Doctor's Retirement

My mom has worked for Dr. Deak's office for a long while now. And he finally decided to retire this year. So my mother reminded me the night before, at 9:00pm that they were having Dr. Deak's retirement party at work. So 3 hours later, I think the cake turned out pretty darn good! He's quite the golf fan...obviously :)

Congrats and enjoy, dr. D!!!

My First 1st Birthday Cake

Oh how I wish I had a picture of the little cutie, Louie, who dug into this cake on his first birthday a couple of weekends ago!!!
Louie's mama, Shannon, was one of the coaches on my dance staff at Seton. She coached my sister for a couple seasons, but I was never able to have her as a coach. But I did get to spend a year with her on the coaching staff and she is wonderful! When she asked me to do Louie's cake, I was thinking like- uhm Are you sure?!. But she let me know how nice it was that she didn't have to stress about making the perfect cake amidst all the other party day activities. I was happy to do it :)

Here is the back side of it.
And the front! Literally in my top 5 favorites!
Shannon said Louie loved the cake, and even tried to feed the cake to their doggies. Oops!! Hope you had a great birthday Louie!! :)

Merg is 21!!

I always tell my best friend Megan, who is a world traveller and world-saver, that she is going to start bringing back cute little orphans from every country instead of souveniers. If anyone I know can make the WORLD a better place, it's Megan. So what better way to celebrate her birthday than with a globe cake and a message to saving the world! :) Megan is such a sweetheart and would do anything for anyone. On her birthday, all she wanted was to have all of her friends in one spot at the same time. She didn't care about anything else but that. She has been one of my go-to gals since high school and gotta love her for it :) happy 21st birthday mergie! Hope it was wonderful! Love you bunches!

On Top of the Hill

Isabelle is one of my dancers, and her mom asked me for a last minute favor. Although it made for a 4 cake weekend, I was happy to help Amy out. Her aunt has terminal lung cancer, and the doctors weren't sure if she would make it to her 50th birthday in mid December. So they through her a big, colorful, on TOP of the hill party. Aunt Mary loved it! I was glad I could make some of her last moments on earth with her family memorable and happy! God Bless Amy, Aunt Mary, and family.

PS- She requested that her entire family where party hats :)

Destination Wedding

One of the ladies who works in the Department below me at work asked me to do a cake for her niece's destination wedding. They got married on a beach, so Lyssa's family wanted to send them best wishes with a beach cake...footprints in the sand included!

From what I hear- the cake was a hit. Best wishes Lyssa and Noel!!

Miley's Birthday

Miley's big sis Ali was my first repeat cake- the second zebra print cake, and then this past year, the gryffindor cake. Miley's mom and dad are good friends of our family, so when they came to watch my sister perform, Miley ran up to Krista and asked her if she'd make her bday cake. She had to tell her, no I can't, you'll have to talk to Sarah. :) But I didn't get to chat with the little lady, so it was a complete surprise when I should up on Sunday with her birthday cake!

Big 5 year old now!! Purple and pink are her absolute FAVORITE colors

Her face was PRICELESS! She had the biggest smile and giggles as soon as she looked out the door and saw my car in the driveway. Those are the moments when all the hardwork becomes worth it! :) Happy birthday Miley!

Bestie Forevski

This is my bestie forevski, her name is Chelsea. And this past weekend she celebrated her 21st birthday!!!Chelsea and I have been best friends since the first week of freshman year of high school. She gave the biggest attitude to a teacher behind his back and I knew she was sweet! But seriously- that's how we became best friends. I just wish I would be 21 already so I could celebrate with her, but I guess that will have to wait until mine in January. She had quite the successful 21st bday weekend though. :)

Chels loves tea and she couldn't wait to TRY twisted tea on her birthday! So her cake was this big twisted tea bottle. It was chocolate cake with chocolate chips in it :)
Chels- these past several months have been exceptionally crazy for us, but we've made it this far! :) Thanks for stickin' this crazy thing out with me. #life tehe had to hash tag it. She will be my bestie forevski- thanks for coining that term to! love you so much! -sarah

A Pirate's Life for Brady

Brady's big sister Riley is the little sweetie who requested the Tangled cake a few months ago. Although he looks up to his big sister, all he wanted was a pirate cake! He was even a cute little pirate for halloween. Brady's mom made it clear that he wanted a big ol' chocolate cake. So we did the bigger tier with triple chocolate fudge cake, with chocolate chips, and then the smaller tier was vanilla. All buttercream icing.

