Toy Cake

I am not sure what is with parents and leaving their children's birthday cake orders until the last minute. In my opinion as soon as the invites are sent out the cake should be ordered; however, in this case the person who was supposed to make the cake backed out on them. One persons loss is another persons gain and this time it was a gain for me. A close family friend phoned me and asked if I could put together a cake that had toys on it, vanilla and say Happy Birthday Mya on it. I am so happy when last minute orders are kept simple. 
Last minute cakes never turn out how I want them to and with 22 hours to make this cake I think it turned out pretty good.

The cake is vanilla with vanilla butter cream.
Everything on this cake is edible!

All of the toys on top of the cake are made out of fondant.
Everyone was impressed with what I came up with in such a short period of time. My icing work is not as perfect as I would like it but with only 22 hours the cake didn't have enough time to crust.

Dale Earnhardt JR Cake

My moms boyfriend Dave is a Nascar fan. Personally I don't understand the point of Nascar watching cars go around and around is not my idea of a good time, but to each our own.

Dave is a huge Dale Earnhardt SR fan, by huge I mean he knows everything about the guy right down to what his wife did to the Earnhardt company after he died and why JR left that team.

Turns out my mother of all people asks me if I can make the cake 2 days before his birthday. Last minute cake orders I don't mind expect when I can't find anything in Sarnia that is Dale Earnhardt SR, not a single thing and there is even very limited things that are even JR.

We ended up having to do that cake as Dale Earnhardt JR. The cake turned out pretty good for only 48 hours notice. Everyone enjoyed it!

This cake is half vanilla, half chocolate. The vanilla half had strawberry buttercream as filling. The chocolate half had chocolate buttercream as filling. The outside was done in vanilla buttercream with fondant accents. The only thing on this cake that is non-edible is the car.

Dangers for Dogs: Heartworm

Heartworm, a preventable, painful and in many cases a deadly disease. Heartworm can be found in both dogs and cats.

Taking proper care of your dog(s) means heartworm preventative medication. This is bought at your vets office and comes in either chewy pills called heartgard or a liquid that you put on the back of their necks called revolution. I have changed to the revolution as it is cheaper for me when treating my two personal dogs and any foster that I have. Revolution deals with preventing fleas, ticks and heartworm.

One simple prevention not only saves your pet from a painful recovery or death and saves you an extremely high vet bill. In some cases if a  heartworm infestation is to advanced, the treatment will be infective and the dog will have to be put to sleep.

We recently had a dog at the shelter go into foster care as he had been at the shelter for a very long time and was showing kennel stress. He went to a great foster home where he was doing awesome and the kids just adored him. He went in for his neuter and heartworm test, while recovering at the shelter waiting to go back to his foster home his test results came back in, Butch/Baxter was advanced heartworm positive. With a heavy heart this little guy had to be put to sleep. The children in his foster home were heartbroken. A simple one pill or drop(s) a month could have prevented this from happening.

Baxter/Butch

Heartworm is passed to a dog through mosquito's. It is 100% preventable. When a dog in Canada is found to be heartworm positive and starts treatment it is a long and painful task. The dog goes in for weekly treatments and has to remain completely at rest between treatments. Treatments can go on for years. The cost in Canada is about $3000.00 to treat heartworm. Preventative is about $100.00 per season depending on how many dogs you have.

Please save your dog(s) and family heartache; use heartworm preventive every year!!

More information from the OSPCA on heartworm.

Baptism cupcake cake

Making cupcakes and cakes is a great passion of mine, in the time I have been doing cakes and cupcakes I have only ever puttered with cupcake cakes.

A client asked us if we could make a dress out of 40 cupcakes. As always my answer is yes, I never say no to any cakes even if I have never tried the technique before. I figure, no time like the present to learn.

I learned a few things that I will do when making my next cupcake cake.

These cupcakes are vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. The strawberry cupcakes are filled with strawberry buttercream. My taste tester said they were AWESOME. The pink flowers are made out of buttercream, the bow and necklace are made out of fondant.

Annie Adopted

Miss. Annie, one foster baby that will always be in my thoughts and in my heart. Something about this sweet girl touched many people both across the water and here at home. Annie as you, my readers know, came to us in horrible condition both mentally and physically, in July 2012. She was found roaming the cemetery in Wallaceburg.

When she came in she was thought to be pregnant, when I got the news I knew she couldn't spend her pregnancy in the shelter and her pups didn't deserve to be born in a shelter. Most pups that are born in a shelter die. They either die from disease that is passed on to them or their mother refuses to nurse because of kennel stress or depression. I went to the shelter right away, picked her up and took her to my vets. My vet did an ultra sound to check and see if there were pups. Turned out none!!! Yes I was extremely excited about this because we don't want anymore pups brought into this world when there are so many dogs and puppies dieing in shelters everyday.

Susan asked me if I wanted to bring Annie back to the shelter as she was not pregnant. Right away I said no, Annie needed help and as much as they try at the shelter they wouldn't have the time to work with her one on one.

Over the year that she was in care Annie began to trust, show love, and be able to be a dog. Annie grew by leaps and bounds, she had turned into the most lovable foster dog I have ever had. The only problem she needed to find her forever home. Over the year she had very little to no interest in her. One man wanted to use her as a hunt dog, I could just picture how that would have gone. Gun shot either Annie would have taken off never to be seen again or crawled up his leg and peed on him. It just wasn't the right fit.

One of the hardest decision of my life was made she needed to go to the shelter for exposure. I am not going to go into details as I already blogged about Annie and The Shelter. After what seemed like a life time Annie was finally adopted. The wonderful group of ladies that I have the honor to work with help create a sharing spree on Facebook. By the next afternoon she had 3 approved adopters and was on her way to her trial home.

After just three days in her trial home they decided to adopt her. Annie is now in her well deserved forever home. I am hoping that they will send a picture or two so I can add it my blog. Until then I am adding the picture of Keira and her.

Keira misses her greatly and says that we will never have a foster that she will love as much as she did Annie!!

Adopt don't shop! Wallaceburg Animal Shelter

Twin Mash up cake

Two of my favourite twin boys just turned 4 and I had the honor of making their birthday cake. The boys both love Spiderman and Monster trucks, what little boys don't.

Their mom couldn't decide on which one to do, so I suggest that I make both. She was unsure about how it would look in the end, but said go ahead anyway :).

I love how they turned out and so did everyone including the boys.

The top tier was vanilla and the bottom was chocolate.

They all said the cake tasted amazing! I love seeing the smiles and moment of happiness that our cakes can bring!

London Children Museum: National Ice Cream Day

The kids LOVE this place and so do I. If we lived in London we would be making daily trips here. This time we went it happened to be National Ice Cream Day which was very exciting!!
The kids got to learn and do so much.
The special events of this day were making old fashion ice cream, making northern lights, making ice cream using and learning about vortex's.

I think the kids favourite thing was trying the ice cream. They said the ice cream made with Liquid Nitrogen tasted the best.

I love that you can bring lunch and snacks, there are picnic tables outside were we sat and ate.

Vortex's

Making Ice Cream with Liquid Nitrogen

Old fashion ice cream

northern lights

London Children's Museum