Under the Big Top, The Finale!

I've been so caught up with life, I totally forgot I never posted Ava's circus in it's completed glory!

Well. Life. It's been crazy. In the past two months I've been sick three times. I kid you not. I had the flu, I had the SWINE flu, and I'm now just getting over a cold. At the time of little Ava's birthday party (over the span of about 10 days, including Halloween), I had the Swine. I actually had just started feeling a bit better on Halloween... I had to finish up details on her cakes wearing gloves and a surgical mask so I wouldn't risk infecting her or her party goers. ...needless to say, I did NOT attend that party. :-(

But, Ava's mom, Beth, said everyone had a great time, and the cakes and accouterments turned out wonderfully. Beth and her family did a great job getting everything set up!

Play on, Player

Happy Tax-Due-Date! Er-- I mean... Happy Birthday, Bryan! :-)
My younger brother's birthday was April 15th. While many people were scrambling to get their tax returns into the mail, I was busy planning out his cake. Now last year, I made Bryan his WOW laptop cake. I didn't stray too far from this, since I still kept in the theme of video games. ...Bryan's a gamer. :-) Nothin' wrong with that!

Bryan's girlfriend, Amanda, helped me decide on the SNES that I ended up making. I was struggling between a few different ideas and she helped me settle on this one. Thanks, Amanda!

I sketched out (forgot to take a pic of my sketch this time) about 15-20 little Mario Bros characters and a rough sketch of the SNES (it's a pretty simplistic boxy form) and got to work!

I tried to use only the icing, but the shape just wasn't coming out right so I covered it with fondant. It made a huge difference.



Bryan's SNES birthday cake and Mario Bros cupcakes:





Half of the Mario Bros cupcakes in closer detail:




Other half of Mario Bros cupcakes:




Side view of the cake and cupcakes, and the color-cordinated HAPPY BIRTHDAY candles:




Love these candles!:




Right before I revealed the cake to Bryan, after the candles were lit:




Everyone checkin' out the cake (left to right, mom Sue, Bryan's girlfriend Amanda, brother Paul, sister-in-law Jesi, birthday boy Bryan, and dad Phil) :