Angry Monkey

 My daughter "ordered" this cake.  She was very specific about how she wanted it done.  Fondant monkey face on top, sprinkles around the outside.  She pulled out a swim suit that had little monkies all over it and pointed out on it... "I want this face." 
"You want an angry monkey on your cake?"
"Yes."
What do you do?
And since it was her birthday, I let her and her best friend do the sprinkles by themselves. 

Dr. Who

Dinosaur

I was givent this picture:

 and asked to make a birthday cake out of it.

Harry Potter Snitch

Bieber Fever

Did I show you my Justin Bieber cake yet? No? You don't want to miss this!I thought I was somehow getting away with FIVE girls and not a single Beiber fan... alas, the oldest caught the bug. I let her try her hand on her own cake with the paisleys, and I think she did a great job. I didn't get a good pirture of it, but we added "Baby, baby, baby Oh" around the sides of the cake. She loved it. That's all that matters. I must add, it was hilarious watching the girls fight over the cake. We had "I want his hair", "I want his eye", "I want his lips", and we had "Do NOT give me a piece that has anything to do with him!" Girls, we are a fickle breed :).

Damask Baby Shower cake and pregnant lady tutorial

I actually had a model for my figure. They emailed me her baby shower invites, which had a professional picture of the very pregnant mama on it. "Just make it resemble her. And make it match the baby bedding (damask) and the shower plates (also damask). Hmmmm.... OK. I myself love damask. Don't you? I didn't get a final picture of it because they picked it up in boxes and set it all up themselves, but the finally product would have sat on a three tiered cake stand, with the cake on the top level, and the bottom two levels covered in the cupcakes.

Here's some how to tips (and as always with me, some how NOT to tips. I'm no professional. Just a cake hobbiest passing on what I figure out).

I molded the figure out of fondant, which held well enough, but if you want it to be truly solid you should use gumpaste. Gumpaste is easy to make, you can find it at cake supply stores or craft stores in powder form. You basically just add water and powdered sugar according to the directions on the can. I had the problem with the dowel poking up through the top of the head. The soft fondant kept settling down farther on it. I finally had to take it off and let it harden for a bit on the corner of my styrofoam block. I skipped all the basic sculpting steps. I rolled a lot of balls and "snakes" out of fondant, a lot like you would with playdough until it all fit together to look like this. For the hair I draped a piece over the head to see where I needed to shape it. My most valued tool... my pizza cutter. I kid you not, I don't make a single cake without it. I seriously think if it somehow broke, I would have to go to the store for a new one before I could finish my cake. Here I used it to cut locks into my hair piece. I tried to not flatten the bulge from where it sat on the head so I could keep it in perspective. One thing you have to know when working on fondant is that water is the best thing to use as "glue". The water breaks down the sugars and they bind together. I have various sizes of small paintbrushes in my cake supplies. I paint a lot on my cakes with food coloring plus I use them for my "gluing". I also have an exacto knife in my cake supplies. I used it to gently press a line in for her part. I then used it to giver her a hair cut. :)I tried to scatter her locks a bit to give it some dimension. I've made a figure before out fondant, a little hula girl. On that figure I sculpted with pre colored fondant. On this figure I decided to sculpt it out of all white and then paint it, to see which way I like better. I like sculpting with pre colored fondant better. Here's why: my biggest issue is I had trouble getting the color into small crevices, and I had trouble with bleeding color and my clumsy smudging.

To make skin color (which I also used on this cake) I use just a little bit of copper coloring.

Some more must have tools that I use on every cake. But especially for painting a cake. The liquid is actually vodka. For two reasons. Vodka spreads the color much more smoothly than water does. Water is really good to paint with if you want a textured look, like grass. But for smooth color, vodka works better. It doesn't leave your fondant sticky like water does, and the alcohol evaporates away. I usually just dip my brush (or toothpick for those tiny details) into the vodka, and then use the lid of the food coloring as my "palette" to mix my color onto my brush.

Again, toothpicks are great for the tiny details. (That's pretty much all I used on the tattoo cake).

I don't have a cake turn table yet (you can count on it being my next item I plan on buying!) I use either a hot chocolate container or a jar of peanut butter to lift the cake up off the counter so I can work the edges better and turn it easier. :)

Boxing Ring

Women's bathroom?

Nope. "Girl" brand skateboard logo... for a sweet sixteen BOY.

Once a Pirate, always a Pirate

My debut into high school logos ha ha. My football helmets are getting A LOT better. Thank goodness since they seem to be a reocurring request!

Harley Davidson

Wedding cake

Red M and M

Owl city

Marshmallows make the best cupcake eyes. The girls all joined in and helped me with these.

Cherry drip cake

All I can say about this cake is that I LOVE it. I would love to have the opportunity to make a layerd cake out of this. I think it would look amazing.

Purple party cake

This is what happens when you have a large odd shape cake (originally intended for carving a shap out of) and the need of an extra last minute cake.

Lime green slugbug

Slugbug, what color?
The request was very specific. Lime green slugbug with a "Hawaiian flower" on the hood.But I had to be a little creative with it so I made the inside tie-dye.

Jaegermeister

These pics are a little off because I took them with my phone instead of my camera but you still get the gist of the cake. When Kelten told me he wanted a jaeger cake all I could think of was those drunks puking it back up... so I put it on there ha ha. Sorry... if you ask me to do a cake you ARE going to get a bit of my personality wrapped up in it somewhere. He loved the puker though, and just like my fingerprints on the tiny lampshade of the crime scene cake, I giggled out loud all night over this little drunk.

Unicorn

Superman Cake

Transformers: Optimus Prime