LEST BLOG...

I finally took some time to write a few posts for the LEST (LampworkEtc Etsy Street Team) blog.

I didn't really have anything new & glassy to write about, so I wrote about where our creativity comes from & also about stepping outside of your comfort zone. In other words, I showed off the wedding cake. LOL.

.....no, it was a good lesson... stepping outside your comfort zone... sometimes we like to stay in our comfy place, but that doesn't help us expand our creativity, does it?? I, myself, am always a little bit blown away when I'm able to accomplish a huge task w/ such success... maybe I need to write about this in its own post, huh?

Next time. :o)

SHE CRIED...

This cake came out so fabulous... when the bride saw it she cried... which made all of the hard work (& time to time frustration) completely worth it.

Click on the image for a detailed view, of course.

Of course the side of me that loves to show off said it was so worth it, too. LOL. I love having my creativity ooh'd & aah'd over....my practical side said, OTOH, every time someone asked if I did this for a living "Oh, God no!" LOL.
I couldn't do this... especially when I would rather be melting glass. :o) It was fun, though... after the fact. LOL.

My mother & a few other cousins reminded me that I had said "never again" after the first cake. LOL. One more cousin left to get married off in this family of 3 kids... maybe not for another year or two. I told her last night that her cake needed to be small & simple, LOL, & she said "I'm handing in completely over to you... whatever you want to do." LOL.

I guess she has faith that the perfectionist in me won't disappoint, no matter what. I figure that if she wants the majority of it to be fake, I could start working on it now, maybe a tier every few months, & it could be massive. LOL.



Here's how messy I get when I make cakes, LOL. It was so warm in my house that I was working in the family room in our basement! LOL! Fondant doesn't like heat or humidity... it was in the high 80s/low 90s this past week... not good.

My parents came to town for this wedding (my cousin's... the groom), so it was fun to see them for a bit, in between cake making & torching... I made a necklace & bracelet set for the groom's gift to the bride... it came out beautiful. Did I take a picture? Nope. Dang.

Next? I'm flying to North Carolina on Wednesday, to make a cake for my niece's wedding. LOL. It never ends. :o) This one will be super simple & fun, though, very fun. (winter in July wedding!) I'll get to see more of my parents there... maybe. :o) It's going to be fun... big slumber party @ my sister's house w/ us 4 sisters... my poor brother, father of the bride, gets to entertain my sister-in-law's family @ their place. Bet we can talk him into coming over for a slumber party w/ us, too. :o)

Hoping to torch between now & when I leave... don't know if that's going to happen, though. Gotta clean up after my cake making mess first. Ugh.

BTW... the wedding was fabulous. The bride & groom are the most gorgeous couple you've ever seen... both over 6 ft tall.

Oh... to throw a little bit of glassiness into the mix, since this blog IS supposed to be about glass, LOL... my mom wanted me to show my cousins my beads last night after the reception... I sold over $180 between them, an aunt & my mom over the weekend. LOL.

CREATIVELY SWEET...

I've mentioned that I'm working on a wedding cake right now & thought that I'd show you a FEW of the cakes that I've done in the past.

I've never taken a cake decorating class & no, I don't make cakes for a living... all of the ones you see below have been for my kids, family or friends. The wedding cake I'm working on now will be my 2nd one. I'll be making my 3rd one a week later in North Carolina for my niece. Yes...I'm a glutton for punishment!! :o)

Click on the image to see a larger view & forgive the image quality of most. Some of them were scanned & most of them were edited before I knew how to edit & NOT to delete the original copy! LOL! (sad but true)

This is my oldest's first birthday cake...I hesitated buying the 3D bear cake mold, it was expensive for me at the time. I said that I would use it multiple times... which, as you can see below, I have. I actually made a cute cat cake for my DH the same year as this one... no pictures to be found.

This is his 2nd birthday cake...I didn't know that Pooh's honey pot was spelled HUNNY. :o)

He picked up each Pooh character & said each one's name... and licked the frosting off of their butts. :o)

My youngest's 2nd birthday cake...isn't it fantastic??? :o) The large base is actually a big aluminum roasting pan turned upside down. LOL.

Completely an original idea...Bear & ball are cake, sandcastle is rice krispie treat...

Mask & flippers were made out of foam...the mask had a clear plastic front on it, which squished the bear's nose! LOL.

My nephew's graduation cake... he was a lacrosse player... those are little Lego soccer guys w/ handmade lacrosse sticks. :o) (& he's on top of the world!) This was before I knew that stacked cake layers were usually internally supported... these were just stacked one on top of the other...thus, the tilt. LOL. (Brandon is now a new daddy!!)

