The BIG Challenge: Geek Chic

Ok, so here it is! My biggest challenge ever! Well, that is until someone else decides it's fun to keep me on my toes...

So, a friend of mine sent me a message and asked how I felt about making a geek cake. Being a self-proclaimed geek myself, my initial response was, sure! Why not? Then I started really thinking about it. How on earth was I going to do that? There are a number of geeky type baby items available on the market, that's for sure. The thing is, many of them spread the whole gamut of geekdom. There may be one thing here and one thing there regarding various aspects of games, TV, etc. that is considered geeky. There really isn't one area that has several baby items. Additionally, the expectant parents were big into StarCraft, a real-time strategy computer game that luckily I had played the original version so I was familiar with it. They liked the game so much, they were naming their baby after one of the character names. So, what I really wanted to do was to make a diaper cake that incorporated that particular game. While I was researching, I found that it would be next to impossible. I found one baby item relating to the game and it would be quite cost prohibitive to order and ship it for a single item to add to the cake. I told my friend that the likelihood of me incorporating the game was slim and asked for color schemes and whatnot so I could keep brainstorming. The colors were brown, green, and purple. Although the parents were having a girl, they wanted no pink.

This is a rough drawing of a pylon.
Don't know what I was thinking...

My first thought was to make the cake in the form of a pylon - a power crystal from the game. After many attempts at figuring out stability for said cake, I decided it was not going to work. Not only that, finding baby items to add would throw off the look and as the power crystal is blue and the components yellow, it was nowhere near the colors the parents wanted.

I went back to the drawing board. I thought I'd do some printable transfers. I could make some burp cloths with binary or geeky phrases on them. After trying different sizes and fonts and figuring out exactly how this idea would work, I scrapped it. Why? Well, I realized that as cute as it would make the burp cloth, an image printed and transferred on would work much better on clothing than a piece of fabric that you intend to soak up messes and something that needs to maintain it's absorbency. I was so close to throwing in the towel and just skipping the geek theme and going with the colors the parents selected. As I mused about my options, I was reminded of the cake I had made not too long ago where I crocheted squashed and gourds. I figured I could crochet a plush topper for the cake!

My crocheted Baneling with an inset of one like you'd
see in the game.

I researched several of the characters, critters, and other items from the game trying to come up with one for the plush topper. I considered a pylon since it seemed simple enough, but the colors were all wrong to go with the cake. I found another critter, called a Baneling and decided that would be my plushie! It's an ugly critter, really, but that's ok, because it works within the realm of the game, would be easy enough to create (ok, I suppose that's relative since I had to come up with the pattern on my own), and would be recognizable for what it was. Not to mention, it could be made in colors to coordinate with the cake. Win all around! While the actual crocheting was a challenge and getting it to look like I wanted, it did come together.

Three burp cloths. Custom hand embroidery.
I may, in fact, be a little crazy.

So, one plush critter was certainly not enough to make this a StarCraft cake. I then decided I could do some embroidery. Sure, I hadn't done it since I was a kid, but I had most of the supplies and with this option I could make a really custom gift. Or gifts. The game has three races that you can play, so I decided I'd embroider (and by that I mean by hand, since I don't have a machine) three burp cloths, one for each race in the game using their race logos. Now, the color thing did cause a bit of a problem, as I couldn't make them match the colors in the game with the colors the parents wanted, but I did it as close as I could. One race is purple, so that worked out. The second, the logo was yellow, so I used green for that one. The third race's logo was red and black, so for that one, I used brown. The embroidery was certainly a challenge and it was a bit of a learning curve, or re-learning curve, if you will. In the end, they came out quite nicely although, if I continue to do some hand embroidery I'll have to look into different tips and ideas to make it a bit easier on myself.

So, after the very custom, handmade items were complete, it was finally time to build the cake! I made a large 3-tier cake using the spiral style of cake. I added large flannel blankets to each of the tiers. I then added some general baby items, washcloths and head bands, and of course, all of my custom items which also included a onsie that declared, "N00B" (a common word/insult in the gaming world) in coordinating iron-on lettering. The final cake was definitely something to be proud of!

Front of the Geek Chic cake

Back of the Geek Chic cake

I was so excited about this cake! I could not wait to hand it off to my friend that ordered it, but sadly, the baby was born early (she's fine, and home, by the way) and the shower was postponed. I did finally get it to my friend and it was of course, a hit! She was so excited that I was able to incorporate the game even though at first I thought it would be impossible. The recipient I hear, also thoroughly enjoyed the cake, so it was a huge success!

I was definitely stretched to the limit on this one. I have never had a bigger challenge, but I'm so glad that I was able to meet it! I now know that with all of the craft skills I possess, I have even fewer limitations when it comes to making diaper cakes. This is a wonderful way to make my mark in the business and I'm very excited about what the future holds!