Alicorn Cake

I really love looking at cake decorating blogs and have really really gotten into baking and decorating. I'm just all around crafty! I recently moved into a house and now have a spacious kitchen and room to leave huge messes everywhere. So when I saw a neighbor requesting a baker for a birthday cake I pretty much yelled, "Pick me! Pick me!"

I was a bit scared when she told me what she wanted! She sent me this picture: 

Obviously what she got was a bit different but the color was definitely inspired by this cake! I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get those huge wings and unicorn body to stay upright and stable. I have never sculpted anything this complicated before! But I digress. Can we talk about the color scheme some more?

I was quite worried I wouldn't be able to find the requested purple sprinkles and I was almost right! Going to the local craft stores and the neighborhood grocery markets were dead ends although I did find the pearl dragees and purple confetti shaped sprinkles I ultimately used to create what you see above.  I thought I would end up using just color mix sprinkles but then two days before the cake was due I stumbled upon a hidden gem just 5 minutes away from my job! A cake supply store! Yay!

I also bought these from the same supplier but I cold have bought them at Wal-Mart or Joanns. I sued these to cover up where the cake meets cake board. They are giant six-lets! So cute!

I just used a little buttercream to adhere them to the cake/cake board! I really wanted to make a fondant covered board but I ended up just using a cake board covered in tin foil. 

Covering an entire 8-in cake in sprinkles was a lot easier than I expected. And messy! I followed the tutorial from The Cake Blog: DIY : RAINBOW SPRINKLE CAKE

I was worried about covering my top tier in fondant but after watching several YouTube videos on the process I'm happy to report that I was able to make my own marshmallow fondant and apply the fondant with no mishaps!

Here are the completed tiers. I really hate that huge gap between the cakes. I don't think my tiers were quite level and I'm sure that the sprinkles did not help the situation!  I just smeared some of the butter cream icing that was colored to match the fondant in that crack and the space disappeared!

I used modeling chocolate to sculpt the alicorn. I think next time I'd use fondant mixed with some tylose powder because apparently my hands get really hot enough to melt the chocolate and make it greasy even wearing those little food handling gloves! This also took me several days to complete and the modeling chocolate got dry and brittle. 

The wings were a pain in the butt! I drew out a template and then cut out four of the wing shapes and sandwiched a skewer in between using sugar glue to hold it all together. 

I accidentally made two of the same direction wings. I was pretty ticked off at myself and thought I'd have to remake one of my wings but as you can see in the finished product it didn't mater and I think worked out better. From the back it doesn't look that pretty but it doesn't look horrible either.

My alicorn was almost too large for the 6-in top tier! I had drawn a circle using the cake pan and used that as a guide for length so I'm not sure how this thing got so large and out of hand! There was also a lot of gap between the base of the sculpture and the cake. Thank god I had a ton of butter cream icing left! I had planned on having it seated in a grassy meadow any ways so I used a lead tip and piped in some grass. 

So there you have it! My first fondant covered, sprinkle covered two tiered cake! It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun! I really hope I can make some more cakes like this in the future. My husband is begging me for a penguin cake so maybe that is what I'll work on next. I'd love to learn how to make sculpted cakes and a penguin might fit the bill!

How to Make Halloween Skull Towers Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my skull tower tutorial. This tutorial can stand alone but if you think I may have missed a step you may want to check out part 1 here. If you can't find your answer there of in this tutorial feel free to leave me a comment with your question and I'll try to answer your question as best I can!

The primary reason I broke up this tutorial into two parts for what amounts to essentially the same project is because that is how I roll.  There are some minor difference: larger items, how to attach the light sets and I use a can of foam spray. It honestly isn't much different then the small tower though!

For a large skull tower you will need:

• 4-5 large Styrofoam skulls* (you can use plastic but you'll need a drill to make holes in them). I also say 4-5 because you'll have to decide how tall you want your tower or maybe your skulls are larger or smaller than mine!
• a large plastic black cauldron or a flowerpot 
• floral foam
• spray foam
• a long dowel rod (a larger diameter than you used for the small tower) (not pictured)
• ribbon and/or tulle
• Spanish moss
• assorted fake flowers/foliage and creepy crawlers
• paving stone or rock or some other medium to give your pot some weight
• glue gun (not pictured)

*You'll notice in my pictures I also have used a Styrofoam pumpkin. One of my glitter skulls ran away and when I went to the store all the other skulls had run away as well. I hear they went to Cancun for vacation. The pumpkin kindly volunteered to take the AWOL skull's place and doesn't she look great?!

I bought most of my supplies at my local dollar store.  I did have to go to my local hardware store for the dowel rod,spray foam, brick paver and the craft store for the floral foam but look around your dollar store because sometimes they do carry these items! 