Another nephew's graduation cake. My oldest sister did the picture...I tried, but I don't paint people...frosting or not. :o) (Seth is getting married this fall... no, I'm not making his cake!)

Isn't this fun? Inspired by Collette Peter's rice crispie castle cake. It was probably 30" tall... taller than my 5 year old sitting on the table.

Another fun one...the kids love the candy & rice crispy treats & they're so easy to do!



I was on a roll... this one was for the designer I work with.

My girlfriend's baby shower cake...inspired by some cookies (like the ones below) my mom bought for my kids...

I made cookies for all of the shower guests to take home.

He wanted cupcakes that year...cupcakes aren't tall enough to be fun!! :o)

My girlfriend's little boy's 1st birthday...

Isn't he adorable? Kid's pretty cute, too! :o)

Let the dismembering begin...

My first wedding cake ever... winter themed wedding. My aunt had seen some of these awesome cakes that I had done in the past & asked me if I would be willing to do my cousin's wedding cake... I wasn't so sure, it scared the heck out of me, but I agreed to make a sample to see what I thought...it was covered in rolled fondant & so easy to do... so I said yes.

It turned out fabulous!!

But my Mom said that I said that I'd never do another wedding cake again. LOL. I don't remember saying that, although I'm saying it again, as I delve into this next wedding cake... my cousin's brother (which would make him my cousin, too, LOL. I knew this would be a busy time for me & I really did consider saying no... but the part of me that likes to show off really wanted me to do it. LOL. LUCKILY, 5 of the 6 tiers (yes, I said 6 tiers...& it's stacked! YIKES!!) are fake... styrofoam inside, it's just for show & to give them a cake to cut & feed to eachother. But being fake & covered in fondant, I can work on them over time & just do the final tier a day or two before. It's been fun & it's going to be fantastic!!

Luckily there is only one more cousin in that family. :o) Beyond her, I'm saying no. LOL.

I LIKE IT HOT...

My "I LIKE IT HOT" T-shirt arrived today... pretty cool. I think that the letters are a little small, though...just about an inch high, since they could only print it so wide....so I stretched the whole thing in Photoshop till they were probably 2 1/2" tall, I think, & uploaded it to CafePress...& reordered another one!! LOL! Geez. Gotta check to make sure it looks good before I put it up in my shop. How many "I LIKE IT HOT" shirts can I have?? Will be a good night shirt, if anything. I don't know that I'd wear it anywhere that wasn't lampworking related. LOL.

Or maybe I would. :o)

...Julie

ps...my DH got home late tonight after an evening out w/ his brother... I met him in the bedroom for a little "chat"... he saw my shirt & grinned...wide. :o)

pss...I was supposed to get my postcards today, but they were delayed in transit by a day...bummer. Oh well, tomorrow is soon enough. UPS delivers on Saturday, right?? Maybe not.

psss...LOL...dang it...I just checked the tracking on my postcard... they won't be here till Monday. :o( I'm so anxious to see them!

Wii NOT FIT...

LOL...

We got the Wii Fit game last month when it came out & my youngest has been using it almost daily, playing & exercising...strength training, balance, yoga, aerobics...tracking his time working out, unlocking new levels... just plain old having fun.

We actually got it for MY birthday... I asked for it... I need to get a grip on my weight... I've been losing this battle since I started lampworking & have got to start doing something about it... so I thought the the Wii Fit game sounded like it might be kinda fun.

Anyway... we've had it just about a month & I had yet to use it. I finally set up my profile tonight... made my "Mii" (my little Wii person)...did the body test... which checks your balance, gets your height, age, weight (ugh...it actually weighs you on the Wii Board) ....it tells you what your BMI is & even your Fit Age.... & then it tracks these figures as you go along. It even had me set a weight loss goal... I said 10 lbs in 2 months... so it's going to track that. (I'd like to do MORE...Glass Stock is in 2 months) but I'm realistic...10 lbs is even a stretch, usually.

So...after getting all of the intial stuff setup it shows me my Mii... which I had already set as a little bit chunky... LOL... not... it made me really chunky. It'll be fun to watch her shrink. :o)

I've been watching Brayden playing these games, standing on the Wii Board... balance games, step aerobics, boxing, etc... it looks EASY... it's easy enough, but you can REALLY feel it!! The Wii Board is only about 1 1/2 inches off of the ground & the pace of the step "class" is pretty easy, so I figured that it would be not a whole lot of anything....... well, it's easy on the knees, which is good, but I can really feel it in my butt & thighs. That's cool.

I played for 20 minutes... it was fun... I need to do it every day. :o)

..... busy making a wedding cake this week... wish I was torching.