Changing, once again

I haven’t blogged in so long I almost forgot how!

Things have been beyond crazy busy been my very active almost 21 month old son Blaine, the cake “business”, the dogs, the house and trying to maintain somewhat of a resemblance of a life.

I am not even going to attempt to play catch up of everything that has gone on in this crazy life of mine!

Lets start with a new “about me”

I am 30 years old, yes I know the big 30 which wasn’t as bad as everyone who has turned 30 before me made it out to seem. I had an awesome birthday with at the time was my best friend and business partner. We went to Niagara Falls, it was the first time in my life I have been there. We did everything there was to do, well at least that we were interested in anyway.

I have a 20 month old son, who is soon to be 21 months. He is beyond active and love life! We choose to go with a low technology lifestyle with him. There is no TV in the living room (His main play area), only learning games on my cell phone (and he only gets it while I am driving), he loves toys, hates coming in from outside and the messier the better in his world. He loves the dogs and can say about 60 or 70 words give or take. He is beyond his age for milestones and development, which he has been since the start (proud mommy moment).

I currently have 2 dogs, both which are rescues, sadly Jakes passed away almost a year ago. Ace and Bossoco are the one we have. I am still in rescue just not with Friendly Giants and not as a foster home at the moment. Both dogs love and adore Blaine especially since he shares all food with them.

My house is in a consent state of happy chaos, although I struggle daily with the OCD need to clean everything all day and keeping up with everything else around here as well.

If my kitchen doesn’t look like a bakery blew up, my living room looks like a toddler tornado went through or my dinning room looks like a craft store invaded.

I have learned to let things stay untidy until about once a month when I can’t do it anymore and everything has to go and everything has to be cleaned!

I have decided to slightly change the direction of my blog, NOOOO its not going to become one of those “mom” blogs where all I talk about is Blaine.

I am excited to be back and I hope all of you are as well.

Now what picture to post with this blog post!!!

Random cake made by me photo it is!

Hunting Cupcakes

These were interesting to make, I couldn't get the browning symbol on the hats small enough to fit a cupcake topper, I hand painted the gold ends of the shot gun shells and it was a last minute order.

Everything turned out pretty cute and I learned a few new techniques working on this order. It is always great when I get to learn something new.

The shot gun shell ends took forever to paint as it was a very slow process between coats of pain to get the gold colouring just right.

Shared Kitchen

A couple weeks ago I moved into a shared kitchen, no I didn't move everything I have so much baking stuff I could fill my own store, I do my fondant work and baking in the shared kitchen. I started out being there 6 days a week from 10am-6pm but I ran into a couple of issues that we are trying to work out. I didn't see the point of being there all day when no one comes in so I do my baking at night there and fondant work while cakes are baking.

I wish I was able to still do it from home I liked it much better when I could put a cake in the oven and go on with cleaning, working on fondant etc plus my house has central air so fondant or butter cream melting really wasn't an issue, where in the shared kitchen it is.

The guy who I share the kitchen with is pretty awesome, he is very funny and easy going which is great. He owns Philly Cheese Jakes here in town and his food is pretty good from the items I have tried so far.

With this big step of moving into a shared kitchen it is making me realize how badly I would love to be in my own kitchen. As for the business its not ready for that just yet but maybe in a year it will be.

With the cake business I am pretty lucky I have some pretty great clients!

In the shared kitchen Jake's youngest daughter is there a lot she seems to really enjoy being there and is a very nice girl, she knows her way around the kitchen that's fore sure. She always has lots of questions of fondant and such and really likes to try the cupcakes when them! So far she has tried a few flavours she was unsure about and turned out to really like them.

I am lucky to have found such amazing people to work around just miss doing it from home, people will say oh I know lots of people who make cakes and stuff from their homes well it depends where you live and your by-laws, Sarnia has strict health codes that make it very hard to do it from home, I know one other local baker who rents a kitchen to do her baking and has had an old car port turned into an add a room to be able to decorate her cakes at home. It is very rare in Sarnia-Lambton for a home to be approved to use their kitchen as a home bakery etc.

My first day in the kitchen I was a ball of nerves, I didn't know much about Jake and wasn't sure if our personalities would mix, one of my best friends came in early brought me flowers and bought a couple cupcakes. She made my day and I relaxed, Jake and I get along great, from what I can tell.

I changed my hours to only being there at night to bake and do fondant and such and I am only "open" on days I have deliveries or pick ups. I started out offering cupcake of the day, everyday a different cupcake never the same twice in a month, but now I am going to offer them when I am "open" So right now I will mainly be there on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays depending of course as more and more people are ordering cakes for during the week.

