Wedding Leaves as a Wedding Theme.....

Happy Monday!! It really is a great one... I've been laughing since I got home. Remember what I said I learned last week??.. LAUGH AT YOURSELF?!?!  Yea, totally doing that!  I got home after 4pm today which I was NOT happy about! I tell ya, time is flying so I try to hold on to every second of my life that I can! And when its wasted, its not cute!  But here I am.. laughing and ready to clue you in on my Wedding Cake theme. :)

But first I would like to share with you that I had a very busy weekend. I had the  honor of creating two cakes for two very special girls; my sister and my niece. They both had a birthday and I put my new skills to the test by creating fondant cakes for them. I think for my first two cakes, they were ok. I am my own worst critic, I know.. :)  But they both looked great and tasted delicious, so not too shabby. I enjoyed creating them and I enjoyed the feedback very much. 

Lets hop over to the wedding cake project.  The picture above shows ya where I left off today. I started working on this bad boy on Friday. I got the idea from looking at a bunch of pics a friend printed out.  I then took the idea, changed it up a bit, and made it my own.  The original picture shows the bottom 10" cake filled with feathers..the second tier with diamond piping work and two lovebirds on the top made out of pastillage... I don't do the whole diamond piping thing as I think its overly done and I will not put two people smooching on the top of my cake either.  I prefer to do something slightly different and maybe a little more unique. I chose to do 3 tiers instead of 2.  I want to do the 2nd tier with vines and leaves piped out, and the top third layer with leaves facing the opposite direction of the leaves on the bottom tier.  I placed a few on the picture above just to get the feel for it and I kinda like it... BUT, time will tell what ends up being the final product as I constantly change as I go. 

I was beyond annoyed on Friday covering the 10" Styrofoam. I had to roll the fondant out THREE times to get it to finally be what it was supposed to be!!! Round instead of Square!! Seriously now, its 36 oz of fondant that you have to kneed and then roll out and roll out and roll out... my poor arms, I thought I had upper arm strength.. consider that NEGATORY!! :)  Everyone saw a different side of Linda last Friday, a very frustrated and annoyed one!   Sorry Donna! Sorry Rhett!  I saw you looking at me like I was a tiny bit Ca-razy! And I was!!  :) :) But, I have to make my own mistakes so that I can learn from them. Here is the little devil exactly as I wanted it:

I want these bad boys to be perfectly smooth and cut and I want them not too thin, just thick enough. That's what I got above.  I do not like bumps, I do not like mis-cuts, I don't like anything less than almost perfect ;)  Nothing is perfect, I know.

I created the flowers as well.. or at least I started to!  I ended up taking the Gum Paste home and creating more flowers over the weekend so that I could get some progress done today! And as you can see, I did. Herer are the up close pics of the flowers.  These are made out of gum paste.

The leaves were created by using a leaf cutter that Donna was so kind to lend me.  Thank you doll!!  She also lent me her leaf mold so I was able to cut each flower, mold it and then set it on an egg carton so that I could get a little 3-D look from them... I am using this look only for the bottom tier.  Here is another picture so you dont need to scroll up:

You can see it looks like it is flowing.  I then created 30 more leaves for the second row, to lay flat... and now need to create another 70 or so,  so that I can finish up the two additional rows.  I had another idea for the 3rd tier, and it was to use a leaf mold instead of the inverted leaves  you see here in the above picture...

Lemme know what ya think... I  could do this.. or I could do the inverted leaves. You will have to picture the 2nd tier with the vines and leaves flowing on it though.. cuz I have not gotten there and I don't think I will be there until Wednesday. :( Please Lord.. let me be there on Wednesday.. I still will have to pipe borders, create the wedding banner and do last minute touch ups...

You will all be happy to know that I actually LOVE this cake that I am making. I am a sucker for nature.. so I wanted my theme to be trees, ocean, vines or branches.. but everyone keeps doing those so I just cant do it!! I wanted to do something different along the same lines, yet classy but lovely.. and I think I got it and I really can not wait to finish this one.

I find peace in making each leaf.. imprinting each one.. folding the fondant onto the cake, creating it. I just wish I had a little more creativity to work with, BUT as I found out, all I have to do is search through pictures, see other people's ideas and then eventually tweak and come up with my own. If it would come to me naturally I would be happier, but WHATEVER!! As I am slowly learning the hard way, you don't always get what you want.

So, on that beautiful note, I am out of here! I have some leaves to make, a work out to do because I am going to get chunky monkey after eating all of the left over fondant. I love that stuff. Its sooo bad, I know.. but what the alternative?  An apple, I know.. . I know... not happening! haha...

Ok, well besides the fact that the Chef never talks to me, never mentions a word about my cakes or looks my way, I think I am doing ok.  He does pay attention when I ask him multiple questions though! That has to count for something!  :) :) 

I'm off and wishing you a beautiful rest of the day...