Tara's Baby Shower

 We celebrated my sister-in-law Tara and sweet baby Avery this weekend! The shower was lots of fun and very pretty. The tables were decorated with pink table cloths and burlap, with fresh flowers. The fresh flowers were placed in small glass vases for the guests to take home with them as favors. The shower was also decorated with homemade banners, a clothes line, and tissue pom poms.

We played two games at the shower; Guess the baby food game and Guess the Mommy's Belly size game. To play the baby food game you place numbers on the baby food jar (like the picture above) and provide paper and pens for everyone to write their guesses on. You can also provide spoons for each jar so that people can smell the baby food or taste it if they'd like. After everyone makes their guesses someone in charge of the game can announce the answers and whoever had the most correct wins a prize. For the guess the mommy's belly size game you will need a spool of yarn and scissors. First measure the Mommy's belly size by wrapping the yarn around her belly and cutting to that size. Then go around and have each woman at the shower guess the size of her belly by cutting the yarn. You can then have each women measure her piece of yarn by either wrapping it around the mommy's belly or by measuring it against the yarn.

I made the cake and cupcakes to match baby Avery's nursery. The nursery is decorated with Caden Lane's Finley Bedding and with the tree wall decal. You can find the details on how I made the cake here.

Gumpaste Flowers

This weekend we celebrated with my sister-in-law at her baby shower. We will be welcoming sweet baby Avery into the family sometime in October! I made this cake for the shower to coordinate with her beautiful nursery decor by Caden Lane. I made the flowers from gumpaste and some rhinestones (that were not edible) for the centers. I frosted the cake with butter cream frosting using a sky blue food coloring and piped on the branches using frosting tips #3 and #5. I also used tip #5 to pipe the beading around the bottom of each cake. You can follow the steps below to make the gumpaste flowers that I used on this cake.

 

Supplies: 

• Wilton Ready to use Gumpaste
• Rhinestones
• Cookie Cutters (found these at Hobby Lobby)
• Rolling pin
• Thin Foam Pad (wilton)
• Gumpaste Ball tool
• Paint brush
• Parchment Paper or mat for your work surface
• Plastic Wrap
• Shortening
• Pink food coloring

Take a portion of the gumpaste out of the bag and knead it to soften it. You can rub some shortening on your hands to keep the gumpaste from sticking to them. Drop a small amount of food coloring into the center of the gumpaste and knead the ball of gumpaste until the color is even. You can always add more food coloring to make a brighter color, but begin with a small amount. 

Next roll out the gumpaste onto your work surface until it is very thin. 

Choose your desired sizes of cookie cutters and begin cutting out the shapes you will need. I would recommend only working on one large flower at a time since the gumpaste dries out very quickly. 

You will need to work quickly and use the plastic wrap to cover the gumpaste that you aren't working with to keep it from drying out.

Starting with the largest flower place each piece on the foam mat and using the ball tool gently make a circle motion on each petal. The gumpaste will begin to take shape and thin out. Make sure not to rub it so thin that you make a hole. The edges of the petals should start to curl upward.

As you finish each flower you can begin to attach them together. Take the paint brush and dip it into a very small amount of water. Brush the centers of the flowers with a small amount of water and place the smaller flowers on top, pressing gently.

Once you have the smallest flower on top the rhinestone will go into the center. I waited to attach the rhinestones until I was placing the flowers onto the cake. I used a small amount of butter cream frosting to hold the rhinestones into place. I also used butter cream frosting to hold the flowers in place on the cake.

I also made rose cupcakes to match the roses on the Caden Lane bedding. I used the frosting tip 2D to make the rose. You create the rose by starting in the center of the cupcake and circling around to the outside. You can make the edges of the rose a lighter pink color by putting a small amount of lighter color pink frosting into the bag first. Then place a darker pink on top. Then you can add leaves to the sides using a leaf tip, I used a #68.