The cake stand came today!

So, I looked into the cake stands in my other blog about cakes, and decided I liked the 3 separated tier's.

I scoured the internet and found you could rent these cake stands for £50 - £100 plus a deposit incase of damages. Fair enough I thought. But then I looked on Ebay/Amazon and found I could purchase the same cake stand for only £40! Not only cheaper but then the cake stand is mine to keep/use/sell or whatever once I'm done.

So I took the plunge and ordered it...it came today and I got rather excited and photographed me building it...it was just a simple matter of a couple of screws...these photo's may seem a little dull, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and cannot wait to have cake to put on it :D

The Box (I know dull)

Opened it! need to assemble!

Don't worry...you get instructions! super easy!

Got the screws?

Checking all the bits are there.

First tier put together

Second tier added

Third tier and the handle

You cant see too well here but I have popped the plates into each tier

Better shot of the completed stand!

Its actually bigger than I thought but that's a good thing :) means more room for cake!

Button mould

So...if you read my last but one blog "cake...everybody loves cake" you'll have seen the little button shaped moulds I was toying with. Well I ordered one, and it came today. Here it is..! (Squee!) 

I bought some regal icing and some marzipan just to test how hard it is to press them out. 

Well...the the regal icing was very sticky and difficult to turn out...icing sugar did not cut it to stop the sticky...but cornflour did, as advised by the company I bought the mould from. It was difficult to turn out the icing without effecting the shape...but the marzipan was much easier to turn out! 

So Andrew made a cake...just sponge with a nice jam filling...and I used the icing and marzipan buttons on it...see what you think?

The plan is for the buttons to be purple...so next will be to experiment with food colouring possibly! 

The Dress...

Now I know everyone keeps the dress a 'big secret' which is fine, but I am planning to alter my mums wedding dress...and I am planning to quite dramatically alter it so I figured I'd pop up a few pics of 'before' the alterations, also so I can try and keep track of what alterations need doing.

So here is a shot of my mummy wearing her designer dress on 7th September 1985 outside St Pauls Church Quarrington Hill, Durham (sadly the church is no longer there)

 

 



It is layers of lace with frill around the neck going up to a collar and has long lace sleeves (very in!)

 

I am happy to say that the dress pretty much fits me perfectly...and here is 2 shots of me wearing it, completely unaltered in 28 years after that photograph above.

 

 

 

My plan is as follows...I love the lace and the ribbon around the waist and I love the sleeves, I am less than keen on the neck frill...not to mention that the lace collar is rather scratchy and feels like it is choking me :/ so I plan to remove the frill and collar - keep the sleeves but possibly tighten them around the arms and maybe lengthen them with some lace or wide ribbon around the cuff's. Shorten the whole dress so it is more of a 50's style just below the knee or maybe calf-length dress and add lots of underskirts to make it stick out more and give it a 'rockabilly' or 50's feel. - at there is plenty material on the bottom of the dress nothing should need adding - just shortening.

 

Joyful shot of me and my mummy taking of the frill lace around the collar...

 

 

 

All we have done so far is remove the collar...but here are a few shots of me wearing it minus the collar and frill

 

 

 

To add to the purple theme I may replace the white ribbon around the waist with a purple one and add a purple underskirt (And wear purple shoes!) just to add hints of purple, you should only be able to see the underskirt as I walk.

 

Below is a pick of the underskirts with the link to the ebay sellers page, the underskirts are relatively inexpensive and should give a perfect length to the dress.

 

 

 

And finally a very quick pic of the dresses that inspired me with the vintage look...both of these dresses can be found on the 'House of Mooshki' website along with plenty of other amazing dresses for you ladies to drool over...link: http://www.houseofmooshki.com/

 

 

 

This first one has more of the lace skirt look that I like and I like the length and the good amount of 'poof' given by the underskirt.



 

And this second one has the lace sleeve look and again good length and good amount of 'poof' given by the underskirt :)







 

 

 

Cake...everybody loves cake...

So everybody loves cake...but deciding on a cake design/flavour is rather difficult...

Flavours...it is traditional to have a fruit cake...apparently it symbolizes fertility or something along those lines?!? so I have pretty much decided that regardless of the rest at very least the smallest top layer should be a fruit cake.

Having attended a few wedding fairs I am blown away by the flavour selections...Vanilla, chocolate, Banana cake, Red Velvet, Lemon, Marble Cake, Rainbow Cake, Carrot Cake...too much choice.

Then shape...circular, hexagonal, square, cupcakes, mini cakes, tiered, separates - its also very 'in fashion' to have a 'dessert table' and have a selection of cakes and French 'petit fours' type confectionary rather than just the one cake.

