Monochrome Magic

Hello. For this card, I wanted to try out a monochrome look as it is a new home card for a very modernistic couple. I have to admit, though, it’s not a style I’ll be rushing back to, whilst it is striking, it’s just not embellished enough for fussy me!!!

Card Recipe:

Stamp: Kanban
Colouring Mediums: Stazon Black
Paper & Card: Conqueror, Stardream Opal
Tools: Spellbinders, BigShot Pro, The Crafter’s Workshop Mask

Embellishments: Ribbon, crystals, glossy accents

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Teenage Dreams

A bit of a change for me as no stamping and colouring involved! This morning, my Mother rung and asked for a card for a young lady neighbour who’s turning thirteen this weekend. Fortunately, I had the most perfect Hunkydory card kit for the occasion.

Card Recipe:

Paper & Card: HunkyDory, Stardream
Tools: Spellbinders, BigShot, Quickutz

Embellishments: Hand-made beaded Hat Pins, crystals, mulberry gardenia & cherry blossoms, butterfly charm

However, I couldn’t stop myself from a bit of titivation! I used Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Accents to cut the corners and border. With the border, before removing it from the die after cutting, I pierced holes along the edge, and I’m very pleased with the effect it has created. I love the butterfly charm (an Ebay buy), which comes with spaces to add the crystals so that you can coordinate the colours to suit your project.

I think this is perfect for a new teenager – I hope you agree!

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Final Presentation Board & Celebration Cake PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste

Sugarpaste Bird Cage Shabby Chic

This is my final review of the Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste, tutored by Annabel at Confection Perfection, Barming that I recently completed.


In this post I’ll be showing you my final presentation pieces, which included a Technique Board (I themed mine on The Four Seasons) and a Celebration Cake (the celebration I received was 21st Birthday and I themed the cake on Shabby Chic Vintage).






My Presentation Board demonstrated the following techniques that I learned on the PME Diploma in Sugarpaste course:
Crimping, Twisted Rope, Rolled Rope, Cut Outs, Fabric Effect Flowers, Creative Plaques, Embossing, Basket Weave, Frills, Inlaid Plaque, Swags, Ribbons & Bows, Modelling, Doves and Textured Rolling Pins.

PME Diploma in Sugarpaste Presentation Board



SugarPaste Four Seasons Featuring Bunny, Birdhouse, Harvest Festival & Christmas Choir Boy

In addition, my PME Diploma in Sugarpaste Presentation Celebration Cake demonstrated: Fabric effects, Embroidery Anglaise, Half Ball Molds, Painting and Butterflies
as well as Modelling and cut-outs.

PME Diploma in Sugarpaste Celebration Cake - Vintage Shabby Chic

 It was no misnomer to describe the course as intensive – each Sunday started at 9.30am and finished at c4.30pm, with just one 20min break! There was also a hand-out at the end of the day with a list of preparation that needed to be done for the following week.

Completing the course was also expensive. In addition to the £300+ fee for the course, and despite having a good range of basic cake decorating equipment, I estimate I spent a further £400 on equipment that was deemed “essential”. Most of it I will use in future projects, but some of the techniques we learnt were no longer fashionable and I am unlikely to use the techniques again any time soon. I would have hoped that there would have been equipment available to students to use within the classroom, given the cost of the course, but this was not the case.

I really enjoyed doing the PME Diploma Course in Sugarpaste and am really pleased with the skills I learnt. The course provides a very solid foundation in cake decorating and the core skills that you learn will enable you to produce a high standard of celebration cakes, whether that’s for pleasure or commercial use.

My two presentation pieces earned me a Bronze Award along with my Diploma.

You may also be interested in my other reviews of the Intensive PME Diploma in Sugarpaste: Lesson1, Lesson2, Lesson3, Lesson4 and Lesson5. Pin It Now!

Review of Lesson 5 of Intensive PME Professional Diploma in Sugarpaste

This is my review of Lesson 5 of Intensive PME Diploma in Sugarpaste.

Gosh – what an impressive sight, as everyone bought in their presentation boards and celebration cakes. It was truly awe-inspiring, considering that only 5 weeks ago most of us were complete novices.

Our presentation boards were put into the kitchen preparation area, whilst we kept our celebration cakes with us at our work stations. We then each had to give a talk on our cake, covering the design brief that we had been given (mine was a 21st Birthday and I chose a Shabby Chic Vintage theme) and why we then choose our specific design, how we came up with our ideas, colour choice, techniques used, details of the event at which the cake was to be served and how many portions it would yield, how to store and transport the cake etc.

