard. It was so hot and humid here that the fondant was melting.  First I made a pineapple cake with butter cream icing.  I used teal Fondarrific butter cream flavored fondant too.  It was really good, but not as good as the vanilla flavor.  Also this time I decided to try something different and I think I had a breakthrough!  I planned to use the Wilton sugar sheets for the black background and I figured out a way to do it with ease.  All you need to do is to take the sugar sheets and leave them on the plastic they come on and put that on a regular sticky cricut expression mat!  It worked so well.  I am going to get a bunch of the sugar sheets for my next cake and try to do the entire design that way.  They are a little like a very thin fruit roll up when you take them out of the package but they do sort of melt into the icing that you put them on eventually and you don't notice the texture.  Also best of all they are tasteless!  So I cant wait to try them again, but it is way to hot here so it may be in a few days.  Keep cool!

Fourth of July Cakes were Fondarific!

Well I only have pictures of two of the cakes that I made but i actually made three cakes plus cupcakes for my husbands work.  All came out great!  The two cakes that I can show you both were made with basic shapes for the circles and stars from the Georges Basic Shapes cartridge.  I tried some new fondant this time called fondarific.  I got antique white and it was vanilla flavored.  It was SOOO much better then Wilton fondant.  It stayed softer and wasn't as chewy, plus it tasted like vanilla taffy.  It was really good. The one cake was a vanilla white cake that I added some red food coloring to and made it red and white swirls and it had whipped cream icing under the fondant. The other cake was a carrot cake with cream cheese icing under the fondant.  The fondarific fondant came in a 2 lb tub and was about 12 dollars.  I used it for almost three cakes so it was well worth it.  The only slight problem was that it was a little soft so my tiny stars wanted to be blobs instead of stars-lol.  Anyway I hope you all had a great Fourth of July and celebrated this wonderful country we live in, because I sure did. Oh also I got the new Cricut Sweet Tooth Boxes cartridge and i plan to make a few this week with my Expression 2 so I plan on posting them.  Looks like a cute cartridge right?  and I bought it for 24.99 too!

The winner of the Disney Classics Cricut Catridge is......;

Hi everyone.  First I want to thank all of my followers for all of the kind comments.  I picked the winner using Random.org and so the winner is....

Paula Talbert!

Paula please send me an email to jamiejlios@hotmail.com with your address so that I can get this out to you!

Thanks everyone and I hope you all have a great Fourth of July weekend!
Check back soon because I have another new cartridge to give away now too!!!

A Romantic Cake

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great weekend. I know I did, it was beautiful here in New Jersey.  So this week I did a dark chocolate cake.  I iced it with a whipped cream icing and then covered it in fondant.  It wasn't as easy as it looks.  So anyway I am sitting there looking at this white canvas of a cake and I had my new Wilton fondant molds on the table when my came home from work.  He suggested to me that I should maybe put some decorations along the sides to cover up any imperfections.  I started making these pink roses and I must have had love on my mind because my cake suddenly started to look like the top layer of a wedding cake -lol. So of course I had to get out my Sweethearts cartridge and made a beautiful heart to go on top.  I really love the Wilton fondant molds because they add a 3-D look to my cakes along that go along perfectly with the main design from the Cricut cake machine.  My plan is to make two or three more cakes this week.  I am making them all with the Fourth of July theme so wish me luck.  One is going to be for us, one for my husbands friend to take to a BBQ, and the last one is off to my husbands work.  I keep looking for some good ideas on the internet, and I plan on getting creative so check back soon.  Oh yeah also 3 more days until I give away the Disney Classics cartridge!!  I will announce the winner at 3pm EST on my site on the 1st of July.  Then the winner can message me privately with their address so that I can get it shipped out!  I cannot wait!  Can you??

How did you celebrate with the father's in your life?

Hi everyone.  Hope everyone had a great weekend.  This weekend was a special one.  Fathers Day! We celebrated it with one of the best dads I know- my husband Chris.  We took my husband out shopping and then to the Macaroni Grill for lunch.  Of course I baked him a cake.  It was a carrot cake.  It was a different recipe then I normally use, it had raisins and crushed pineapple in it. It was absolutely delicious and I made cream cheese icing to top it off.  You know what i used to decorate it...my Cricut cake machine! I used the Simply Charmed shirt and tie design because it was so cute!  I also used the writing from the Father's Day cartridge.  I made some fondant buttons to put all around the edges with a Wilton silicone fondant mold that I bought from Michael's Crafts this week with my 40 percent off coupon, so it only cost me about 5.99.  They came out so cute and it was very easy.  The fondant was really easy to work with and roll out because of the heat.  I even mixed some of the colors my self.  I have a new way of doing things when I make my fondant designs.  I put out a piece of waxed paper and place each layer that I cut out on it until I have everything I need cut out.  Then next I assemble it this way if something breaks i can remake that layer.  Also i have my little trick of putting the more intricate designs in the freezer for a minute or two before removing them from the mat and I have my extra thin spatula that also helps.  Hope you like my cake, I know my husband did.  Have a great week and don't forget that my drawing for the Disney Classics Cricut cartridge ends in 9 days so if this is your first time visiting my blog all you have to do to enter is follow my blog and post any kind of comment.  Thanks, so until next time...or next cake- Bye!!