It's a Boy!..First baby shower cake

This cake is a three tiered safari inspired baby shower cake, which was actually pretty fun to make. I covered the cake in white fondant and mixed a Wilton Sky Blue Icing, 1 oz. (Google Affiliate Ad) color to use for the zebra stripes and giraffe spots. I actually just looked up some zebra and giraffe patterns and did my best to copy the prints free hand, drawing them in to the fondant and then cutting them out. I used plastic straws for support throughout the cake (I was a bit nervous that the weight of the top layer would cause the fondant on the bottom layers to start separating under pressure). This cake was a big hit at the party, and it was my first baby shower cake!

Gift Box Cake

This is actually my second gift box cake but I was pretty proud of myself today because this is the FIRST fondant cake (out of about 5 so far), that hasn't somehow ripped, cracked, or wrinkled while I was trying to cover the cake with fondant. I guess practice makes perfect...check it out!

Louis Vuitton Purse Cake

So I decided to go ahead and take on the task of my first purse cake...and I'm actually please with how it turned out! But let me say, it wasn't exactly a "cake walk".

I think that the most difficult part of this cake, was trying to stencil the Louis Vuitton pattern especially because I didn't have an actual stencil. After doing some research online, I saw that you can purchase one but I didn't have a few weeks to wait for it to come via mail and I couldn't find a stencil at any local store. Soooo I pretty much had to make one myself. 

I created the purse shape by baking two 9x13" cakes and cutting them in half to create four layers, this pretty much created the height and width of a real purse. I then filled the cake with buttercream, and carved the top layer to create more a of rounded shape...

 Chocolate Fondant was a perfect color match (but note: I did find that the Wilton chocolate fondant was drier than white/colored fondant). When I covered the cake, the fondant on both ends wrinkled so I had to cut the ends off and roll out separate pieces to attach to the end. This really wasn't noticeable on the finished product since I put "fondant piping" on the two ends of the purse anyway. I still need to work on covering square objects with fondant because the corners of the cake continue to be an issue for me.

I then laid my stencil on the cake and painted on the Louis pattern using Yellow Pearl dust mixed with water, the pattern isn't perfect...but I'm sure you get the jist of it. 

I mixed white, yellow, and the chocolate fondant to create a "tan" color which I used for the piping and zipper part of the purse. I rolled out some fondant to create handles and attached them to the side of the cake using gum paste glue, but I had to lighten up my handles since my first ones were thick and just too heavy to hang off the side of the cake. And Voila!!

Finished Louie Vuitton Purse Cake!!