After we finished our presentations, it was onto today’s practical session. We first learnt how to double ice our cakes with fondant to achieve a professional finish. Then we were taught about the different ways that we could create height through cake layers, including cake stands, pillars and stacking. I choose to stack my two square cakes at an angle, and learnt how to use dowels to provide the correct support for my cake. We then covered create a draped fabric effect, which looks really impressive and again something I really enjoyed. Before lunch, we also learnt how to create an effusive wire burst (the more wires, the greater the impact) and I used over 30 different wired butterflies in my burst.

The afternoon was spent creating the modelled fairy – we used a mold to create the head and learnt how to use coloured dusts and pastes to highlight features to a model. This needs practise but I will definitely use what I learnt here frequently in the future as I do love modelling.

Finally, we received our Diplomas and awards – and my Final Presentation pieces earned me a Bronze Award!

You may also be interested in my other reviews of the Intensive PME Diploma in Sugarpaste: Lesson1, Lesson2, Lesson3, Lesson4 and Final Presentation Board and Presentation Celebration Cake.
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Review of Lesson 4 of Intensive PME Professional Diploma in Sugarpaste

This is my review of Lesson 4 of Intensive PME Diploma in Sugarpaste.

The opening talk in Lesson 4 of Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste covered tips on taking cake orders including creating a cake ordering form and devising your own terms and conditions of business. The talk also covered what information to give to customers on transporting and serving their cake. Safe and legal use of edible glitter (which, confusingly in the UK, is now officially deemed to be non-edible!) was discussed and latter demonstrated in the class. We also discussed the different sorts of sugar modelling mediums including fondant (sugarpaste), modelling paste, flower paste and mexican paste.

The practical session today was mainly focused on modelling. Learning how to model in sugarpaste was how I first came to cake decorating, so this was definitely going to be my forte! Before this, though, we learnt how to use Embroderie Anglaise. This is such a pretty technique and the cutters are so versatile – you can make traditional sugar embroidery but also make smart, modern geometric borders and trims.

We had a small session on mexican paste, which we used to create doves (not my thing at all, but again a required element).

In the afternoon, we worked on modelling. We started by learning how to embellish 2D cut-outs to make them 3D. So we use the ball molds to create a face for a 2D Teddy cut-out.

Then it was onto creating a teddy bear picnic scene. We learnt how to create a realistic pond using the inlaid plaque technique and piping jelly, modelling teddy bears, making a patchwork rug and modelling food such as sandwiches and cakes. Really excellent fun.

We also learnt how to thread simple cut out shapes onto wires and how to use rejuvenator spirit to turn our colour pastes and dusts into painting mediums.





The lesson end in stunned silence though, when we learnt that next week, in addition to our presentation board and presentation celebration cake, we also needed to bring two further cakes, already iced, as we are to learn how to dowel and stack a cake. That’s a lot of cake!

You may also be interested in my other reviews of the Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste: Lesson1, Lesson2, Lesson3, Lesson5 and Final Presentation Board and Presentation Celebration Cake. Pin It Now!

Review of Lesson 3 of Intensive PME Professional Diploma in Sugarpaste

This is my review of Lesson 3 of Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste. 

The opening talk in Lesson 3 of Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste covered the basics of establishing portion sizes and the cake size required to produce a set number of portions. We were also tutored on how to price up cakes, taken into account costs in addition to ingredient costs, such as other consumables, power, advertising and costing in your time.

In the practical session, we produced another technique cake (in other words, I’m not showing you a photo of the overall cake as it is a patchwork of different techniques) – but we covered the following techniques:

• covering a marzipaned, square cake with sugarpaste in order to achieve crisp edges
• making an inlaid plaque
• creating borders
• fabric effects and swags
• ribbons and bows
• creating patterned sugarpaste including stripes and polka dots

Sugar Paste Swags, Bows, Ribbons & Borders

In the lesson, we learnt how to make bows by cutting out 5 lengths of sugarpaste ribbon (2x loops, 2x tails and 1 middle section). However, when I made bows for my Presentation Board, I found it easier to make them from 4 pieces (1x loops, 2x tails and 1 middle section).

I loved making the bows and ribbons, creating polka-dots and learning the different creative borders. I was surprised at how much I liked the inlaid plaque technique. Whilst I relay enjoyed learning how to give sugarpaste a fabric-like appearing I did not like creating swags again this currently this seems to be a very old-fashioned style.

