Easy bridal shower cake decorating

Finished cake at my daughter's bridal shower

The Cake is an essential element for any celebration! You don't have to pay a lot of money or put in a lot of time, however adding some creative details and decorations to even the simplest of cakes can really make it special and unique as the bride herself.

When my daughter got engaged she wanted the two of us to make her cake. I did a cake for her sisters wedding a said I would never do another one but never say never.. We did the wedding cake together which was a lot of fun!

She and her husband had an outdoor wedding in the what is called the Calendar Garden which is full of flowers so we wanted to put flowers on the cake itself.

My daughter came up with most of this design for the flowers on top and how to keep them out of the frosting we did both play around with it until we got what we both liked. 

You will need the circle of cardboard cake plates one smaller size than what your cake will be sitting on, for the topper. Wire cutters, glue gun, wax paper and lots of flowers!

Using the hot glue gun, glue the leaves around the outer edge sticking out just a bit to cover the white cardboard. The leaves are pretty easy to cut off the stems of the flowers you will be using later.

Just keep going in a circular pattern pretty easy and doesn't really take that long I did this whole cake in a day.

 Next glue on another row of leaves and then the the middle leaves just like you did the first row.

 Start gluing down your flowers I left part of the stem on and glued that part down sometimes you have to glue the flower itself too.

Just keep layering the flowers around your circle just like you did the leaves.

 

Once it is full it should look like a bouquet.

Use another one of the same size circle and trace out on wax or parchment paper and cut out the circle you need to glue this to the cardboard so it wont stick in the icing..

When you put the two layers of cake on the card board you want to also put a circle the same size of wax paper on that also.

I used a damp washcloth and gently wiped off all of the leaves and flowers before I decorated with them.

Set your leaves in first all the way around I did two sticking out from each flower

Push the flower stem under the wax paper that way when they are taken out and the cake is cut there aren't any stems in the cake itself.

This is the cake without the topper All you have to do is center it up on the top of the cake and lay it easily right on top. This one came up very easily with the wax paper but I think parchment would do even better. The wedding cake stuck just a little bit in the frosting.

Cake all put together with Topping took me a couple of hours not counting baking the cake to do this. It is really very simple and looks beautiful.

This is the bridal shower cake very simple and easy once you get the idea. I will blog the wedding cake a bit later. Have some baking tips also I learned after doing a few of these now. :)
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions feel free to ask!!
Happy baking and cake decorating!!

Simple keepsake family book for a baby

This is a simple keepsake family book I made for my youngest granddaughter it is mostly iron on and glued which makes it pretty simple. I did hand sew the quit binding on and had to stitch with my machine in the middle of the book to hold it together.

I made this little cloth book for my granddaughter when she was a year old for Christmas. My daughter and her family live in another state and we had talked when her oldest daughter was little that it would be nice to have pictures of us for her to point out. It took me awhile to figure out how it would be safe to give a book to a baby and them be able to chew on it and whatever.. 

This is Emma, the Christmas she got the book, doesn't look real thrilled at whatever Mommy is trying to get her to eat..

I don't have any pictures of the book, as  I was making it. I tend to just create as I go so I am going to try to tell you..

I used fabric I had left over from the baby quilt I made for her older sister and the pink ruffle is also from the quilt I used for binding, it worked nicely to cover both edges. One of the few things actually sewn on. I laid it out as a cover and used a thick batting to stabilize it I also to help with that use wonder under and ironed it together both sides of the batting to both sides of the cover this gave it more strength.

since I wanted my pictures to show up I used plain white fabric. I used the iron on printer paper now they have where you can print right on the fabric which would have saved a lot of time.

I cut out all of the fabric so it would be the same size and then took the pictures and laid out how many I wanted to do. I have posted (some) of them here.

I found some cute ribbons and iron on appliques and some small gems at the craft store. I used Arlene's no sew glue to glue those on and last time I saw the book about 6 months ago everything was still in place. The only struggle I had was after so many pages were in it, got thick I ran two seems down the middle pages of the book and it has held up very nicely pretty much looks brand new.

The idea was that she would have a book and could see our faces when she wanted since we don't live that close and only get to see them a few times a year. I wanted it to be something that she could carry around and no one had to worry about her choking on anything or that she was messing up good pictures.

After I glued on the gems I tried my hardest to pull them back off once they dried none of them gave at all so I figured we were pretty safe.. I had a lot of fun making this and I hope this will be something Emma will pass on to her children maybe she will even add some more pictures to it.

This is the front of the book I used iron on appliques I found at the store.

I ironed on the pictures, first this is a picture of my husband's parents and my daughters before they were married this way she had Granny and Pop in it also.

My husband and I, I always tell the kids including my sons that when they see a heart it means I love them so it seemed appropriate to put here.

Great Grandfather

My husband and I with our two granddaughters, this was made for the baby, Emma I am holding.

 These are just little butterfly gems I glued onto the page and went around the page with some polka dot ribbon.

Granny Sue (great grandmother) holding Emma, they live 25 hours away so this was a rare occasion.

 Stripped ribbon glues around the picture with heart and flower gems glued in the corners.

My three boys, technically her uncles

My husband and I with our daughters when they were in high school at a friends wedding.

Me holding Emma at her first birthday party I made this book right after this.

My daughter, Emma's Mother and my husband

My youngest daughter after her wedding.