hat tricky!

Oooooh now that there is a definite winter chill in the air it is all so much more important - Do not forget that hat!!! Preferably one that keeps the ears warm... of course hats come in many different shapes and sizes and apart from practicality, they can tell us alot about a person.

Now here's a game for you, which cake top hat is just the thing for a firey New Yorker?

Which fellow deserves a feather in his cap?

Who is the perfect lady for a joiner with his all too sharp tools?

And which pair enjoy the cold it seems and sporty pom poms?

Answers on a postcard please..... and wrap up warm!!

food-and drink!- of love!!

Yes, love makes you hungry and thirsty too i think... all those romantic dinners and a few glasses here and there to toast the future... or maybe a can of your favourite brew or mango juice! The drinks selection is extensive!! Now if you are looking forward to a marriage of love and good food, why not marry a chef, a cookery queen or a pizza shop owner... and fingers crossed someone doesn't mind doing the dishes!!!

ethel brings it!

Hello from caketopland, which if you are looking you would find it just down the road from Nessie and Loch Ness, and just up and round the corner from that fine set of arches that Harry Potter's School train travels over on it's magical way to Hogwarts..... Now i'm afraid i couldn't tell you where Hogwarts School actually is, but if it is to be found in the vicinity of here i am sure Ethel the postie would know!!! Yes, for all caketops are taken on their merry way to you via Ethel and her Royal Mail Van. Ethel is a lovely charming lady who no matter the weather, depth of snow drift, iminent risk of landslide, random mechanical difficulties or rogue sheep, the post always gets through! I suspect in a former life, Ethel would have been a pony express rider, somewhat akin to Calamity Jane, but maybe no guns, and the injuns would have liked her.....

However, all good things do come to an end and Ethel the postie has hung up her spurs. A well deserved and no doubt just as busy retirement awaits!!!

Ethel had a fine dinner and celebration with all her work collegues, and i sent along a surprise Ethel cake top and wee cake for the occasion. Very best wishes to Ethel and we will miss her daily visits to caketopland... oh! but don't worry too much about the post and your caketop deliveries as Ethel's replacement postie will do just as fine a job... and maybe Ethel will have passed on the secret Hogwarts address too.....

bags o beads!

Sometimes i have to get my sewing thread out and a tiny wee needle and get beading!! Lots of beautiful wedding dresses with beading on bodices and skirts... but none more so than sari's!! Gold and silver threads and a fair bit of sparkle! The sewing machine comes in handy but lots of hand sewing and beading for the finishing touches.... now where did i put my thimble??

dream dress!

Every bride's dress is super special and lovely and, if you follow tradition it's also a big surprise on the day! I am very lucky that often my customers let me into their secret and send photos or weblinks of thier wonderful dresses. It's one of the perks of the job!! However, often i may be looking at that very photo and wondering just how am i going to try and make a mini version of that frock for the cake top bride lol!! I may not be able to get it exactly right as its a very small scale to work on, but generally i think i can make a pretty good attempt!! Lace, beading, full skirts, short skirts, net skirts, long sleeves, short sleeves, no sleeves..... I think i've attempted it all!!

One such dress i admired was for a lovely bride who told me i was indeed one of the very few people who had seen it so far. She had sent me a photo of herself in the dress taken at a fitting, and i admired it and even wished it was mine lol! A top secret dress indeed!! Just lately she kindly got in touch again and this time i realised the secret was at last out about the dress!! It was her Uncle who had designed her beautiful wedding gown, and his name? Mr John Galliano. Now, after an initial panic at the thought of any legal action coming my way as i had, inadvertantly, copied a top designer's wedding dress design.... i was relieved and delighted to learn that in fact the cake top had gone down well on the big day, and no complaints lodged from Mr Galliano as yet.... Whew...

The happy couple had a beautiful wedding in Gibraltar, the photos look fantastic, and as you can see the Groom had a very dashing outfit of his own!! hey hey!

Congratulations to the happy and very well dressed couple!!!

