Tutorial: The way I made my Waratah (Telopea speciosissima)

A quick picture tutorial on how I made my Waratah . Hope it will be of help to some people. Any questions please don't hesitate to ask :-)

 The materials used...................

• Gumpaste + Red colour paste
• Rolling pin, and Board
• Ball  and  Dresden Tool
• Water and paint brush
• Crisco or Copha to roll out paste
• Flower wire (I used #26 inner tips and #30 for the outside petals )
• Burgundy petal dust for the inner central tips and apple green petal dust for the outer petal tips
• Lily cutter or  you can print out the shape and cut it out on cardboard and use it as a template.
• Corn starch to roll out the little circle using the ball tool
• Thick and Thin sponge
• Toothpick
• Pliers to cut the wire
• Polystyrene Balls ( next time I do this flower I would cover the ball with red gumpaste before doing the rest)

Stepping Stones : Life so far and beyond..... ( 40th Birthday Cake)

I don't know whether what I have done on the cake is more confusing now than ever.....This is the first time I have had to think of explaining what I have done on a cake. I don't know what it says about my design sense ( A design on a cake has to speak for itself... here I don't know :-( ??) . 

I tried to depict major milestones in my hubby's life as stepping stones.

The 40th Birthday Cake..... 

 

Starts with the Blue Water Lily (Nymphaea stellata) on the cake board, the national flower to represent my hubby's roots and next is the first stepping  stone with the year he was born and baby hand prints. 

Way down the line comes the stone depicting when he landed 'Down Under' going onto the next layer of cake which contains the Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) (last minute quick one) and  Waratah (Telopea speciosissima) the national and state floral emblems to symbolically represent the lovely country we have called home...... which contains the stones for the graduation , marriage and the year the kids were born.

Now going on to the next layer of cake containing the figurine representing my hubby ( a caricature?) about to step on a stone with 40 written on it,  holding a card my kids made for their Dad (Appa). The stepping stones after this is going into infinity to represent long life.....

Well that is my take on my cake made with love, I don't know whether you will like it ...love it or hate it BUT my Hubby loved it and I got away with putting flowers on the cake too ????... so that's what matters I guess.

Thank you so much for looking and hope you love it too :-)

Lastminute Cupcakes Galore.........

I made 60 cupcakes last Friday....... and only 6 are remaining...

It all started with my sister-in-law's birthday...... I wanted to make something and thought cupcakes ( I had made a cake for her last year), and  there were few other close relatives and friends we needed to visit so I will make some for them too... this was Friday morning and I didn't have some of the stuff so off I went to the shops after dropping off my son at school... made the cupcakes in between looking after the little one,  picking up lunch ( my mother-in-law had lovingly made for me too), making dinner, picking up my son, picking up my hubby. Made the first batch and then it struck 'oh my God some of them won't eat the cupcakes on Friday 'cos it had egg in it'... So made another vegetarian batch. 

All together 60 cupcakes waiting to be decorated and it was already 5:30 pm and had to take some of them by 7pm when we start the visits!!!My head was already on dysfunction mode... I couldn't even think of a proper design to do.  Then I made the executive decision to just decorate 3-4 cupcakes and give the rest as it is without icing ;-). Even that was tedious especially with my hubby breathing down my neck saying "we are late... we are late...if we make an appointment we should go on time etc...." Anyway I managed to get 24 cupcakes to my sis-in-law and

  6 of them to a good friend of ours who are expecting their first baby.

Now Saturday morning  I was so tired , I wanted to get up early  but managed to get up by 8:00am and I had planned to take some cupcakes to a friends morning tea birthday party which started at 10 am. Managed to do 12 of them and ended up going to the party at 11am ( guess what my hubby would have been saying by then?? ;-))

Came back from the party and started decorating some more cupcakes for a dear cousin and his lovely wife who are also expecting their first child. At least I had a bit more time with these ones but still we were late getting there' cos of me ;-).

Next time I have to plan things properly...... no Last Minute anything!!! but I wonder if this will ever happen???? ;-)