Let them eat CAKE!!!!!

Just not these ones...

Cause we know from a previous post that whats inside of them is styrofoam, and the flowers and ribbons are all stuck on with glue.  Might be hard to digest!

Late last week I had to deliver these beauties to the Sherbet Birdie studio in Sydney for their Marie Antoinette themed shoot day, and can I tell you that it was possibly the most nerve-wracking drive of my life!

After I put the cakes in the boot I packed around them with plastic shopping bags (I have about a million of them) to protect them and away from each other, then I closed the lid, crossed my fingers, and drove for two and a half hours, hoping all the time that no-one rear-ended me!

Thankfully all that finger crossing and wishing worked, and they made it there in one piece - phew!

And Sasha and Lucy were waiting very excitedly for me - not because of these cakes... because of these ones

Yes, I also made edible cakes for the lucky ladies who had booked for the Marie Antoinette shoot, and for the three of us!

The chocolate one with the raspberry is a Tim Tam Tart (recipe here) and the other layered one is an Iced Vovo Tart (recipe here).  When the Iced Vovo Tart's were served to the clients, they were topped with whipped cream and shaved coconut - totally decadent!  And they received such rave reviews from everyone that I'm pretty sure I will be providing baked goods for shoot days in the future!

Anyway - back to the story!

As a reward for my efforts (and because I'm awesome) I was the test subject for the shoot.  Lucy practiced on my hair and makeup

And Sasha and I worked on the set, lighting and poses for the girls the next day

The shoot day itself was wonderful, and all the ladies had a fabulous time being pampered, and left looking very glamorous!  Sasha has only released two of the photos so far and I just had to share them with you all because they are just so beautiful!

 

 The beautiful Liz, channeling Marie Antoinette in the style of those 

gorgeous antique, oval framed, silk portraits

The fabulous Karen posing on a glorious couch amongst the Moet,

roses, feathers and towering cakes

So helping create this magic took up my whole weekend, so there was no sewing... sorry about that!  And my sewing room looks like a bomb exploded in it (again) so that is going to need fixing before I can sew anything.  Sigh!

Beccie

xxx

And now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

Recently, my good friend Sasha from Sherbet Birdie (the best pinup photographer in Australia in my opinion) announced the theme for her next shoot day experience - the absolute opulence of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette!

I often help out on these shoot days as an assistant, and with costuming (remember the mermaid tail????) but this time I offered to make the fake cakes to decorate the set!  Fun!!  Now I've never decorated cakes, let alone covered styrofoam fake cakes with fondant, but I can do anything I put my mind to right???

Sasha visited a cake decorating supply store in Sydney and provided me with the styrofoam fake cakes, cake boards, fancy food colouring, sugar paste, and 7kgs of fondant (thats about 14 pounds for you overseas people)!!!!  She also gave me some flowers and ribbons that she had to help me make a start.

First job was covering all the styrofoam fake cakes with the fondant.  And can I say thank goodness for the internet!  I found instructions on how to roll it out properly, and more instructions on how to dye the fondant with the fancy food colouring.  After a few hours solid toil, I was covered in icing sugar from head to toe, had sore and tired wrists, and had these:

All I can say is thank goodness they only have to look good from one angle!!!

The backs on a few of them (especially my first one) are awful!!!

Now came the fun bit - making them pretty!  I went to Spotlight, which is my local go-to for crafting goodies, and bougth some fabulous fake flowers and some ribbon and other trims:

Then I cleared the big dining table, got out my hot glue gun, and went at it!!!

And this is what I created:

Aren't they fabulous!!!!!

Seriously, this was just so much fun!  It was so enjoyable to do something creative that wasn't sewing.

I hope you all had a lovely and peaceful Easter.

Beccie
xxx

PS. It was also my birthday AND my first wedding anniversary last week, so sorry if I was a bit absent...