My Little Pony Cake

This party was exceptionally special because E picked all of the design elements by herself, which also made it super intimidating. I did quite a bit of research and came across this tutorial. What a game changer!!!! I followed it step by step! I like to make my cake toppers out of clay. I find toys to be cheating (for me personally, other people using toys completely cool,) I like to make the whole thing, every aspect from scratch. It's challenging and I enjoy it. Making the toppers out of fondant however is just really risky. Things wilt and change over night so for the small detailed things I use clay. Everything was going according to plan and then....

I peak in the oven and find that Princess Celestia's head has fallen off. I screamed... out loud... three times. It was devistating. I had to remake the hair and horn and then a baked them flat. 

And I crossed my fingered that crazy glue would make all things right in the world OR I would simply stick a toy on top and call it a win. After all, I tried!

We made up a rice krispie base. We never end up eating the whole cake and to save on cost and to help hold the cake up we use rice krispies. Next time however, we will be using foam. It really is completely for show. The two round circles go on the bottom of each lay to help with transport. I have made up several other cakes with more detailed instructions so this one will not have as many details.

Then we dirty iced the rice krispies. I had a great helper!

Then we dirty iced the top cake layer. The top layer is three 8" round cakes. 

Then we draped the fondant. 

And mixed up all the colors of the rainbow!

Position top and bottom together. 

Begin decorating. We were using this cake as a guide. We decided the rainbow arch was too high and re-positioned it which is why there is blue smeared, it was easily covered by the next color.

Rainbow complete. We could have had it arch up a bit higher but we were worried about running out of room. 

Bushes.

We used cookies cutters to cut out her name. 

cloud and name positioned on.

More clouds and hand cut stars.

Then it was time to attempt to reconstruct our Pony.

Don't move a muscle!!!!!

And a cake is born!!!! This may be one of my favorites!! Clean lines, bright colors, great shape! I am so pleased with how it turned out! And now here are WAY too many pictures!! 

DIY Christmas Stocking

 I have been wanting to make new stockings for awhile now. The ones we have are from when I was growing up. They are denim and flannel and are HUGE! I am trying to convert over to a timeless Christmas theme in our home consisting of silver, whites and gold. I saw this picture on Pinterest and that is exactly what I wanted for stockings. Simple, clean, and fun texture.

So one morning Mom and I hit up Savers and I got a few sweaters. 

I made up a pattern.

Turned the sweater wrong side out and positioned it as desired. I wanted them to be different lengths, adding a touch of variation so I positioned the pattern down a bit on a few socks. 

Cut around the sock.

The first sock we tried to just surge around the edge without pinning and it turned out horribly. It was all stretched out and a total flop. So we switched the surger so that it gathered slightly, keeping things nice and tight, pinned like crazy and added some thin strips of cotton cut along the grain line to help keep it from stretching.

We then surged around the edges. 

 So Beautiful!!! Then we turned them right side out and added loops to hang them up on. (Which I should have taken a picture of because Mom made some beautiful loops.)

Repeat for additional socks.

Hang them up and admire!

I am so in love with this room! So festive, so cozy! The stocking really pull it all together!! 

Okay Santa, we are almost ready for you!