Wino Forever

Jeff's boss' birthday was the other day so he asked me to make a cake for him. His boss is a pretty cool guy and he's into things like art and wine and fancy stuff so I took some inspiration from one of my cake books and made him a wine bottle cake. It was double the fun for me because I got to also design the fake wine label. As much as I enjoy my new job, I do kinda miss designing stuff like that and I'm pretty much too lazy to do it on my off time so there's that. Anyway, here's the finished product.

We had a near catastrophe at 6am when Jeff realized that one of the sides has literally fallen off during the night. We had to do emergency surgery with some royal icing but it thankfully the patient made it through. This cake has turned out to be one of my favorites because while it's a crazy weird cake, it isn't bursting with squiggles or bright colors or pot roast or anything (NOT THAT THOSE THINGS ARE BAD) so it seems more elegant than some of the others. And it was delicious.

I am de batman

So I went to see the Dark Knight last weekend. Jeff and I are not really movie people. We watch the occasional movie here and there but we don't exactly rush to the theater to see anything. The last movie I saw was Sex and the City and I spent most of the time trying to refrain from getting up and smacking the women around me who thought it was perfectly acceptable to gab throughout the ENTIRE movie. One woman even began to sing during the part where Carrie watches "Meet Me In St. Louis." Seriously. They also came all dolled up as though they were in the movie, which made me want to run screaming for the hills. IT'S DARK IN THERE, LADIES. No one could see your boobs falling out of your tube dress and quite frankly, I don't think that any of us, including the requisite 9 gay guys really gave a crap about what you looked like.

Oh wait, back to the Dark Knight. According to the internets, this is supposed to be the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME, so I had some pretty high expectations. We went with my sister and Brother and my little sister Jessica. Jess is leaving for college next weekend so it was our little farewell gathering with her. Jeff and I met them all at the theater and soon we found out that we were the only ones out of our group that hadn't seen the movie yet. You mean to tell me that we were going to a movie, on an 80 degree day in August, that everyone except for the two people that care the least about movies had already seen? Excellent. Anyway, the best part of the whole thing was that there were only 8 other people in the entire theater. I think I would like for this to happen every time I venture to the movies. After 17 previews and a Coke commercial, we finally saw The Dark Knight. I was worried that I would be lost since the last Batman I saw was Michael Keaton ( I am OLD) but thankfully the plot wasn't exactly complicated. Overall I didn't really think it was THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. It was worth my $6.75 matinee price because it was pretty entertaining but would I see it again, um, no. Maybe on cable or TBS or something. Was Heath Ledger the second coming of Jokers? Um, no. He was good, yeah, but he wasn't AWESOME. He effectively played a weirdo, which may or may not have been a stretch. I certainly don't think his performance would be heralded as so great if he hadn't recently left us. Harsh, yes. True, yes. Christian Bale is super hot and I would not kick him out of bed but he was a bit wooden as Bruce Wayne and I can't understand why they made him speak like he had laryngitis as Batman but whatever, cool suit and batpod thing and so on. The rest of the cast was actually quite good but I love Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in most things so that was kind of a given for me. Anyways, I give it two thumbs sideways. It was entertaining, but would have been better if they had shaved about an hour off the run time and made Batman speak like a human.

TGIF

Ahoy mateys! So this was week one of many (I hope) at my new job. So far I am really happy with the people and the place. I was pretty much thrown head first into the fray within 20 minutes of getting there on my first day so it's been pretty crazy. I've mostly been doing drawings and I'm going to try to re-teach myself Autocad this weekend (pray for me). I don't have much more to say because I know people get fired for saying shit about their jobs and while I COULD tell some interesting stories, I'll reserve them for another time. Maybe.

I have a cake to start on this weekend so I'll post pics next week. I have several more orders in the hopper so prepare your eyes for their magical feast.

Can I have just one more day?

Well, today is my last day as a free-wheeling, unemployed ar-TEEST because at 7:30am tomorrow, I begin my new job. I'm filled with a mixture of blinding fear, excitement and a little bit of gas, the latter of which probably has more to do with the giant bowl of edemame I just ate for breakfast than my new job. Anyway, I've spent my last morning of freedom sleeping in, eating soybeans, watching the E! True Hollywood Story on Lionel and Nicole Richie and downloading dancehall reggae from iTunes. (WAIT. If Jeff is reading this, then honey, I spent the morning cleaning the house.) I'm actually quite nervous as to what lies ahead for me. I've spent the last 4 years either working for myself, temping or working somewhere part-time while I've been in school, so it's been hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that this is a long-term full time gig. This is some grown-up shit right here. Hold me.

He should mow that grass for me

Well, the epic cake weekend is over. Cake #3 was for my mom Jan and my stepdad John's joint birthday/anniversary, which Jan calls their "birthiversary." I went a more traditional route with just a rectangle, but I decided to make 2D decorations along with 3D versions of both of them. I thought it was pretty dang cute.



My mom has a corvette convertible and John restores tractors or something so I decided to make them out of fondant. My favorite part is the little cop 'stash that John has. SO cute. Here are a few closeups of a few of the elements.



This was a big weekend chock full of gumpaste and modeling things out of fondant, neither of which I had really ever done so I'm very pleased with how all the cakes came out. It was a lot of good practice, which is great because I have a few showers and a couple more birthdays coming up in the next few months to prepare for.

Horton Heard A Who

Cake #2 of this epic cake weekend was delivered yesterday. First off, how this thing did not fall down I'll never know. It was my first wonky cake and as per usual, I didn't follow instructions and left out a few supports. Lesson learned. This cake was for my best friend Liz's birthday. She was having a gathering at her house and there was going to be a lot of kids there so I thought that both she and they would get a kick out of something wacky so here you go.

I borrowed a few techniques from a few books and mushed them together and it came out pretty cool. I also popped my gumpaste cherry and now I love working with it. Why was I so scared of gumpaste? Because I'm ridiculous. I was a little nervous that they wouldn't like it because it's more cakey and doesn't look like a wine bottle or a pot roast or something (although both of those things would be really cool cakes. NOTE TO SELF) but everyone liked it and the kids thought it was super rad and kid's don't lie. Mostly. Anyway, I have one more cake to go for tomorrow and then I have to spend the next week designing and making greeting cards. I'm going for pretty and bizarre, which is not a traditional combo but I'm going to try to make it work. I'm entering them in the Rock N Roll Craft Show here in November and they are only taking artist submissions until Sept 8, (who knows if they'll take them) so I gotta get crackin'.

doggy cake

I'm in the midst of an epic cake weekend but I have 13 minutes to spare. First and foremost, I want to thank commenter Allie, from www.alliesanswers.com for nominating us for The Awesome Site Award. Allie, you are so sweet and I love when you comment and your site is awesome. Aside from the cool graphics, it's eco-friendly and that's good for us all. Thanks again and I'll make you a cake if you ever come to St. Louis.



Secondly, cake one of three of this epic cake weekend was delivered last night. I am currently working #2, which needs to be done in about 2.5 hours so I can take it to my friend Liz's birthday party. As usual, hell has officially broken loose and I'm behind. I can't say anything about the cake because it's a surprise but I'll post pics tomorrow. Here's the dog cake from last night that my friend Gwen got for her friend Britt's birthday.


She likes dogs so I threw her a bone. ZING!


Here are some construction shots because you people seem to like them. I know it looks gross but it's just chocolate and I'm messy so get off my back.



I hope she didn't take any bull on her birthday. TIP YOUR WAITER! Seriously, I'm about to go cake-insane so I gotta go.