Ballerina cake.

This cake is based on a design in a Debbie Brown book. I made this cake for a colleague's daughter who was having a dancing theme birthday party. It took a lot of time making all the frills, adding extra white sugar paste after each layer to create the gradually changing colour effect. It was quite fiddly styling her hair and adding all the blossom flowers around her head. Although you cannot see it from the picture, the top of her white skirt is dusted with a lustre powder called moonbeams with ruby.

Sugar craft roses and carnations

These are the roses and carnations I made at cake decorating class. Using flower paste to make the flowers, I later dusted them with colour and arranged them together with florist tape. We were also shown how to make ribbon loops to add to our flower arrangements. I found it quite relaxing and will certainly have a go at making more flowers and experimenting with different flower cutters.

Mermaid cake

A mermaid cake for a friend whose daughter is in the same class as mine. It was the first time I had used Flower paste mixed with Regalice to make models for a cake. Yet another adaptation of a Debbie Brown design. Although it is difficult to see from the picture, I marbled some blue and green paste to get an undersea kind of swirly pattern. I wanted to use shells of icing for the number five and added sparkly dust and silver dragees to make it a little more 'magical'.

Little Bo Peep

This was for my daughter's 5th birthday. This was a Debbie Brown design which looked very easy. It was one of the earlier cakes I have made. The cake itself was baked in a Pyrex bowl. I had very little cake decorating equipment at the time and only 3 or 4 food colours. It was quite simple to model the sheep heads and their wool was piped on with royal icing.

Gardener's cake

An accident-prone gardener cake. I made this cake for a friend's husband who is a keen gardener but rather accident- prone, hence the bandaged hand and hose tangled around his ankle. I really enjoyed all the modeling involved making the plant pots, watering can, various garden tools and topiary. My sugar craft gun was extremely useful for the hose, handles and bands around the tops of the pots. I used brown sugar for the soil. To make the silver metallic look I modeled in grey sugar paste then sprayed with pearl edible lustre , easier than using white and having to paint it all carefully with silver edible colour.

Intermediate cake decorating course. First lesson.

A sleeping baby.I could have made this type or a sitting up baby tipping talc on itself. This is my effort. I think I made the bottom too big . Making things in scale and proportion can be difficult.I suppose it improves with experience. The skin of face and hands were made from natural marzipan coloured with paprika and pink. They seem to have gone rather shiny,I'm afraid but I couldn't get the picture any better. She is cuddling a little teddy bear. I enjoyed doing the little tufts of hair-quite cute.Our teacher is well-known in the cake decorating world...Karen Davies. She has written some books and produces some very useful moulds. I'm looking forward to next week's lesson.

Ladies' shoes

Ladies shoes. I attended an evening course on shoes made from fondant. I have a friend who owns countless pairs of shoes so I knew it would come in handy. These cakes were both made quite easily and the shoes were made from a kit you can buy.For the 40th birthday cake I used the shoes to attach some sparkly numbers. I also used Patchwork cutter set for ladies accessories and numbers. To give the shoes an extra shine I sprayed them with Pearl Lustre Spray.

Number One cake

A first birthday cake for a little boy.I used a Wilton cake tin which makes a fairly large cake. This was a chocolate cake. I had to pipe the happy birthday sign so I did both the sign and the name onto pieces of icing so that I could make sure they were OK before attaching them to the cake with softened sugar paste. The rope edging was made using my sugar craft gun.It is one of the most useful pieces of equipment I have bought and saves a lot of time.The Caterpillar is from a dvd that was the child's favourite.

Playing cards cake

My dad is a magician.For his birthday I wanted a themed cake which reminded me of all the card tricks he practices on a green baize table.
I bought a packet of 10 chocolate playing cards, however one unfortunately got eaten so I had to cut the square cake to make a nine sided cake. The cards on the top were made from Mexican paste using a set from Kitbox. I made the spray of card signs stuck into a flower pick and disguised the base of it with some chocolate dice.He loved it but was reluctant to actually cut it and eat it until he'd shown his friends. The grandchildren had already eyed up all those chocolate extras !They were disappointed to say the least. I had seen Nadia Johnson from Kitbox do a demonstration which inspired me to have a go at this type of cake. It was very simple to make but I think quite effective . I hope you agree.

Old lady on laptop

I was asked to make a birthday cake for an elderly lady who happened to be going on a course to learn to use a laptop.Very easy simple round cake and the top I did separately on a thin card which was added last and piped around.She kept the top as a keepsake. I had done an evening class on a lady sitting in an armchair and adapted it, modeling it on Edith herself and replacing knitting with a laptop.The flowers were from Mexican paste with small gold dragees in their centres.

Bathtime cake

This cake was for my husband's birthday.It was based on a design in a Debbie Brown book.May I point out that I bare no resemblance to the woman in the bath!
The cake was baked in an oval Pyrex dish to get the bath shape.The towels, carpet an ducks were fairly straightforward but the taps were quite fiddly.To get the water I used royal icing coloured blue then later went over it with piping gel.

Suitcase cake

I just love making cakes. A friend asked me if I could make a cake for someone who was emigrating to Australia. She wanted a chocolate cake and so I thought a suitcase cake would work.I found it hard to make the right shade of blue for the flag.This was one of the earlier cakes that I did before I discovered all the amazing tools and equipment available to cake decorating fanatics, so this probably took me lots longer to make than necessary. All those little stitch marks on the straps done individually with a cocktail stick before I found that most wonderful stitching wheel tool.
It was after this effort that I decided to enroll on some courses to improve and learn more about the fascinating world of sugarcraft.