Drumroll please...

Recently I had the pleasure of spending a day with tartan, bits of felt, scissors, and oooh black crushed velvet. Yes, a typical day for me, however the result not so typical; my very first little cake top Drum Major. He was required to help celebrate a real life, full sized Drum Major's birthday. In case you are confused, the real one is the gentleman on the right....you can see he's holding his mini me!

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This is Peter, Drum Major of The Isle of Skye Pipe Band, who along with the rest of the band, enjoyed a birthday celebration of smoked salmon, champagne and of course CAKE, on arrival in Braemar for the annual Gathering. Janet made a super cake for all, and don't you just wish you were there?!

Well there's always next year! The band enjoyed a great time at the Gathering, and I believe are now enjoying a bit of a break before another season of piping, drumming, shinty matches, town squares, Gatherings, bus trips, marching and CAKE! That's a lot of cake folks... now if only I could hold a tune...

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Here is the band with the Cullins of Skye in the background, an early morning start to the day as they headed off to Braemar for a royal weekend and alot of fun. (not to mention that cake...)

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A special thank you to Janet for her cake top request, it was one I enjoyed very much, and thanks too for sending me photos from the day and letting me know how it all went!

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Wishing all you splendid folks in the band much luck and success in the new season!

A grand day out

The webmaster paid a visit to caketopland recently, and we decided wouldn't it be simply splendid to have afternoon tea at Glengarry Castle Hotel with those charming, interesting and snap happy folks at Invergarry Lodge?!

'Oh yes!' cried Miss Lisa, 'I say, that would be a jolly ballyhoo of a day out!'..... or something like that....

Glengarry Castle Hotel is a fantastic place, not least of all due to its afternoon teas, which as you can see are excellent...

It's a country house hotel with lots of charm, history and class about it, but at the same time it has a very comfortable atmosphere that makes you feel quite at home almost as soon as you walk through the door! Jenny & Matt had thier wedding here, and I believe it's popular too with honeymooners, so perhaps worth a look if you are venturing up to the Great Glen...

But we were coming for afternoon tea! And didn't I say it was a comfortable atmosphere?! So much so that Miss Lisa and I posed quite happily and with minimum embarrassment, for our GREAT IDEA...... a vintage style cake top photo shoot! Oh yes I know! It's pure genius....... maybe........ please tell us if we look silly.....

So Master photographer Matt took these! He's very good with the old flashbang, and he even aged us a bit with his computer wizardry.... well the photos were aged, we'd rather stay relatively youthful thanks very much....

And when they weren't looking Miss Lisa took this one of them taking a photo of those....

So we all had a great laugh and delicious cakes and scones, and the sun even shone a bit, which is proving rare this summer. Thanks again to Matt & Jenny for their company and paparazzi skills!

We'll put more of our vintage flavour photos on the new caketops website, which is in the pipeline and proving a perfect excuse for many shenanigans!!

Suits you

Isn't it all meant to be about the frock?!! Some grooms here getting very dressed up for the big day!

Wedding party

Hello! Long time no type! Actually I've had a whole day typing and I'm nearly typed out. I have been doing a massive email catch up... what happened to all your good email 'staying on top of 'em' intentions I hear you say?! I have to apologise, it's just as well that an essential skill of all brides-to-be is organisation and planning. It's a fact- bride's are 9 times out of 10 excellent at thinking ahead. (and if you're not you soon will be) The brides I meet certainly seem to be on the ball - pretty good at emailing early (first enquiry for 2011 received today) and giving me a ring if I take too long to reply. So don't be shy and give me a bell. (Oh and don't worry if you're a last minute bride, I love you folks best of all and always try to squeeze you in if I possibly can!)

Anyway, part of the reason I have been so slack on the emails lately is due to this busy time of year of course, plus it just so happens that a few of July's cake tops had lots of pets and children joining in on the wedding cake top action!

So here's a couple of July's cake tops where I had to make the base bigger just to fit everybody on....



Do you know my most common request must be for the couple's pets to be included on the cake top? I think it's lovely as often they can't actually be at the wedding themselves, due to doggie breath or being a chicken, so it's more than fair to put them right there at the top of the cake. They're very good at raising a few smiles among the guests I hear. I do hope the bride and groom will take them a bit of wedding cake home...

I have some fun cake tops to make this month as well. I'm looking forward to a Sixties style bride and groom, pool players, lots of pets and some very sparkly dresses. I shall keep you posted!

P.S. I must say Bon Voyage and Good Luck to my lovely friends Nic and Paul, who are off to live in New Zealand forever and ever. They visited me to say 'cheerio', drove me over a mountain for dinner by the sea, and as a parting gift gave me a real and authentic New Zealand recipe for PAVLOVA!!! (Oh how they laughed after reading here I though she played tennis...) The recipe came complete with pictorial inspiration... such an amazing feat of strawberry engineering I had to share it with you!

This is Paul's pavlova and I am challenged to make my own, however I fear my strawberries won't be nearly as neat. Incidentally Nic is responsible for the tagline at the very bottom of the blog, which I and the webmaster thought should be the cake top website motto!!

