Helicopter Cake!

My Brother in Law's birthday was in the beginning of December and since he is really into RC helicopters, I thought it would be fun to surprise him with a helicopter cake (admission-the surprise factor may have had to do with uncertainty of how it would turn out in addition to a surprise just being fun).

I used my trusty pinterest and google search skills to find inspiration and then set about creating my own version of things I saw! I was really pleased overall with how it turned out.  I did find myself  slightly dismayed at how small a 9 x 13 cake is-haha. Its certainly big enough and feeds enough, but after looking at a bunch of professional cakes and watching too many episodes of cake boss, I had somewhat inaccurate estimations of the amount of cake I had to work with ;) oh well, I made it work anyways!

For those curious, I used butter cream frosting for the edges of the street, grass, and the stream. I used fondant (and cookie cutters) to create the helicopter pad and the rocks.
The bridge was made from graham crackers and fondant and was the only part I would do differently if I were to make this cake again. I was never really happy with how the bridge turned out but i didn't have the time or extra icing to re-do it.
The helicopter was a toy helicopter we had around the house.

Here are the pics-

Bouquets and Bouts

I was given an opportunity for my MIL's wedding to put together the Groom and Best Man's Boutonnieres as well as the  Bride's and the matron of Honor's bouquets. Putting together flowers aren't really my thing, though I love them and think they are gorgeous. My Sister-in-law (of my immediate family) is the flower one in our family (she put together all the flowers for my wedding and they were beautiful!). Well, she lives in another state and we're talking about my in-laws here, so I got to give it a try :)

The Best Man's Boutineer

The Groom's Boutineer
Photo taken by Marilee Photography

They ended up looking quite nice and it all worked out!

A Christmas Centerpiece

I found this picture searching on pinterest and since I had some empty wine bottles around, I decided to recreate my own version of it.
Here's the original-

the picture and idea came from the blog, cleverly inspired. Click on the link to access the original and the how-to instructions!

Here's my version-

Pinterest

Pinterest is my newest favorite thing. I admit, when I first joined up, I was skeptical and confused for a while. However, once I figured out what it all was and how to navigate...oh my goodness...I am on there all the time!
Remember back years ago, how when you planned a wedding or decorated a house, you might cut up a bunch of pictures from magazines from things you liked and then put them in a big binder?
Yeah, well this is like the ultimate electronic version of that. And it goes Way beyond wedding or house pics.

For those of you who are intrigued but also confused by the whole process-here is my pinterest tutorial...

First, you go to the site and request an invite (i got mine in about 5 minutes,but that was several months ago and I've heard it can take a week or so now). Once you get the invite, sign up. When you sign up, there will be instructions on adding a "pin it" button to your favorites drop down menu-this is important, so do it!
From there, they will give you a couple people to "follow" and they will also use your facebook to connect you to people you know. As you start to maneuver the site, other people can and will also choose to "follow" you.

Once in and set up, you can create different boards for things like baking, food, home, wedding, flowers, rings, shoes, kids stuff, etc.
You can browse the pinterest site and any picture you like, you can "pin" to one of your boards. SO, say you are looking for ideas for a wreaths to make, you can make a board for it, and then every pic you find, you can pin to that board.
You can also "pin" any picture you find on the Internet (cooking site, a blog, wikipedia, etc) you can also pin to one of your boards.

The best part...whenever you click on a picture that has been pinned on pinterest, it will take you back to the original site where the picture was found! From there you can read the original recipe, or the DIY how to, or just know that credit goes to the originator of the picture.

It's like a big, virtual bulletin board for everything you are interested in.

So there you go, for those of you who have been wondering what on earth this pinterest thing is (and for those of you who haven't, but or whatever crazy reason actually read this post), now you have it!