When I told Jake was wouldn't be in until Saturday his response was awesome! He said well now what am I going to do, he mainly works alone and he comes back and chats with me and such.

I just bought a bakers rack in order to display my baked goods when I there for people to see his daughter is going to paint it the colours to match the store for me, she is quite the artist so I am sure its going to look amazing.

I am in the process of looking for a cold display that will fit in a certain spot but right now its not an option they run $2,000.00 plus for a used one so I must wait. As of right now anything that has to be kept cold I keep in a stand up freezer that was given to me!

Hippo Cake

I was asked by my sister to make my moms birthday cake for a small get together of just us. It took a long time before my family started to ask me to make the cakes for their birthdays and such.

Of course my sister picks a super cute cake, and says make sure you can do the eye lashes on the hippo or I can pick a different cake, lol as if the eye lashes make or break a cake.


The little details is what I love about making fondant figures. The eye lashes were a lot simpler than I had originally thought they would be. I am pretty good at looking at an image and recreating.



Of course my family is great at last minute planning so I wasn't given much time to create this cake but it still turned out really cute and was a huge hit.

Vendor Events

I love doing vendor events with the cake business, it gets my name out there! Normally I make just enough to cover my table cost and nothing more, but these events always go to great causes and that's why I do them. I have done events for a little bit of everything, relay for life, Sarnia Humane Society, Optimist club etc etc. How vendor events work is I sign up, pay a table fee if I am lucky I don't have to drag my table with me or dig out a chair lol, I bake my butt off (about 20-30 hours), load the car up (some times I have to be there for 7:30am), set up my table at what I hope is an outside table and not a middle one, I have been very lucky and only had to be on the inside twice, then I wait for them to open the doors and hopefully for the sake of the event lots of people show up. Some charge $2.00 a person, plus the raffle table money and the money from the vendors it all adds up for the group putting it on. I normally donate a 15.00-20.00 gift cert for the raffle table.

This past winter, as I am sure all of you are aware I am an animal rights advocate, I was asked if I would have a booth at a vendor event supporting the Sarnia Humane Society, that's a silly questions and an easy answer YES!!! A very dear, sweet, heart of gold friend was hosting she is amazing she does a lot of work in the community as well and I am hoping to team up with her to host an event in the fall, anyway I was so excited it was the first of its kind for to go towards a cause that is dear to me.

Sadly I was unable to attend the event in the end, I have a serve allergy to latex one that causes my throat to close up and well that never ends well. A face painter (not the normal one who comes to the events I go to) was coming, face painters are amazing at events both children and adults love them, normally at the events I am at a wonderful lady named Cat is at them and normally she is in the other room or doesn't bring the balloon guy with her. Well My dear friend talked to the face painter and asked if it was possible that she not bring balloons because it a small hall, the face painter completely went off the handle on her, I couldn't believe it, when I do events that are at school and such I am asked to not bring any baked goods with peanuts in them, I of course I agree no questions ask, I know how serve allergies are and I would rather not make a student ill just by having my product there.


My dear friend was at a loss on what to do so I gracefully backed out, a little upset about it but some people are just uncompromisable. With that said, I made and donated all the baked goods for their bake table, I make a cake for the raffle table along with a gift cert. I sucked it up and moved on. I was very proud to be able to donate the baked goods, oh and of course my dog cookies were there which were a huge hit! They are nothing fancy by any means but they are loved by dogs and they are human grade, not that I would eat them.

The event did amazing!! It raised over $1,000.00 for the Sarnia Humane Society and I am so proud of my dear friend for going above and beyond like she always does!

The vendor events not only help local small businesses and home businesses get their names out there it helps local groups with funding, please go walk around a vendor event and support your local community!!

I am truly blessed with the ability to give back even if it is in small ways.

Pink and Brown Baby Shower Cake

I love when clients say to me I want a cake that has flowers on it and is pink and brown, gives me the ability to play and create.

Flowers are one of my favourite things to make out of fondant.

Everything on this cake is edible!!!

Pinterest Recipe: The BEST Broccoli cheese soup

I LOVE broccoli and cheese soup and over the years have I have tried many different recipes but none have ever really stuck with me and tasted the way I wanted them to, so in many cases they were a one time recipe.

I came across this one browsing through Pinterest. Now this recipe is kinda pricey because of the cost of Velveeta Cheese but its very much worth it. 

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 (10 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
1 1/2 cups milk
1 lb Velveeta cheese, cubed
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped broccoli


Here is a link to the recipe and a link to the Pinterest page.

I make this soup a couple times a year but not nearly as often as I would like because of the cost of the cheese. I normally do a double batch because one is just never enough!!!