Babies and birthdays

Hello everyone! So sorry for the extreme amount of time between posts but well, I didn't bake anything. So yeah...

Have you ever heard of a "daddy shower"? I certainly hadn't until last month. Apparently they are just like baby showers but all the guests are men and the guest of honor is the father-to-be. Adorable, no? I'm not sure how all the men feel about playing guess-the-baby-food type games, but I'm sure I would find it hilarious to witness. I came face to face with one of these daddy showers because my friend's little girl is due in, wow, 2 weeks, and the father's sister and aunt thought it would be fun to throw one. That's where I come in.

The only requirement was that the cake say "Daddy's Princess" on it somewhere. It took every fiber of my being not to make the entire thing pink with hearts and flowers and glitter everywhere. I felt it would not be well received. So I settled on purple and brown, the colors of the nursery.

I felt the tiara was quite genius on my part. I found a pattern for a crown online and shrunk it down to 75%. Then I dyed some gumpaste gray and traced the pattern. Once I had added the hearts (only three, so they don't really count), I laid it over a soup can so that it would dry in the right shape. Once it was dry I sprayed it with pearlescent spray and ta-da!

For the record, apparently the shower was lots of fun and there are more than a few pictures of large men trying to hang baby clothes on a line while clutching a baby doll and talking on the phone. Priceless.

Ok, ok!! I'm so excited for you guys to see this next cake! My friend Lindsey has the cutest little girl named Isabel and this past weekend was her 2nd birthday party. The theme was a farm party so I was delighted to make the cake. I spent wednesday dying fondant and making the animals. On Thursday I finished the last of the animals, plus made the bowl of carrots and the broccoli patch. (These are fun sentences! I'm so cute!) I spent Friday baking the cake (plus the cupcakes that I will address momentarily). On Saturday I finally put it all together. Take a look!!

The pictures aren't fabulous because we took them at the party and the cake was in front of a window.

Do you see the sheep? And the bowl of carrots?

I love this little pig! He's in a mud puddle of frosting!

The ducklings are swimming on a pond of piping gel.

There's even a horse!

I am so in love with this cake I can barely stand it!!

As I mentioned above, I also made cupcakes for the party, since I figured they would be easier for the kiddies to eat than a cake covered in fondant. (That did not, however, stop a 3 year old from eating and enjoying the fondant chicken. Eww.) I made fondant butterflies and mixed vanilla and strawberry frosting to give it kind of a two-toned look. I'm not sure what I wanted them to look like, but I think they look like abstract mums. Or sea anemones. Or cupcakes. Thoughts?