The flower pot I found at Big Lots. I was looking for an extra large cauldron but the flowerpot is made of plastic and looks fantastic.  The final product makes me wish I could have found more glitter skulls to make another one. These would look so great as matching pairs by the entrance of the house!

In your cauldron (or pot) place any material that your using to weigh down the tower. You'll need to do this or it'll just tip over on you. Styrofoam and ribbon are very light. This doesn't have to weigh a ton but since mine were going to be outside exposed to the occasionally gusty wind I erred on the heavy side! Better too heavy than not heavy enough because once you have it assembled you cannot add more weight INSIDE of the bucket.

Since the flower pot I bought was so large I needed to add some filler before adding my floral foam. After placing my paving stone in the bottom of the pot (pic 1), I crumpled up some plastic shopping bags and placed them around the stoner and on top of the stone (pic 2). I then used the spray foam to cover the paving stone and the shopping bags (pic 3). 

Please be very careful using spray foam. Use in a well ventilated area (like outside!) and be careful none of it gets on you, your clothes, or your expensive camera (obviously I'm speaking from experience here!). 

After letting the spray harden over a couple hours I then added my floral foam (pic 4) I cut it to fit and used the scraps to kid of wedge everything solid. You could also use hot glue or try to get the floral foam into the foam before it is too set.

After measuring how high my skull tower would be completely assembled, I cut my dowel rod. You want the rod to fit onto your top skull with out poking out of the skull completely!

Before gluing the dowel rod into my floral foam I used it to poke my holes into my skulls. Mine look a bit messy due to the glitter coating chipping off.  These mess ups are hidden when completely assembled. If you make a boo-boo that isn't cover once the skulls are stack, get creative!  Use a flower or ribbon or something to cover it up. If it's just a small chip you could even use a little paint to repair. Just be careful and not completely destroy your skull.. It is Styrofoam after all. If you are the Incredible Hulk you may want to have some one more delicate do this step for you. 

Before adding the skulls (or at least before adding them permanently, use some Spanish moss to cover up that ugly floral foam!

Once you have your skulls stacked the way you want them, use a little hot glue to make sure they are not lose on that dowel rod. Unless spinning skulls are your thing? You could also use some tulle or ribbon in between each skull before permanently gluing everything done. Just remember once it is glued it's not moving!

To attach a strand of lights I used some floral wire that I stole off one my fake flowers (from the trimmed stems). I folded the wire into a u-shape to make a fastener and then used it to tack the light strand in place. I wasn't sure if just hot glue alone would do the job but I did add a dollop of the hot glue after I pushed the fastener into the skull.

Prior to attaching the lights I used some purple tulle in between the skulls. I added the lights and then added some ribbon butterflies and a super cute feathered owl to my skull stack. This is the really fun part!  Decorate however you like. I think a huge wired ribbon bow could be cute in front of the flower pot urn!

Don't forget to add some creepy eyeball roses or other fake foliage in the bottom to cover up that ugly floral foam too.

So there you have it!  A super adorably creepy skull tower!  This project is relatively cheap too!  Lots of the decorative items came from the dollar store and were used for multiple projects. The urn was the most expensive item bought for this project but it was just too perfect to pass up! I only spent $20 on it at Big Lots. I'm sure you could find one for less if you live up north and catch a summer clearance sale. I live in central Florida so gardening a year round thing so it's hard to find flower pots on sale at times.

Happy Halloween!

How to Make Halloween Skull Towers Part 1

I haven't posted in a long time! I've been moving around a lot and sometimes my space is very limited which prevents me from crafting and baking/cooking or in the case of my last apartment, bug infested!  Ick! So obviously I had to stop baking cakes/cake pops! I have once again moved but for the first time in 5-6 years I am living in a house.  A large house, lol! I have more space than I know what to do with at the moment which means the craft and baking fairy idea has returned!

Halloween is my very favorite holiday. It's October so the weather a a bit cooler and my favorite color, orange, is in the stores in the form of fall leaves and pumpkins and my other favorite color, purple, is abundant as well. This year Halloween seems to have come and gone already in the stores. Lots of Christmas decor already out. I actually had a bit of a hard time finding decorations that I liked. Next year I'll know better and start hitting the stores in September for Halloween supplies!

I've broken this tutorial into two parts because you could make either a very large skull tower or a rather small skull tower.  The construction and materials needed are essentially the same, just different sizes and amounts are needed. Part One of this tutorial will assemble a small skull tower. Part two a large skull tower.