You may also be interested in my other reviews of the Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste: Lesson1, Lesson2, Lesson4, Lesson5 and Final Presentation Board and Presentation Celebration Cake.

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Review of Lesson 2 of Intensive PME Professional Diploma in Sugarpaste

This is my review of Lesson 2 of Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste.

The opening talk in Lesson 2 of Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste covered awareness of a professional approach to business, including the need to find out about the health and hygiene regulations you would need to conform to if you start selling your cakes professionally, the finances of running a cake business and what to consider when taking orders and payments.

The practical session of Lesson 2 of Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste covered cake carving, using textured rolling pins including basket weave, levelling and preparing a fruit cake for icing by use of marzipan. We also had to cover the top of the marzipaned cake with a layer of sugarpaste which we then textured, in preparation for creating an inlaid plaque in week 3.

Pillow Cake with Basket Weave Texture

For my carved cake, which had to include use of the PME basket weave rolling pin and feature the garret frill cutter, I choose to create a pillow cake. You can find the recipe for my Chocolate Cake in my Chocolate Cushion Cake post. I also used the technique of inlaying cut-outs that we had covered in Lesson 1.

I made my own template for the cushion cake. My chocolate cake recipe provides a firm cake and I made the cake the day before using it to ensure that it was firm enough for carving. Once carved into the shape of a cushion cake, I split the cake, filled it with chocolate buttercream and then crumb-coated it with a thin layer of chocolate buttercream. I covered the cake in two colours of sugarpaste. For the bottom layer, I used plain dusty pink sugarpaste, and I then used my own template to cut the fondant to shape before placing the carved cake on top of it, gently bringing up the fondant to shape around the cake. I covered the top of the cake with a layer of sugarpaste that I had coloured a light brown and textured with a basket weave rolling pin. This paste was also cut to shape before placing on the cake. I eased the two layers of sugarpaste together but was not too worried if there was a small gap, as I used my sugarpaste gun to create contrasting piping – as you would find on a real cushion.

I decorated my cushion cake with an inlaid garret frill and fabric effect flowers.

I really enjoyed this class and there was a lot of creativity demonstrated. There were 9 students in this lesson and such a variety of carved cakes were produced, including a Chinese Steamer Basket with sugarpaste sushi! It was very inspirational and there was no overlap in ideas between students at all.

You may also be interested in my other reviews of the Intensive 5 Day Course for the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste: Lesson1, Lesson3, Lesson4, Lesson5 and Final Presentation Board and Presentation Celebration Cake.

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Review of Lesson 1 of Intensive PME Professional Diploma in Sugarpaste

PME offer a number of courses and I have recently completed the PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste.  I did this PME Professional Diploma Course in Sugarpaste as an Intensive 5 Day Course over a 5 week period at Confection Perfection in Barming, Kent.

This is a review of Lesson 1, I've also completed reviews of Lesson2, Lesson3, Lesson4, Lesson5 and of my Final Presentation Board and Presentation Celebration Cake.

Each lesson starts with a talk about an aspect of running a cake business as well as the theory of some of the techniques to be covered in that lesson. In our first lesson, we covered using sugarpaste, quantities required, colouring and coating cakes. We also looked at the use of colour in cake decorating, and were taken through the theory of using a colour wheel.

Fabric Effect Sugar Paste Flowers

Onto the practical element of Lesson 1
For basic techniques, we learnt how to level, split, fill, crumb-coat and cover a round Madeira cake. This cake was to be a technique cake – which meant that our finished cake was a Smorgasbord of different creative styling techniques including crimping edges, fabric effect sugar flowers and cutting-out basic shapes and then inlaying them with other shapes (such as circles in circles). We also learnt a number of different techniques using Creative Plaques, including how to turn them into cut little handbag toppers for cupcakes.

I liked learning how to cover a cake professionally (although this needs a lot of practise) and making the fabric flowers. I grew to appreciate the versatility of what could be achieved with Creative Plaques, although this was an expensive piece of kit that I will need to be creative with to get value for money from it. I did not like crimping edges – currently this seems to be a very old-fashioned style.

You may also be interested in my other reviews of the 5 Week Intensive PME Diploma in Sugarpaste: Lesson2, Lesson3, Lesson4, Lesson5 and Final Presentation Board and Presentation Celebration Cake. Pin It Now!

