Vintage Rose Garden

I was contacted by a potential customer that was looking for a vintage garden themed cake. She requested pink and mint green as the colors. She also was interested if I could incorporate ballet slippers into the cake as well. Over all, she wanted a clean look for the cake.

I set to work on a "naked cake" (one without blankets). I added lace detailing to a couple of the layers to bring in the "vintage" part of the theme. I added several washcloth roses as both decorations on the tiers and for the topper of the cake. I love incorporating washcloth flowers because I think they add an elegant look to very basic baby necessities. Best of all, they are completely usable once disassembled.

The ballet slippers were a bit more challenging. As far as I knew, baby ballet slippers did not exist. If they did, they eluded me. I looked for decorative ballet slippers that could be added to the cake that perhaps could function simply for aesthetic purposes, but I only found a few ballet slipper items (stickers and whatnot) and nothing that was impressive enough that could go with the cake. Since the alternate was baby booties if I couldn't do ballet slippers, I opted to seek out patterns for baby booties. I came across an adorable pattern for some booties. I decided that I could make them up and with some added ribbon that could be tightened to secure the booty on the baby's foot and double as a decorative bow, I could achieve the ballet slipper look. I made a sample pair and then two to go with the diaper cake.

 The final cake was an elegant clean cake. I love the look and how simple it is. Of course, as with all my cakes, an expectant mama could not only have a beautiful centerpiece at a shower, but all the baby items on the cake are completely usable, making it a fantastic gift for any new mama!

Crochet for the Holidays

One of my customers of my boob beanies showed me a picture of an adorable newborn pirate hat that she had seen and wondered if I could make something like it. She wanted it for Halloween for her 7 week old. I told her that I probably could if I had a pattern. I didn't concretely say that I would do it - I didn't want to make a promise I couldn't keep. I went in search of a pattern, because really, who can resist and adorable baby dressed up as a pirate?

I collected a couple patterns, including the one from the picture she showed me. I went to work using the pattern from the picture and decided I'd use the other one as a back-up depending on how the first turned out. Sadly, I didn't have the materials I needed. I didn't have the right yarn or the right crochet hook. Being me, I just made-do with what I had and decided I'd see how it came out and fix any problems I encountered as I encountered them. And I did encounter them. The first hat I made was adorable. And tiny. Really tiny. It figures considering my crochet hook was too small. And my yarn too narrow. Fair enough, I decided I'd adjust the pattern and make it larger - which came with it's own set of challenges. This worked well and the hat came out adorable, and after fiddling with and altering the pattern for the Jolly Roger logo, I had a super cute hat. For a tiny baby. Like, newborn tiny. Maybe preemie. Or a doll. I thought it might fit since my boys were able to wear some newborn items until they were about 8 weeks old. Not the case here. Once again, I adjusted the pattern and enlarged it (again, with more challenges) and completed a super cute pirate hat that was much more suited for a 0-3 mo baby. I pushed it a bit close to Halloween, but my customer had it in time and all worked out well.

Inspired by the pirate hat, I decided to create an adorable pumpkin hat too. I had saved the pattern quite some time ago, like over a year. I decided I couldn't keep staring at it hoping for a reason to make it, so I just made it. Fortunately, I didn't have to alter the pattern much for this one and managed to get it right the first time. So super cute! This particular pattern lends itself to extending quite well, so adjusting for larger sizes is much easier than with the pirate hat.


I'm so excited about these adorable additions to my repertoire. I'm looking forward to more for future holidays. Now to find some winter patterns!

Craft Fair 2012 Prep (Part 1)

October 2012 was a busy month for me with orders, personal gifts, and preparation for the upcoming craft fair that I do every year. Since most of my gifts are custom orders, I tend to not make a bunch ahead of time, so right before the craft fair, I'm typically rushing to get some cakes made up so I have something to offer at the sale.

The biggest project was replacing some inventory. I like to make sure to have a girl, boy, and gender neutral cake in 3-tier and 2-tier so that potential customers can see the variations and have options to choose from. I also like to have one each of baby buggies as well. In late September/early October, my main focus was on the diaper cakes. Since I had other cakes I was making at the time, I decided I'd also take advantage of photo opportunities before all the cakes were wrapped.

The updated duck cake

The original duck cake

My first project was to update a cake that I decided needed improvement. The cake was a gender neutral duck cake I had made for last year's show. I absolutely love the duck theme, but I felt that something was missing - namely a duck topper. At the time I made it, I didn't have an appropriate topper so I made-do with a hat that I had. I'd been toying with the idea of unwrapping the cake and adding a plush duck for a while and when I came across some super cute ducks at a store, I grabbed the opportunity. And the duck. I "fixed" the cake, adding the duck, moving around some of the baby items, and securing the ribbon that apparently had come loose.

Girl geometric cake

The second project was to create a 2-tier girl cake. For this cake, I chose some geometric blankets that I had and built the cake. For this cake, there wasn't an overall theme other than just being a girl cake which makes it extremely versatile. I added several baby items to decorate the tiers including a handmade pink bow hair clip. For this cake, I didn't add a topper, but decorated with paper shred. I don't necessarily think all cakes need a topper, but I think using a baby hat was a poor choice on my part for the previous cake. This one looked great "as is."

