Ali's New Love

Lately over the past few months, I have discovered a new love of mine...
Cake Decorating!

I have had some opportunities to play around with fondant and design some cakes for my dear friends and their birthdays. Boy have I had so many ideas running through my head I just want to keep making cakes and trying new things with them! Someday maybe I will take a cake decorating class to get some more tips. But as for now, I think it will just be my form of art that I will enjoy as a hobby. So if any of you need a cake....LET ME KNOW!! I would love to assist you with any kind of cake:)

Here are the cakes I have made over the past months.

My first cake was this cake (above) was for a friend of mine at work....I forgot to take a picture of the cake before we dove into it, but at least you can get the idea...It was delicious! It was a white cake filled with real strawberries and white frosting. And of course my first experience with fondant.


My second cake was this cake for my best friend Whitney and our other friend Amy, they had the same birthday! This one I covered with white fondant instead of regular frosting, and also had some fun decorating and experiencing the difficulties of piping the letters. This was a chocolate cake with some white frosting filling - also so good and moist!

As for my third cake...oh its my FAVORITE! My good friend from work Ashley has a daughter that was turning 1 and they call her "Tinks"; they were having a fairy/Tinkerbell party. So I jumped all over this one and had so much fun making it! Of course I didn't make the fairies, but this was definatley a girlie cake. The actual cake was pink (strawberry) with white frosting. I covered it with white fondant but spray painted food coloring for the grass and pond. I used fondant for the flowers as well and sprinkled edible glitter all over. Getting the fairies to stay was a real trick, especially the ones on the sides. But since they all came on stands I took the three of the fairies and super glued sewing pins on the back and stuck em in and Ta DA they stayed!


Well That's all of my cakes for now, next I wanna try to make a different shaped cake, but who knows when that will be. As for now...I'm off to make a New Year's cake for our little shin dig tonight. Until next time..HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Our Place

For those of you who have been dying to see the place....here it is!

our cute little kitchen

props to mom for helping with christmas decorations

washer and dryer in right closet

I LOVE this little clock
The "C" from the reception :)
We gave the mirror and the dresser this makeover :) they used to be brown and white
the unfinished extra room... Steven's weapons from SamoaWe love this little place, its perfect for us :D

In Loving Memory of Opa

Opa
*Always has candy in his pocket
*Is good with computers
*Loves tickling the little ones.....okay maybe the older ones too
*Will set you straight if you're goofing off in church
*Is a Veteran
*Loved to be in "his chair"
*Played his little hand held games if it was right there next to him
*Loves ALL of his grandchildren
*Is Santa
*Will eat pretty much anything
*Is strong
*Will be missed very much

We love you Opa!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

Its been quite some time that I have posted anything. blog slacker, I admit it! This is going to be a quick one, but this past weekend my mom came to visit! She had so much fun decorating our whole condo, including the bathroom, yes the bathroom. She's so good and it was so fun to have her here to play! Eventhough I worked most of the day. Gotta pay the bills! Anyways, besides the lovely looking condo, Steven and I picked out our first Christmas tree together! it was so much fun, BUT freezing!! I dont know how many places we went to. We got pretty desperate. This little stand on the side of the road was selling locally cut trees for 14.95, they all were pretty bare and weird looking except this one tree, that stood on the sidewalk to bring people in. The guy who owned it said its a little family business they do to have a Christmas each year for their family. Poor guy, he was missing about 4 teeth in the front! We didn't have any cash and told him we would look around some more and might come back. It was getting late, I was freezing, tired and just wanted to get a good looking tree. Steven then mentioned that his buddy told him about a grocery store selling trees for $25. We thought hey, we'll go check it out, if its lame we will just call it a night and go see a movie or something. To our surprise we got a tree! From a grocery store. He's a chubby little guy and is perfect for our place! It smells so good and we just love having a fresh tree in our home. We finally finished decorating the tree last night. So here it is! {I'll post more pictures of the condo later:)}

Happy Holidays!