Here's a pic of Nic and Paul, say hello if you see them in New Zealand and tell them to come straight back, I need a strawberry slicer...

There's nothing like seeing yourself in minature to make your day! - Nic

Now we are seven!

Hello and welcome to Jay our new genuine follower! I had no chocolate cake to celebrate your arrival I'm afraid.... this time it was PAVLOVA!!!

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Pavlova always makes me think of Russian tennis players, don't you? (actually I just looked on Google and I should be thinking of the ballerina, but too late I thought of imaginary tennis players first). So here we are, a sporty cake top! There's even some tennis balls on. This is for a lovely couple who are PE teachers (and are not Russian as far as I know). Oh to be more sporty.... I could eat so much more pavlova if I was super sporty.....or if I was a ballerina....

I must say a big thank you to the webmaster for doing clever mysterious 'stuff', to make this blog look like my Granny's are haunting the internet, giving it a funky vintage overhaul and some nice lace edging! I think they would be so proud! We have had much debate and discussion as to what the caketops website revamp should look like. With a little help from beyond the grave I think we (or rather the webmaster!) have cracked it..... now if only the Granny's were here to give us some fashion tips the makeover would be complete.....

Fashion? Did somebody mention fashion? Time for another tenuous link to a cake top...

This cake top is for a happy couple who both contacted me separately with secret 'props' to be added to their partner's cake top figure. So the bride informed me that her groom should hold his hairdryer in his hand and have some football boots on the base. The groom confided that his bride-to-be should have ruby red lips, hold a MAC lipstick and at her feet she should have some gold shoes as she likes shoes! This was fun, as I quite enjoyed being privy to all the secrets... (I've let the cat out the bag now of course) Oh! and I imagine they are a very fashionable couple!

These are just a few of the cake tops that I've been busy making lately. Oh it's a hectic time of year for me. Give me a ring if I haven't answered your email, I'm afraid I'm behind again. There have been lots of caketops that I've enjoyed making and have made me smile. Hopefully they have made the couples and their guests smile too.

Let's say Congratulations to all the brides and grooms!

P.S. Keeping with the vintage theme, I have for you a photo of Anna Pavlova after which the pudding was named. I think there may be Pavolvas in Caketopland for years to come....

Isn't her dress a lovely meringue?!

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A new (old) look!

Hello everyone! I'm guest blogging for you this week while Helen is away on holiday to Caithness - don't panic though, she will be back making caketops for all your summer weddings soon!

To kick things off, I thought I’d give you a taster of the look of the main caketops website redesign that should hopefully be unveiled in the not too distant future. Helen will get a surprise when she gets home from her holiday and checks her blog – will she recognise it?! The inspiration for the redesign has come from a bit of old fabric that once belonged to Helen’s Granny (that's her in the photo!). I've teamed it up with a lace edging to give a ‘vintage tablecloth and runner’ look.

I’m planning to improve the navigation of the website and expand the photo gallery so that you can see different views the caketops – Helen puts lots of detail into the caketops and I want to add close-up shots and back views so that you can appreciate all the little details from all angles!

Also I’d really like to make the ordering process as easy for both you and Helen as easy as possible. This is something that Helen and I have discussed numerous times and we’re still pondering the best way to accomplish this... If you have any suggestions or ideas about the website or the blog please do let us know – we’d love to hear from you!

Until next time,
Lisa

N.B. Well, I only had a 50/50 chance of being right so, naturally, I got it wrong and posted a photo of Helen's other Granny. To make amends here is a photo of Granny L looking very stylish in a fantastic frock.

Granny L - original possessor of the fabric!

Love to dance!

Hello, welcome and GOOD LUCK to our latest genuine follower Jenny! I say 'good luck' not because she needs it in becoming a follower, but because she is in fact getting married on Saturday!! How do I know this? Well, I could have read it in her blog, but no! In fact I have insider knowledge as I was lucky enough to make Jenny and her soon to be hubby a cake top! Hooray! They love to dance, and so there they are, dancing the night away and with a big shiny trophy too! They even made the front page of 'Dance News'!

Jenny had the great suggestion of having the groom with a rose clenched between his teeth, which I thought a genius idea! Now I would like every single groom I make, for evermore, to have a rose in his mouth.... however I shall resist, be professional, and only do it when asked....

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Let's wish Jenny and James the very best of luck and hope that Saturday is super douper!!

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Jenny is just one of the brides I've been making cake tops for since the last blog. I've had some interesting requests keeping me on my toes! There were lots of dogs, but even more cats, a couple of chickens, two police officers, a couple of rugby balls, one football... whew...

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Also this week I have been slack again with the emails, appologies. However this time it was all down to a computer meltdown which meant I couldn't get on the web. I didn't realise how much I used it until I couldn't get on it! Arrrgghhh!!! However, thanks to my technical support team in the shape of my Uncle RTL, normal service has been resumed. I'm still catching up on the emails tho, so if you are waiting for a reply don't worry I will get there. If it's urgent please do give me a call.

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