Check my pinterest...I have pinned LOADS of ideas... http://www.pinterest.com/missdragonflyj/wedding-brain-storming/

Well...I have hit upon the idea of these adorable 3 tier 'tea/cake stands' - as we are having an afternoon tea party rather than a traditional wedding breakfast. I figured these tea stands will link in with the tea party theme...

I am pretty much decided that the one below is the chosen one. The bottom stand holds a 12" cake, middle is 10" and top is 8".

I am thinking fairly simple cakes...but maybe 3 flavours...so the top 8" cake will be the traditional fruit cake. Then deciding on the other 2...vanilla sponge with jam? I'm kinda favouring a carrot cake...but I tastes a Banana cake at a wedding fair and it was lush...so was the red velvet cake...for now I think we'll come back to the flavours...

So decoration...well I'm toying with the idea of these button moulds, but rather than popping chocolate in them (like the pic) you could use them to shape coloured icing...

 

 

Then just pop a line of buttons around the base of each cake. Purple is the theme...so if you had plain white iced cakes with a line of purple buttons that could have quite and impact...or you could ice the cakes with purple icing and pop white icing buttons on? Or a combination? So have it white-purple-white varying per cake tier...

 

I also found these button moulds...the ones above would give a nice uniform line of buttons the same shape...if you use the ones below it would add a lovely rustic, vintage feel with all 'higgledy piggledy' buttons...

 



Or if we forget the button idea I do have a bit of a 'lace' undertone to the wedding theme...I could just simply pop some ribbon and lace around the base of each tier...

...hmmm....too much to decide!

Invites

With a year to go it is marginally early for the invites however I am planning to make them all myself, which adds on some work...so here's the test one.

Bought a stamp which says 'wedding invitation, not as easy as using the little stickers widely sold by craft stores but i think it will look a little more 'hand made'

I already have a selection of embossing powders to use with the inks from making Christmas cards.

Not easy to see from the pic, all clear ink with various embossing powders...the left one is iridescent, middle is silver, right is black with sparkles. 

On white paper, purple ink with iridescent embossing powder

On a tag purple ink with iridescent embossing powder

Got some scissors with decorative edging to trim the edge

Paper doily simple decoration with punch hole (I punched one too many holes in the right good job it's just a practise!)

Added a discrete button to tie in the button theme...

Bit of ribbon and attach the tag. You have to untie the ribbon to open the invite - possibility will look at using purple twine over ribbon...more experimentation may be needed. 

 

Birdie cake topper...practise #2

So a couple of blog's ago I showed off the fab cake toppers I liked of 2 little birds - however the price was astronomical! Aint no way I'm paying that for 2 little stuffed fabric birds...so I decided to have a bash at making my own.

In the previous blog all I really did was find a bird template and have a whirl at stitching them together by hand. Well - obviously hand stitching leaves the fabric a little 'loose' so I dug out my mums vintage 1980's Toyota Sewing machine, dusted and oiled it and to my amazement apart from that the light bulb had blown it seemed to work fine (Good solid Toyota engineering!)

So...I gave the sewing machine a whirl for a basic outline of a bird...

Then I went all out and did a little bride birdie :) needs work still but I generally pleased with the shape - and realised if I'm making my own I can tie in the button design ideas I'm using on the bouquet's - I debated having buttons as eyes but it looked a little creepy and very much like 'Coraline' :) 

Kindness

Just a quick note to say that I'm overwhelmed by how generous people are in and around wedding organisation. A fabulous friend has offered to make the wedding cake for us as a wedding present, and another has offered to help alter the wedding dress. Also huge Thank You to my mummy and daddy who gave us some money to put towards the wedding which we used to put down the deposit on the venue. People are so generous.

Also my creative little sister who made this for us <3

Cake Toppers...practise 1

Ok so I bought a wedding magazine, I know HUGE mistake, everywhere says don't buy them because they set an unrealistic standard with lots of money to be spent. It is true.

However, I did find these adorable little cake toppers...

cute right? so I found them for sale on this fab website called www.notonthehighstreet.com
Link for the lovely birds... http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/thecottonpotter/product/personalised-fabric-bird-wedding-cake-toppers

If you clicked that link above then I'm sure you will have made a small audible gasp at the price...£140!!!!! Yes I appreciate they are hand made but the are 2 small fabric birds...they wanna be made of solid silver for that price.

So I endeavour to make some myself which are similar (not identical) So first to hone my needle skills I decided to make a rough outline of a fabric bird to see if I could get a general shape.

((before you comment on this shoddy work it was just a 'shape' practise - I loosly hand stitched together just to get an idea and I made if from felt (which is quite stretchy) will need to try some in various fabrics to see what works.

Bird shape template

Cut me out some shapes

Add some wings

 

Stitch together

After much tugging and pulling a little hollow right-way-round bird shell

Bit o'stuffing to plump it out

General bird shape

 

Beak needs to be pointier but you get the idea!