FL ICES Day of Sharing

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to attend an ICES event, something I've wanted to do ever since I found out what ICES was. By the way, it's the International Cake Exploration Societe, and it's this awesome group of people who get together for classes and competitions and conventions to share the love and passion of cake decorating.

Right up my alley!

The DOS (or Day of Sharing) was in Jacksonville, FL, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Tampa. Just kidding, it's a 3 hour drive, through lots of back country roads, and when you have to wake up before 5am to get to get to the conference center on time, it's pretty much the worst drive in the world.

Anyway, once we finally got to Jacksonville, it was totally worth it. The day was filled with awesome demonstrations, gorgeous display cakes, the chance to talk with other decorators who are also passionate about cake (and two people even asked me if I owned my own shop! I was flattered!), and a raffle. I won a signed cookbook by Geraldine Randlesome, who is wonderful by the way. She and her husband did one of the demonstrations and I learned so much from them. They have a very obvious love for cake decorating and the pastry arts (and each other). It was sweet. :)

I also learned about a new cake decorating competition coming up in February, so I'll need to plan my entry for that. And I want to sign up for the mini classes they're offering in January. Thankfully, the classes are in Orlando, which is a little closer than Jacksonville! They are more expensive though, so it's a good thing I'm working two jobs right now.

And today I finally got my airbrush colors in the mail (except the mailroom hasn't processed all their packages yet; so I don't technically have it in my posession yet, although it's on campus!) so I'm sure next I'll be posted about all the weird colorful things I've created with the airbrush. Oh! And there's an airbrushing class in Ocala which I'm taking in 2 weeks. Another awesome opportunity I'm looking forward to! I'll keep y'all posted! :)

Experimenting with Royal Icing

So my goal today was to work on my business plan for entrepreneurship class and write my elevator pitch which is due Monday. But when I started looking up prices for bakeries (which is totally confusing and a lot of work), I got distracted by pretty cake pictures.

After looking at like a billion wedding cakes on Martha Stewart's website, I had to stop looking, and starting doing...something. Anything! I needed to be creative. I considered baking something, but there wasn't enough instant gratification in that, so I whipped up a small batch of royal icing and decided to tackle the Lambeth technique, Oriental string work, and bridgework, and whatever else I could do with royal icing.

Guess what? It was surprisingly a lot easier than I though it would be, but still a) time consuming and b)  I wasn't really shooting for perfection anyway, I just wanted to grasp the basic concepts. If I was trying to be perfect, then I would've been super frustrated. First of all, I can't get my loops to all be consistent sizes. So that's the first thing I'm going to work on. Also, when I make scrolls, it's so hard to go over the lines exactly. And then I kept breaking everything with my clumsy hands. Oh, and I think my icing consistency wasn't stiff enough, since my bridgework was droopy. :(

Anyway, here's some visual evidence of what I did tonight instead of homework:

This is some form of Oriental Stringwork. Thank you to Mel for your tutorial to get me started! (And random C-scrolls!)

Droopy bridgework :(

More stringwork! I love this effect. Gravity defying!

Just fooling around with some icing. Some kind of attempt at Lambeth, I think. I wish I had his book! My inspiration here.

 ...And yes, I realize that I need to dig up my camera and charge the battery because these webcam & camera phone pics just aren't cutting it!

New Toys!

So like I said yesterday, I bought an airbrush machine. And today I went back to Michael's and bought the new Wilton gumpaste flower kit (I have the old one already). While it's not as awesome as some of the gumpaste cutters I've used in the past (you know, like the awesome--and expensive--metal cutters) I'm still pleasantly surprised with what I got. Plus, I used a 40% off coupon, so it was a deal, and that makes me happy. I also bought the impression mat (and some cupcake boxes that were on clearance; no comment on my spending habits, please).

Anyway, I used the rose cutters first, just because I've had the most practice with roses and I've already done that whole learning curve thing. I need to learn how to make lilies (preferably before this weekend) but they don't look too difficult, so I'll save that for tomorrow or Wednesday.

But the real reason I played around with gumpaste flowers tonight (other than practicing for a wedding cakes this weekend) was so that I could finally try out my airbrush machine!

I bought some pearlized stuff (these are all technical terms, obviously) since I couldn't pick one color and all that (note to self: buy Americolor airbrush color 12 pack) but the pearl looks so gorgeous when I sprayed in on the flowers.

See what I mean?

Gorgeous! Not the best picture, I know, but can you see what I'm getting at? Anyway, it's way better than the time I tried to paint luster dust on flowers. And just think about how cool my snitch cake balls would've looked with gold airbrushed all over them?

Airbrush Machine!

So today I finally got the Duff airbrush machine that I've been talking about since July.  Finally!!

I can't believe the darn thing has been out of stock for so long, and I'm sure the employees at Michaels who answer the phone are tired of me asking all the time if they have it in yet. Over the weekend, though, I called 3 different stores and they all had it!!

(Insert obnoxious fangirl screaming here)

And the best part (other than actually owning an airbrush machine now)? They still took my coupon! I had a 50% coupon stapled to a raincheck I got from the Michael's back home with a note from the manager saying "please take this coupon" because, well obviously, I wanted to use it on something they claimed was in stock but really wasn't. (If that run-on sentence made any sense.) And 3 months later, the super nice employees at the Michaels in Florida hooked me up!

I also bought a pearl luster spray to use. I wasn't sure which colors to get, and at $5 each, they're a little pricey. I wonder if I can get the Americolor airbrush colors at a cheaper price and bundled together? (And if there's any place in Pasco county, FL that sells cake decorating supplies. The closest store I found was in the south Tampa area.) Also, can you use gel paste that's been watered down, with water or vodka or anything like that? I'm pretty sure that you can use luster dust/vodka mixed. Honestly, I don't know much about airbrushing but I'm so excited to learn. If you have any tips or suggestions or products I can use, let me know! I already found some really cool stencils in the paint aisle at Michaels that I want to get. There was a zebra pattern that would look wicked cool on the side of a cake.

Oh, the possibilities!!