~78~ Jake's 30th Name Day

**Disclaimer: I totally wrote this post the weekend after Jake's birthday.  And yet, here it is almost 3 months later and I'm finally getting around to publishing it!**

Over Memorial weekend, Jake turned the big 3-0!  I wanted to make this birthday extra special for my man, so I turned to his favorite show, The Game of Thrones, (on HBO), or as those familiar with the show say, GoT, for inspiration. 

While perusing on Pinterest for some GoT party-ware, I stumbled across directions for making the Iron Throne, which is basically the piece de resistance of GoT.  As soon as I saw it, I became determined to make it for Jake.  Luckily with him working nights at Home Depot now, I had time to put it together without him knowing about it. 

I purchased a plastic adirondack chair, yard sticks, liquid nails, grey spray paint, and way too much insulation board from Home Depot and quickly got to work.  Screwing in the yard sticks to the chair ended up being more time consuming, but not as hard to do as I had thought.  I had to pre-drill the chair before screwing in the yard sticks.  If only I had thought to do the same with the yard sticks-as many of them split as I was screwing them into place.

 

Next, I cut out sword shapes using the insulation board and attached it using liquid nails to both sides of the yard sticks.  If I had more time, I would have carefully sanded each one to make it look smoother, but they still turned out pretty good.   Once all of the foam pieces were in place, I added thinner foam strips to look like strapping all over the chair. The final touch was spray painting all of it.

This is where I have to give a HUGE shout-out to my best friend, Lauren who came to visit and was instrumental in getting the Iron Throne and the other party components completed in time.  I could not have done it without her and her willingness to come visit and work proved why I am so lucky to have her as a best friend.  Thank you so much Lauren!!

Jake was very much surprised and excited to have an iron throne all of his own.  And, I must say that he looked great in it :)

In addition to his throne, the rest of the party carried a GoT theme. 

The beer:

And the Cake:

Unfortunately, I ran out of time and of frosting on his cake.  I wanted the top tier to have the Direwolf from the Stark house on top and for the bottom tier to have "30 is Coming" written along the side.  However, he did enjoy all of the house sigils adorning his cake.

Here's hoping 30 is his best year yet!

Until next time, 

~77~ Two's Better Than One

Cakes that is!

On Wednesday, I finished up the Wilton Cake Decorating Class, Course 2.  And what perfect timing that was since my birthday is on Saturday :)  Throughout the course, we learned how to use royal icing to make beautiful flowers and accents, which we used at the last class to decorate a cake as our final project.  We also learned how do the basket weave design and a couple of new borders that I also incorporated in my cake.
Many remarked that it was a bummer I had to make my own birthday cake, but then I quipped that I honestly love doing it.  I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I always thought that getting to my a cake on my birthday was a treat for me.  I have always loved decorating cakes - but now, it actually looks like I know what I'm doing…sort of.

Here's how my final project turned out:

In addition to making a cake for my family birthday celebration, I made another one to bring to work and share with my coworkers.  Friday (the day before my birthday) also coincided with Iowa State's basketball team playing in the Sweet 16, so I decided it would only be fitting to make an ISU (birthday) cake.

Not only was some delicious cake had, but I also got spoiled by those dearest to me. 

A few week prior, I went home to MN to visit family and friends and celebrate my birthday with them. In addition to getting some much appreciated spending money, I also got my favorite perfume from Thymes, which is only available in MN (as far as I know), an adorable teapot, and my brother's homemade amazing root beer.  *Cue shameless plug: Seriously, if you're looking to make some one-of-a-kind beer, check out Vine Park Brewing Company in St. Paul, MN.  Jake and his groomsmen went there the day of our rehearsal dinner to brew some beer together, as well as bottle up a 6-pack into their own custom made bottles.  They still talk about how much fun they had almost 3 years later).  

Back home in Grimes, I had a second celebration with Jake's side of the family at our house, where I got some very generous gifts of lunch, Amazon and Bed Bath and Beyond gift cards, we well as Catching Fire on blu-ray! 

Jake really spoiled me this year

He got me a checker board cake pan set, a new walking/jogging belt that holds all sorts of stuff in it securely, Saving Mr. Banks on blu-ray, and best of all, a new cake supply caddy that I've been bugging him about.  During my eight weeks of cake class, I was carrying around all of my tips, colors, spatulas, decorator bags, and class kit in this green bag.  For this OCD girl, it was certainly headache inducing. 

Now, it's all neatly organized in this beautiful tool caddy: 

I have a designated spot for all of tips, colors, and frequently-used decoration tools in the top 

and extra storage underneath for all of the less frequently used items like my fondant, roller, piping gel, gum paste, and molds. 

The actual day was spent in pampering with a massage in the afternoon, dinner, sushi, and drinks at my favorite thai restaurant with the bestest friends, and then bowling and more drinks at the local bowling alley.  I'd say it was the most perfect day :)

~26~ Another Birthday, Another Year

Well folks, I am officially another year older! Yesterday I celebrated my 27th birthday and I must say, it was fantastic!  After work, I went to dinner with Jake and his family at Red Robin, had a very delicious (and free!) burger alongside a bottomless root beer float.  I also got some really nice gifts, with my favorite 2 being from Jake.

Wednesday after work, he surprised me with a tee-shirt from the show Big Bang Theory.  For those of you who haven't seen it, you really need to.  It is HILARIOUS!  To sum up of the meaning behind the shirt-one of the main characters is Sheldon, who is an OCD physicist living next door to the stereotypical blonde hottie, Penny, who moved to CA to become an actress, but ends up working as a waitress at the Cheesecake factory.  In one of the episodes, Sheldon gets sick and all of his friends avoid him because he's so whiny and needy when he gets sick.  Penny, doesn't know any better and gets roped into taking care of Sheldon, who requests that she sings him a song his mom used to sing him when he was sick as a child called, "Soft Kitty".

For my "real" present though, Jake got me the Cuttlebug I was wanting!!  I'm so excited to play around with it and see how it enhances my cards!  Be on the lookout for some upcoming posts, highlighting some projects with it. 

Now I know what some of you are thinking; what's a birthday without some cake?  Don't worry, there was definitely cake!  As you know, ever since I was little, I have loved baking-particularly cakes and pies.  Unlike most children, I never wanted my mom to make my cake-in fact I would get mad if she did-so every year, I bake and decorate my own cake.  This year, I made a yellow cake with white buttercream frosting.  Unfortunately, I'm not what some people would call a true baker because I use a boxed mix and don't bake it from scratch.  However, my real joy is in the decorating part.  While my cake isn't from scratch, my buttercream frosting is.  I use the Wilton recipe for making it:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening (I use Crisco)

4 Cups of powdered confectioners sugar

2 Tbsp Milk

1 Tsp clear vanilla

Step 1: Cream the butter and shortening together

Step: 2: mix in the vanilla and milk

Step 3: Add in the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, blending thoroughly 

To assemble my cake, I use a bread knife to make sure each layer is flat so that they will line up flush.  I put a layer of frosting between them and then put a thin layer all around it to create a crumb coat, which seals in all of the crumbs so that when you fully frost the cake, you get a nice smooth and clean coat.  Just make sure that after your crumb coat, you let the frosting set.  I'm not totally happy with how the cake came out because I made a mistake on the side detail of the cake and had to start over, creating a not so smooth look, but in the end it tasted delicious! And that's all that really matters-right?

What's your favorite kind of cake?

Until next time,