You can read a bit more about the wedding and the bride's dress here...

Confetti magazine pages 54 & 55

Gibralta Cronicle

wheels and squeals!

Well its September here in caketopland and we'll soon be waving cheerio to the 'summer' that we nearly had... A bit of a damp one here this year, but still there was a few good days of sun, at least i think there was... i'm almost sure of it..... Oh yes indeed!! One such glorious day was the wedding of two lovely seaside living folk and for a change i made the cake top AND attended the wedding! Oh yes! I am so used to posting off caketops to far and wide, that it was quite a new experience to be there in the same room as one! It was a lovely day, not just with it being a rare sunny one, not a cloud in the sky, but a happy day and a happy vibe all round. The bride and groom had sent out invitations where they were pictured cruising along on a moped... uh oh i thought when i got mine.... how on earth can i make a moped.....oh, i tell ya, i almost left the country, but no!! Instead i attempted the challenge and thankfully the two wheels stuck to the road and i'm glad to say no one fell off.....

Congratulations to Milly and Ally, and thanks for a lovely day at your wedding......oh and while we're at it, let's wish a wheelly good time to the 'webmaster'.... She is currently touring Scotland in some sort of wee sporty kit car... i am afraid i have been told but it went in one ear and straight back out the other, i can't tell you what sort of car it is.... It's em... blue.. it's got four wheels but no roof....oooh but its really cool!! Wheelly wheelly cool.....lets hope for a late sunny summer for the webmaster and Mr W, as so far their waterproofs have been well worn!!

Hey have you noticed there is a theme to this blog entry?? Could it be something round and not square?? Yes i knew you'd get it eventually!! Wheels!! I have been thinking 'wheels' for weeks now and have been on the search for the perfect wheel for a wheelchair!! It is tricky.... Making wheels from scratch is harder that you may think... there are lots of model wheels on the web sold for everything from model railways to robot warring..... but so far i haven't found the elusive sport wheelchair wheel, triple spoked and sleek, and just the right size for a caketop..... Still, i do have some very nice wheels in my collection that do the job pretty good i hope...

give me a sign

Hey! Where are you going? Ever get lost? Sometimes i do, even with map on lap and googled directions printed off.... well you can't help it if you haven't read the last crucial page of directions as it's dark in the car and.....well.... we would never have met that nice french man with his iphone or seen the castle all lit up........ so alls well that ends well..... Now if there had just been a nice big SIGN then hey we'd never have got lost in the first place!!

school's out!

Do you remember those last days of school before the holidays? Hey hey!! I do, a lovely feeling, and no work on the last day.... yes quite a while ago now, but i do just about remember!! What was it like for teachers tho? I guess they had the same holiday feeling, but i never did wonder what teachers did in thier school holidays... well no need to wonder, now i know!! They get married of course!!

Yes an apple for teacher, and some books..... now speaking of apples and in my very best teacher voice i do say 'eat your greens'!!! Oh yes, you just can't ever get enough veg.....

i predict a riot!

This groom is well prepared for married life i think!! Full body armour will certainly do the trick!!

Now i have done a few caketops for members of the police force, but this is the first time i've made a fellow in full on riot gear! He's a happy chap, and looks like a proper action man with his body armour and i have to say i was particularly pleased with his riot shield! I'm sure the guests had a few giggles when they saw this atop the cake. I suspect it was the most well behaved wedding reception ever.....!!!!

A good catch

Sometimes you just never know what you may hook when out fishing!! This groom got lucky i think, found himself a bride!!! Just as well she didn't have her boxing gloves on tho, or there may have been trouble getting her ashore.....

another day for clay

Jenny from Invergarry Lodge is a creative soul and quite fancied having a go at pottery. Genius idea i thought!! Matt searched out Penny at Loch-an-Eilein Pottery in Aviemore and last week Jenny, Shell and i spent a messy but very enjoyable afternoon learning a few basics on the wheel, and we got extra technical by adding spouts and handles onto our wee jugs! It remains to be seen just how well they pour, and in my case, if the handle will stay on.....!!