For a small skull tower you will need:

• 4-5 small Styrofoam skulls (you can use plastic but you'll need a drill to make holes in them). I also say 4-5 because you'll have to decide how tall you want your tower or maybe your skulls are larger or smaller than mine!
• a small black cauldron or a flowerpot painted black (or any other color you choose)
• Floral foam
• a long dowel rod
• ribbon and/or tulle
• Spanish moss
• assorted fake flowers/foliage and creepy crawlers
• brick/tile or some other medium to give your pot some weight
• glue gun

I bought most of my supplies at my local dollar store.  I did have to go to my local hardware store for the dowel rod and the craft store for the floral foam although sometimes the dollar stores do carry these items. The broken tile was just hanging around my house being lazy. 

In your cauldron (or pot) place any material that your using to weigh down tower. You'll need to do this or it'll just tip over on you. Styrofoam and ribbon are very light. This doesn't have to weigh a ton but since mine were going to be outside exposed to the occasionally gusty wind I erred on the heavy side! Better too heavy than not heavy enough because once you have it assembled you cannot add more weight INSIDE of the bucket.

On top of my rubble I added some floral foam. this stuff is really easy to cut to shape of the pot. If you wanted to use canned foam to fill in the gaps (or even by itself) you could.  I found working with floral foam easier (and less messy!).

Next, carefully!, use your dowel rod to poke through your Styrofoam skulls.  Think about what angles and placement of skulls stacked on top of each other before placing holes*. Once you've poked your holes they're is no going back! As you can see I got a bit to aggressive with my hole poking.  I was able to cover up any gapingly large holes with ribbon and creepy crawlers later on. So holes/tears are kind of fixable. Broken skulls not so much!

Please note: If you are planning on having an unadorned top skull do not poke that dowel rod completely through it's head! If you go this route plan in advance! You'll need to measure your dowel rod and cut it before affixing it into the floral foam so that the rod doesn't stick out above the skull tower.

*Note: The skulls I purchased have led lights in them. If you use the same be mindful of dowel rod placement!

Insert your dowel rod into the floral foam and affix with a little hot glue.  Use more hot glue to affix Spanish moss around dowel rod to cover up the ugly green floral foam.

Start stacking your skulls. Once you have them placed how you want, use some hot glue to sturdy things up. You may want to leave a little gap between skulls to allow ribbon or tulle or even a strand of lights to wrapped around tower. Once skulls are placed and affixed securely you may need to trim away excess dowel rod. Use a good sharp pair of utility scissors, a small hand saw or if your lucky, a dremel tool to cut away excess rod.  You want the rod to be flush to top skull. 

To cover up where the dowel rod exits the top skull I glued a plastic spider. All hail the mighty glue gun!

You could also use flowers are some other bug or a bow even to cover that hole!

The next step is to use ribbon, tulle and artificial flowers to decorate your skulls and their container. This is the really fun part!  I just made sure to use a little hot glue to make sure everything would stay in place. If you didn't use light up skulls you could eve string some lights around it like a Christmas tree!

In Part 2 I'll show you how to make a larger version which you can see at the top of this photo collage:

Influenster Review: Purina ONE® Cat Food

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience. All products were received free of charge from influentser and this post includes links to the webpages of products reviewed*

Recently I received a complimentary bag of the chicken and turkey Purina ONE Smartblend dry cat food from @Influenster and @Purinacats for their #ONEswitch campaign.  I also received a coupon for a free 3.5 bag of the product.

My kitty Pickles isn't a picky eater when it comes to kibble type food.  All kibble is her favorite and she is only picky when it comes to eating wet food.  It's gotta have gravy or she isn't touching it.  She's a weird one. I did worry that switching to a new food might upset her tummy, so I slowly introduced the new food to her by usuing it as a treat and then mixing it in gradually into her current food.  She is currently all switched over to the Purina One and no signs of upset tummy!

I'm not very picky when I pick out food for my kitty.  Honestly they all seem very similar and it's a bit overwhelming to go to the store and see that massive wall of brightly colored cat food products.  I don't read labels.  I read price tags.  If my kitty had any health issues that could be resolved with a better type of food I'd definitely pay more attention to the ingredients label. I do like the idea of my kitty eating healthier though and I'm happy to report that the Purina One food is certainly a step up from what she was eating.

The price for Purina One SmartBlend cat food is not high and comparable to what I'm usually buying.  Miss Pickles likes eating the Purina One and my pocket book doesn't mind so I'm going to be sticking with this cat food for now.

I love my kitty and I really want her to stick around for a long time. If my kitty is happy with the Purina One than so am I!  Not that we should always entertain our cat's notion happiness, especially when their idea of good eats are lizards, but it's hard to resist that kitty belly!