Cake Time - Pink Cake Box's Two Peas in a Pod Christening Cake

Sarah is a very good friend of one of my auntie's who moved to New Zealand many moons ago now and has just recently started a brand new chapter of her life over there by the arrival of twin boys: Sebastian & Noah. Too cute!

While on holiday with the babies she decided to have them christened and asked us to do the cake!

The picture she sent over was super adorable and I was excited to put it together.

The original design of this cake is by Pink Cake Box, who have kindly allowed me to share my version of the cake. But I must stress that this cute design is all their work and none of mine! And do check out their galleries -  their work is the kind of stuff I only dream of being able to do!

So here is our version. (My Mum & I had some super awesome team work going on with this cake!)

The top tier was lemon and the bottom chocolate.

Big thank you to Sarah for letting us be a part of her special day! Sending all the hugs.

Vicky xx

No More Hiding: Welcome to 2014!

I kind of feel I have been a bit slow about starting my year this year; my head is full of ideas and plans but at the beginning of the month I just didn't seem to have the motivation to even get started with any of them. 

Last week I went on a course for work and I think that was the reason I was unable to progress with the new year. I was going to have to be away from home for 4 days, do things that got me out of my comfort zone and socialise which strangers, something I don't do easily. As a result I had been dreading it for about 6 weeks to the point where I just wanted to hide under my covers. 

As it turns out the course was fun, interesting and useful. And my fellow course-goers were interesting, lovely, and, being also from the heritage sector, very easy to get along with. (2 of the attendees were from Sydmonton Court Estate, country retreat of Andrew Lloyd Webber, dontcha know!)

So, after a weekend of trying to catch up with sleep between work and making cakes, and a lovely day lunching and spa-ing (the massage kind, not the fighting kind) with my lovely friend, I am now feeling ready to start my year...ish. I still have that tax return to do...

So what do I want from 2014? Well, I just want more!

More Positivity

As we have already established I have a general leaning to the negative. This is something I have been working on and intended to continue to do so in 2014. Unicorns and sparkles are the name of the game!

More style

I got a fancy new camera for Christmas and intend to learn to use it as it was intended - not just having it constantly on auto mode. I want to really work on my food styling, you know, get my cakes away from the many plug sockets that can be found all over our kitchen.

More Content

I want to work on my blog this year and I would like to have an actual website, or even just a glimmer of one, by the end of the year. This is going to make my business look a lot more professional rather than directing people to my Facebook page.

More creativity

In summary, I just generally want to be more creative this year in all areas: coming up with cake ideas, business ideas, flavours, crafting, little projects, big projects, everything!

I do intend to set more specific goals within these so I can see what I am achieving. 

Phew, I better get my year started...

Vicky xx

Images ©Earle Hatsumy Thanks to Earle for letting me use her images - check out her Flickr, there's some super kawaii pictures on there!

Cake Time: Every Little Helps - Tesco Van

One of my Mum's colleagues asked her if she could have a cake for her brother's 60th birthday. So with it being a special birthday we imagined that we would be doing something special for the cake.

But that's not quite how it went...

She asked for a Tesco van! The reason being he works at Tesco...and hates it! We though it was cruel and she thought it was hilarious. And it turns out it had been a family decision so the whole family also found it hilarious! So we got in on the hilarity and quite enjoyed it. 

But it got us thinking what would some one have to put on a cake that would really annoy us. For me, hands down, it would be a tin of baked bins. Oh man, how I hate beans!! :( 

I'd love to know what form your nightmarishly hilarious cake would take?

Vicky

Things I Love Thursday: Birthday Cocktails

One day, my Mum and I were in York, and over cocktails we decided that for her birthday we would have a dessert table/cocktail do (with a body shop party randomly thrown in there.) It was all very exciting and as we decided on this in October we really managed to convince ourselves that we would do some good planning and be super organised. Yeah, right...

I was still making scones at 2pm when the festivities were due to begin.

I was disappointed in us. No one else was surprised.

So typically, things didn't look how I wanted them to, the outlook didn't look like it did in my head (there was no beautiful dessert table set up) and we had no time to take pictures of anything. Thankfully my cousins and their iPhones did some snapping for me, which I am grateful for! 