Much more practice is needed for sure, but already we could tell just how satisfying pottery can be. Penny was a charming teacher and host and her work on display in her gallery was much admired- all the more so after we had given it a go ourselves!!

I think we are all keen for more, and i'm sure ebay has had a recent peak on searches for bargain potter's wheels.......

AND HERE ARE THE FINISHED GLAZED POTS!!! TA DAAAAA!!!

completely clay....

Hello hello! Long time no type, i have no excuses... over at Invergarry Lodge they have been blogging like mad, about time i caught up.... unfortunatley i have no tall tales of kayaks, mountain bike movies or devilish eggs, and i'm not even considered 95 % brilliant.......

However what i do have is some nice photos of a snowboarding ewok. Oh yes!! Thanks to Kay who is a photographer for the RAF, she spotted the wee ewok i made as a Christmas pressie for a lovely fella (who bears more than a slight resemblance to one, some would say....) and took him along to her studio for his photo oppertunity....the ewok not the fella....

How lovely to have some professional shiny glossy snaps hey hey!! Makes a change from my attempts with point and shoot, wobbly lamp and tea towel background... but hey, i shouldn't let out my trade secrets eh??

Wee ewok fella was made completely from clay, and that's not something i do all too often. Takes alot of time.... i do a few commissions a year for LVCC in clay and every now and again i might be persuaded to do something in clay for a customer if clay happens to be the best way to achieve thier request. On this note i've just finished a cake top for a couple who wanted to be depicted wearing thier desert army camoflage gear. This sounded like a good challenge to me and i thought it would work well, so i was happy to give it a go.... Groom is in the Royal Signals so he has an ariel sticking out of his backpack, while the bride is a doctor and has her red cross armband on.

Still time to make your orders for a cake top should you be thinking of one... i am off on a wee break from 24th May to around the 10th June, but if you get in touch now i can still cover those dates!!

May the force be with you...

Hey there!! It's spring!! Or so they say, still a bit on the wintery side I think. There is so much snow here in the Highlands, well, you just wouldn't believe it!! Check out Matt & Jenny's flickr page for snowy shots of Highland mountains and ice and such like. Hey that's all just in the back garden you know!

Oh but caketop making is good for keeping the fingers warm and nimble!! The feet do get a bit cold right enough, but then that's what slippers are for... This time last year I do believe I was knee deep in pheasants and labradors, a wee run of country pursuit themed caketops there was. Well this is 2010 they tell me and I've seen plenty pheasant (easy to spot against the snow) but none in the house this year. Instead I have been surrounded and under house arrest by men and women of the law. Honest as the day is long I am, so no worries... still best to stay on their good side I say...

Let it snow

It must still be winter?! It feels like winter has been a year long at least... still that's not so bad, not when you are a big fan of the white stuff.

This winter I have been doing some important and essential caketop making research and have thrown snowballs (been hit at close range by snowballs too thanks to some scallywags I encountered in the big smoke) and I have had a go at snowboarding. Oh yes, I can prove it! The size of my bruises was unexpected, oh and ice, oh and keep me well away from that poma tow gadget... but still all good...

Maybe my next essential caketop research should be for one where folks get married on a desert island, cocktail glass in hand, birds singing, palm trees swaying... oh comission me someone!!!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2010!! Hope you all had a good one! Here it has been a very good break, much fun, friends and laughing. A fair bit of snow too would you believe? It was a deeply white christmas and so far 2110 is proving ever deeper...

Holidays are fun of course, but it is nice to ease back into cake tops again. Like clockwork email enquiries are popping into the inbox - I shall do my best to keep on top of emails! If you are looking to order a cake top for 2110 do get in touch for a quote or to go through ideas, get that diary slot booked early!

Ooops!!! Yes, well, just seeing if you were paying attention... in fact still a bit early for those 2110 orders, now taking orders for 2010!! That's twenty ten!!