RETURNED!

Hello world! Back now after a lovely wee holiday, all recharged and ready to make lots of caketops! First thing on my list today however was to sort out the website- now who forgot to renew the web pack thingy??!! So if you have been looking for the website it has be unavailable the last couple of days, but should be back in buisness by this evening. You may have/had trouble emailing me via my 'info' address so instead you can use caketops@btinternet.com i will be catching up with all emails over the next few days. Anyway nice to be back and busy.... no more beach or stork watching for a while...i shall make do with hairy coos and sheep instead!

HOLIDAYS!!

HOLIDAYS!!! Yes i'm off to the sun for a few days so please forgive any delay in replying to emails or comments you may post over on facebook. I will try to keep an eye on my email inbox whilst away, but will be back around the 25th of January when i will catch up properly with everyone caketopwise! If you haven't had a reply by 1st of February then please do chase me up, full contact details are on my website ....

If you have a caketop request for mid to late February time and haven't been in contact already, i may still be able to fit you in. Ring me on my return, and if emailing please type 'URGENT' in the subject line so i spot it in amongst all the spam!!

Looking forward to lots of caketop making fun in 2012, till then bon voyage!!

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday time and so far so good for 2012! Wishing all the very best to all of you! For me, January is a time to answer emails, but this January is also a time to be on holiday! Yes, away i go from this chilly, windy, wet, and generally driech northern land, and its a wee trip to a slightly warmer land- where no doubt unseasonal weather will set upon us!! Ha!! No! Indeed i am packing my bucket and spade so lets hope for the chance to use it.... So while i will try to stay on top of emails this month, please forgive any late replies. I shall catch up properly by the 1st of February, and if you haven't heard back from me by then, please do chase me up!

So, this December time was great fun for me. I was able to make some cakes and have a go at making Gingerbread Houses for the first time. I found alot of inspiration on the web... Wow! Don't people make wonderful things- and you even get to eat them afterwards! I made a big lump of gingerbread dough, which i rolled thin and thinner still in the quest to find out the secret to how thin or even thinner it actually needs to be. It does need to be pretty thin if you are making something small i discovered... Also, important to note the thickness of walls when sizing a roof! AND, trim it when its warm! AND, royal icing doesn't like to stick to crumbs, AND it doesn't take as long as you might think in the oven at all, (note that gingery burning smell....), AND more practice needed to make see thro sugar windows.....

Here was my first attempts at making something out of gingerbread... you can see my progress from left to right, and how tight my roofs were- they needed more overhang! In the end i successfully made a mini birdhouse, mini house and a bigger house. I had LOTS of spare bits and test bits, but they proved good for munching on while pondering that roof issue...

 The mini birdhouse went onto a mini cake, for my bird loving Uncle. I was going to put robins all over it, but thinking about it i decided a jolly festive flamingo would add a dash of bright colour and maybe raise a smile or two. Plus it would look cute in a scarf and hat.

The big gingerbread house was for my Uncle and Auntie and family, and it I made up as i went along. I think next time i may try and make one which is more cartoon like, or with either just pastel or primary colours. I would have liked it to have been more dramatic! It turned out a bit Hansel and Gretel i think and perhaps needed a chimney....!!

The last cake i made was finished on Christmas Eve for my folks, and this one i had been thinking of for ages and as it happened was the one i had least time left to spend on. I wanted it to be a bit nordic looking, with red and white and reindeer! I had looked on etsy for colours and pattern inspirations and had a lovely ribbon picked out!

Also i had aquired a fine collection of cutters which i was determined to use. Have you spotted that TK Maxx always have a random selection of cake decorating equiptment and bits and bobs these days?  PME and Wilton among the brands you can find there.

After discovering this I had set my Mum on the hunt for PME holly leaf plunger cutters. Dedicated Mum that she is, three TK Maxxes later she found them! (not all in the one day of course, this took her weeks, with various other cutters bought along the way!! lol!, plus she lives in 'civilization', so the TK Maxxes were closer together....) So of course my folk's cake had to make good use of all the cutters, although not the holly leaf ones- they got used on everything but!!

So, it's been a full cake Christmas for me this year. It's really the only time of year i experiment a bit with some cake making and sugarcraft decoration. In years past i used to work as a cake decorator where i made about 3 or 4 cakes in a working day, whew, i was always sticky!! Ha!! So these days i reserve the kitchen chaos and sticky floors to December only. Well, more or less...

I hope you have had a wonderful cake filled Christmas and New Year, and here's wishing you and yours all the best and more of the same in 2012!! xxx

weather permitting...