After working on those cakes, I placed them with some of the other cakes I had been working on recently that had not been wrapped. I don't often have multiple unwrapped cakes available, so this was a great opportunity for a photo session since cakes tend to photograph better without the wrapping. I took several shots and while I'm not sure where I'm going to use them (with the exception of here), but I have them for future purposes.

Another Super Cute Frog Cake!

When I found out that some high school friends were expecting a baby I was so incredibly thrilled for them. This was one shower I wasn't going to miss. I wanted to make an especially adorable diaper cake (of course, I think almost all my diaper cakes are especially adorable).

Inspired by a crib sheet that they had picked out on the registry, I got to work making a frog cake, one of my most favorite diaper cake themes. Though the crib sheet and some coordinating blankets that I added were technically gender-neutral, I made sure to add some blue elements into the green and yellow cake since my friends knew that they were going to have a boy. Washcloths, baby spoons, socks, and a super adorable plush frog completed the decorations on the cake. Of course, I also had to add a handmade crocheted baby beanie too.

I absolutely loved the final look of this cake. It made the perfect gift for my friends and earned a lot of oohs and ahhs at the baby shower. Most importantly, of course, the expectant mama really liked the cake and that's really my goal with every diaper cake and baby gift that I make.

About to Pop!

And expectant mama contacted me about a diaper cake that she wanted me to make for her shower. Her shower had an "about to pop" theme. She was planning on using the colors hot pink, orange, and yellow and incorporating as many "pop" things as she could including lollipops and popcorn. The challenge was to make a coordinating diaper cake to go along with the theme and color scheme. As with all themes presented to me, this was a challenge that I wanted to meet.

For this cake given a slightly smaller budget and lack of available appropriate baby items, I chose to do a "naked" cake. I knew right away that I wanted to incorporate baby washcloths formed into lollipops as that would meld well with the theme. I used to washcloths in coordinating colors to go with the scheme and created a topper and added several as decoration on the sides of the tiers. They cake still seem to be missing something, and I really wanted to find a way to incorporate popcorn into the cake as this was something specific the mom had mentioned to add to her "about to pop" theme. After a lot of brainstorming I came up with an incredibly adorable idea that made the perfect accent to the cake. I developed miniature card stock popcorn containers that I attached along the middle tier of the cake. Yellow curling ribbon was then curled and places into the boxes to create the look of popcorn. Rather then finish off this cake with paper shred like I do many of my cakes I chose to use hot pink, orange, and yellow curling ribbon to decorate the tops of the tiers.

The final cake was truly a masterpiece. Once again, I found myself having a difficult time deciding if this or one of my other cakes was truly my favorite. The theme could not have been matched better. My customer loved the cake, and it created a perfect centerpiece for her baby shower decorations.

Another Baby Cake...

The time had come for another shower among my mom group and that meant making another baby cake since the expectant mom was a cloth diapering mom. This time around, I got to try my hand at a project (or several) for a little girl. Ever in search of new ways to use my skills and new items to add to my product line, I decided to make a tagged lovey for this mama - or her baby, rather. I set out to begin my nursery set which would be formed into a baby cake similar to others I'd made for cloth diapering mamas.

The base of the cake was a set of 3 taggy blocks similar to ones I'd made for other baby cakes seen here. I used cotton flannel in various shades of purple (a color requested by the mom) and super cuddly purple material on some panels to add extra texture. My next project was outer wrappings for the cake like how I add blankets to some of my diaper cakes. For this cake, I created the tagged lovey, a small blanket with ribbon tags added for sensory stimulation. Loveys make great gifts since babies can carry them around as a security items without dragging a large blanket with them, and of course, babies love tags! I used the same flannel material that I used for the tagged blocks and the matching super cuddly purple material for the backing of the lovey. My next project was coordinating burp cloths using the same flannel I'd used in the previous projects.

With the items for the main cakes structure completed, I then went on to make the added decorations for the cake. I adjusted the basic beanie pattern that I often use to create an adorable scalloped hat with some open rows, a popular design these days that is often paired with flower or bow hair clips. Other items I added to the cake for decoration included lavender washcloth daisies, a pair of socks, and a handmade purple ribbon bow.

The final cake was beautiful. It was a lot of purple. The mama really enjoyed it and that is what's most important!

Chocolate, Blue, and Puppies!

I was contacted by a woman that was interested in a very short order. As in the next day. Yikes! Sadly, I got her e-mail at the end of the day and was able to reply and get a response fairly quickly, but with limited information - only the colors blue and chocolate. Fortunately, I had an idea right away. I had an adorable set of blue blankets with puppies on them so I decided to use these as the foundation for the diaper cake.

I got to work on a three tier cake, building it with my spiral design that I've switched to for the majority of my projects. I added the blankets and some coordinating white and chocolate ribbon. I finished the cake with a lot of blue baby items including a handmade crocheted baby beanie. I would have liked to add a plush puppy topper, but since this was a rush order, I didn't have time to get a stuffed animal for it. I really liked the finished project even without a topper for the cake.

Unfortunately, I didn't hear back from my customer, even after I finished the cake and sent her a picture. I suppose it was too late. I'm not really sure what happened. I just ended up with an additional cake in inventory. At this point (as of November 2012), I'm still offering the cake for sale. I can always add the puppy topper if requested which I feel would really finish off the cake.