Christmas in July - House Mouse Christmas Fireplace

Just as the elusive summer finally appeared, it’s time for Christmas in July – but I hope these cute little House Mouse characters in Joanna Sheen’s Christmas Fireplace will melt your heart!  'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the House, Not a creaturing was stirring, not even a Mouse.......

Card Recipe:

Stamp: Joanna Sheen House Mouse Christmas Fireplace

Colouring Mediums: Memento Black, Promarker Pens

Paper & Card: Paper Adventures, Stardream, Elegance Satin

Tools: Martha Stewart Punches, Marianne Design Creatables dies, Big Shot, Spellbinders

Embellishments: Zva Pearl Swirls, Hand-made Pearl & Crystal Hat Pins, prima flowers, Christmas Charm, pearl brad.

I started by twice stamping House Mouse Christmas Fireplace onto Joanna Sheen's Elegance Satin Card using Momento and colouring with Promarkers to coordinate with my gorgeous Paper Adventures papers in teals and reds. I then cut out and decoupaged the candy cane, the peppermint sweet and the cute mices in their Christmas Stockings. The stockings were embellished with little pom-poms – really fun!

I created a message topper on my computer. Both this and my main image were cut out and mounted using Spellbinders Labels 2 – one of my favourites.

To ensemble, I created the backing mat from PaperAdventures and stitched the outside edge. I used a Martha Stewart snowflake punch to crate a feature border, and Marianne Creatables die for the Poinsettias which I cimbined with Prima Got Flowers. A liberal sprinkling of rhinestones followed.








To finish, I added Zva pearl flourishes, handmade crystal and pearl hatpins and a sweet Christmas Stocking charm.

 

Thanks for visiting my blog and I really appreciate all your wonderful comments.

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Chocolate Pillow Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:
175g organic unsalted butter
160g organic golden caster sugar, divided into 115g and 45g
6 large organic free range eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla bean paste
1.5 tsp glycerine
150g sifted organic self-raising flour
25g organic fair-trade cocoa powder
225g plain organic fair-trade chocolate 70% cocoa

For the filling:
100g plain organic fair-trade chocolate 70% cocoa
140g unsalted butter
140g icing sugar

To decorate:
500g fondant icing, coloured to your theme
Fabric effect sugar flowers and leaves

This is a dense chocolate cake, suitable for cake carving, but remains moist and delicious! Adding vanilla bean paste (or a very good quality extract if you can’t get paste) adds a subtle depth of flavour to the cake. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature.

Heat your oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Grease and line a 6” square cake tin with baking parchment. In a heat-proof bowl, break up the chocolate into small pieces and melt in either a microwave or by resting the bowl over a pan of bowling water. Set aside to cool back to room temperature.

In a food mixer, cream together the butter and 115g of caster sugar (reserving 45g for use latter) in a large bowl until light and fluffy (even with an electric mixer, this should take you at least 10mins to get to really light and fluffy!). Don’t scrimp on time at this stage – it will make such a vast difference to your finished cake. Separate your eggs, setting aside the whites to use a little latter. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time into the butter and sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla bean paste and glycerine – mix well. Slowly beat in the cooled melted chocolate.

In a separate bowl, whisk your egg whites to the soft peak stage. Slowly beat in the remaining 45g of castor sugar. In another bowl, sift together the flour and cocoa powder.

Using a large metal spoon and a gentle folding action, fold alternate spoonfuls of the flour/cocoa and egg whites until the mixture is well combined, but don’t over-beat.

Place in the oven. Check the cake after 45mins, it is ready when it is beautifully risen, firm to touch and a skewer comes out clean after being inserted in the middle. If the cake needs longer, check again after 10 mins.

As this is a carved cake, it is important to allow the cake to cool completely in the tin and then transfer to an airtight tin to rest for at least 12 hours before carving.

To make the buttercream, in a heat-proof bowl, break up the chocolate into small pieces and melt in either a microwave or by resting the bowl over a pan of bowling water. Set aside to cool back to room temperature. Beat the softened butter with the icing sugar with an electric beater, beating until soft and light, then slowly incorporate the cooled melted chocolate.

To assemble, carve the cake using a hand-cut template and a serrated knife. Do not split your cake until you have finished carving. Cut the cake in two and sandwich back together with the chocolate buttercream. Use the remaining buttercream to crumb coat the cake. Set aside to firm up in a cool place. Then cover with fondant icing and decorate with sugar flowers, sugar laces and garret frills.





If you have any questions, do leave a comment - or just let me know what you think!

I am entering this project into the following challenges:

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