Was i wishing for snow in my last post?!! Ha!! Well we have some, and also a whole lot of wind! Here in the Great Glen i think the wind decided it was a handy corridor for ripping right on through! The Postie told me today how he saw water from the loch whooshing high up into the air, and after a few branches and then a fallen tree threatened his route he turned back down the road for home! A wise man indeed. Today has been the complete opposite to the windy one, a beautiful day, very still, just one for tidying up and, errrr replacing some roof tiles and returning to my neighbour, the various pieces of her former greenhouse.....

So, Power has been off in Caketopland for 32 hours, but now we are reconnected! Yay! Well done engineers! If you are awaiting a reply to any email or word about your current order, i shall hopefully catch up with you over the weekend. Any queries at all, just get in touch!

Now, before the storm arrived and interupted my 'schedule', i was preparing my mini Christmas cake for my decorating evening with the local Women's Rural Institute. It's not finished yet, i am still to add a decoration for the top. This will be the forth year that i show the ladies of Glengarry how to make some fun cake decorations for Christmas. We always have a good laugh and the ladies do enjoy friendly competition as to who can do what best! The mini cake when it is finished will be my 'and here's one i made earlier' sort of thing, and a raffle prize for the night. So, no more power cuts please, SWRI night is next Tuesday.... weather permitting!!

UPDATE!!! The night went well, here's a pic of the finished cake, and also on facebook i've just added a step by step how to make a mini cake and robin!!

Snow is falling!

Yes indeed, only a few days ago i was wondering when the snow would come, but finally it is here! Time to feel festive and throw snowballs!! If you are planning a winter wedding perhaps you are looking forward to some lovely snowy scences to set off your day. If so you may well be dressing in something glamourous but cosy... mmmmm not a wooly hat on this occasion perhaps, but a nice cosy stole!!

This winter wedding couple i made for The Little Venice Cake Company, the bride is very chic in her stole and some lovely red flowers add a nice festive touch! The figures are made completely from polymer clay, so have a look as if made from sugar, but will be able to be kept long after this winter as a nice memento!

Don't forget My Holday Dates, 20th December 2011 - 24th January 2012. Get in touch if you have a query or would like to make an order for February time.

where's the snow?

Happy December everyone!! The countdown to Christmas has begun!! No snow here yet... well there is a sprinkling on the tops of the mountains, but down here at house level it's just a bit wet and chilly! Not at all like where this caketop couple are!!

Yes, it's pretty snowy where they are, and they need their wellies on!! Plus, best to watch out for flying snowballs when this couple are about!!

I hope you are all enjoying the run up to Christmas and Hogmany- i do hope you have some nice plans afoot. Now if some of your plans involve a wedding there is still time to order your cake top. However please note that here in caketopland everything is shutting down for a month!! Holiday dates this year will be 20th December until 24th January 2012. Hooray!! Lots of time for being snowed in and eating all the christmas chocolate.... So if you would like to make an order for January time or early February please get in touch asap so i can make and have it posted off to you before Christmas.

The New Year also proves a busy time for emails, and i will try to stay on top of them during holiday time, but if there is any delay in getting a reply don't worry, but do give me a ring after 24th January if you have an urgent query that hasn't been answered.

Don't forget to keep in touch via my facebook page too, and visit my etsy shoppe if you so fancy- still some brooches to be had in time for Crimbo!!

Now it's novem-brrrrr!

Oooh!! A frosty start to the morning today. In the great glen the cold air finds itself quite at home!! Does make for some very frosty winter days tho, and i am looking forward to the icicles! Oooh and another thing that is good about this time of year here in the glen, are the sunsets...the days may get shorter but the sunsets get better!! Long winter evenings are good for pottering about too, i must try and take up my knitting again.

Last year lovely Jenny fom Invergarry Lodge gave me needles and wool and an excellent book, i made a scarf. (Well technically you could say my Mum- an excellent knitter- made half of my scarf) so this year i am going for leg warmers!! Ha! I figure those are just two short scarves stiched togeher...

Winter weddings are happening of course and i have started to make a few snowy caketops! If you are thinking of ordering a cake top for before or just after New Year, get in touch now as there will be holidays for me over the festive time, so we best get organised now!!

And of course i have been busy making a few wee brooches and pendants for my wintertime etsy shop. Its been good fun and they have taken over my facebook page! I've had a few requests for personalised pins. No problem, since caketop making is all about personalisation, so why should a brooch be any different?! The girls faces are proving popular for grown up girls and little girls too, and what about the coos? Everyone loves a highland coo... So for you lovely blog readers, here's a code so you can get free postage on anything in my etsy shoppe if you live in the UK, NOVBG11SP just type it in when prompted...

Here's a few snaps of what you may find there....