But everyone enjoyed everything, there was a lot of laughter and love in the house, and my Mum had a lovely birthday, which, at the end of the day, is all that matters.

Spotty & Rudolf vanilla cookies

Mince Pies

Pavlova Wreath

Orange cake with cranberries & pistachios, peppermint mocha cupcakes

Things I love: My Mum!  iPhones  vanilla cookies covered in royal icing  my family - extended and otherwise  advent calendars   the strange satisfaction that comes from cleaning the oven  learning about, and watching, Japanese anime, no matter how bizarre, with Kurtis  watching how happy and proud of herself my Mum is using her new phone!  how actually cute my best friend is - adorable!

Dressember: Days 2, 3 & 4

Oh I am enjoying this... so far!

Day 2

What could be better than something lacey and glimmery for a day of cleaning? Oh yes, I adorned a dress for scrubbing the kitchen floor, scouring the oven and working my way through a gigantic basket full of washing. It certainly made the jobs feel a bit nicer! I tied a bit of ribbon in my hair just to spruce up my pony tail and, paired with the pale blue dress, I spent the day feeling like Wendy!

Dress: Dorothy Perkins

Cardigan: New Look

Bow: Random lace I found in my room.

Day 3

Wearing a summer dress in December. What craziness! It actually wasn't that cold so this worked well for wandering around the town getting out from the cold and in to the hot shops and back out again. Paired with a jumper and some woolly tights I felt practically snug!

Dress: Topshop
Jumper: M & S

Day 4

I think this is one of my favourite dresses - pretty and practical I do wear it quite a lot. A little gem found at Tesco!

Check out the royal icing smudge! A sure sign I'm working hard!

Must remember to put make up on for these pictures!

Dress: Tesco
Cardigan: H&M

Vicky xx

Cake Time: Ben 10

Ben 10, Alien Force, Omniverse, Omnitrix, Ultimatrix, Nemetrix, Anodites, Osmosians... Stop me when you know what I'm talking about... Null Void, Techadon Robots, Ascalon... 

Children's cartoons have got complicated!

It's actually pretty terrifying when you have to do a cake that spans multiple universes and has multiple seasons - how do you know what bits to put on on which characters should be included?

So for this Ben 10 cake, that needed Ben as the focus and his alien alter egos surrounding him on the cake, my mantra was - 'oldies but goodies'. I Googled a list of original characters and went with those. 

Upchuck

Heatblast

Upgrade

Ghostfreak

Humungosaur

Wildmutt

If these are the protectors of good, I would hate to see what the baddies look like!

And here is the main man, ol' Ben himself in his human form:

Yup, that guy has it all under control.

Vicky

Dressember: Day 1

Dressember started in 2009 and challenged women (and men) to wear a dress everyday in December. You can read all about the history of Dressember here but what started as a bit of a personal challenge has now taken on new meaning and is aiming to put a stop to global human trafficking.

I am looking on Dressember as a personal style challenge and a chance to bring a little femininity into my icing sugar coated existence. Call me ridiculous but there is a huge difference between baking in your scruffs and baking in a pretty dress, and this is something I have neglected of late. Also moving in to 2014 I would love to have a fully formed brand established and I think this might be a good way of really getting in tune with my own style.

Cheeeeeeeese!

I have, however, already hit upon a stumbling block: the camera. I do not have a good relationship with the camera, and, as I have had to send my phone off to be repaired, I am having to use my Mum's fancy smancy camera and that picks up everything!! So expect a bit of black and white and a lot of brightness going on until I have relaxed a bit more...

My first dress is my oh so beautiful Vivien of Holloway circle dress I bought in the summer to wear to the two weddings I attended. I have to admit that I do feel like a million dollars when I am wearing it. We were also celebrating my mum's birthday (happy birthday Mama Tallulah!) today so I made the effort.

I am looking forward to seeing what I can dig out of the darkest depths of my wardrobe for the rest of the month. Hopefully by the end of the month I can pull off a better photo. And maybe brush my hair...

Vicky