X Marks the spot! There was a "treasure map" circling around the bottom tier

Top of the cake- skull and cross bones
Happy Birthday Brady! Hope you enjoyed your day! :)

Long Time No See

Valarie is my dance team adviser at XU. She is one of THE SWEETEST people I have ever been lucky enough to know. Our whole team has been so excited since April when she told us she was pregnant!! But of course she wanted it to be a surprise ughh! ;) When she asked me to make a cake for her family baby shower, I was so happy! We had to go with gender neutral, but I'm glad we did because the booties were SO cute! A month or so after the shower, and during a long dance team weekend, little Grace came into the world!! :) I am so happy for you and Mike, Valarie! Grace is lucky to have you as a mommy! You are wonderful, and will do a wonderful job as a mom! Love ya!

Happy Birthday Maddie!

I know I did a tri-cake for all the Vaughn kiddies last week, but this one was for Maddie's Luau/Pool party with all her girlfriends from school.

She's such a sweetie. She kept telling me how much she loved the cake. Hope you had a fun party Maddie girl!!

Another Marathon Cake Weekend

First cake of the weekend has been in the works for awhile. Cathy is another former grade school teacher of mine, and this weekend her daughter, Riley turned 6! I was in her class when she was pregnant with her and now I can't believe Riley is already in kindergarten! This girl LOVES the movie Tangled and Rupunzel! So what would be more fitting than a Rupunzel cake?

From what I heard, Riley loved her cake! The tower was the first time I've ever sculpted/molded with rice krispie treats. It was a bit difficult, and the tower wasn't perfect, but it turned out pretty well I think!
The next cake was another fun one for my Vaughn family. It was a "happy birthday, baptism!" party. Luke turned 6 at the start of July and Maddie turned at at the start of August. And this past weekend, sweet Karli was baptized. So Julie asked me to make a cake for the whole occasion. Each one got their own tier. Maddie and Luke had already told me what kinds of things they wanted on their cakes, so those were easy. Luke is a KILLER baseball player- well sports player- all around. And Maddie is so into bright colors, hearts, peace, signs, polka dots, Justice clothes- so she wanted the hearts and bright colors. And Karli's tier was a strawberry cake since it was pink! :)
This was a fun one to do, and it was so cute to see how happy Maddie and Luke were that they each got their "own" cake (tier) even though they shared their birthday party! Love you guys!
And if anyone remembers Ali, she requested the zebra print cake for her birthday last year. Her mom, Emily, asked me to do her cake, and I'm so glad I was able to get it in this weekend. Emily said Ali now LOVES Harry Potter (only the good guys). So it took me awhile, but I finally figured out how to do something HP. Here is the Gryffindor crest (HP, Ron, and Hermione's house). Ali still thought I couldn't make her cake, so when she walked in and saw me standing there, she ran over to the counter and saw her cake. Her eyes lit up! It was precious! Ali's family is close friends of my mom's family, so I was happy to squeeze this cake in. :)

The First Legal Friend

Robert has frequented the blog before. He was the lucky boy to get the reenactment cake of his run-in with a deer. :) Regardless, Robert was the first of my group of friends to turn 21!! Here is where it all started. Our friend Scheck had a co-op at a construction site, and they let him take this construction sign as a parting gift. He made it into a pong table for Robert!

So Emily, Robert's girlfriend, helped me recreate the pong table into a cake!! Just plain vanilla cake with buttercream icing. But I tried something new. The spilled "beer" is actually melted sugar! I have seen sugar work done on so many cake and sweets shows, so I figured we could try it. It was a bit hard to work with at first, but it turned out perfect. This was the first round set up at my house.
And this is at Robert's party, with his pong table as the display table. I don't like to make appearances on my own blog, buttttttt I really loved this cake and it was for a special guy. (Yes, this was an empty beer can that was drunk by an over 21-year old)

Happy Birthday Roberto!!! You are such a wonderful friend and one of those brothers I never had. I hope you had a great time at your party. I know we all did. Love ya buddy! -Sarah

Pretty in Pink

One of my former teachers, who also belongs to my parish, asked me to do her daughter's birthday cupcakes. Catherine was very specific with what she wanted. But it was no problem :)

She asked for chocolate cupcakes, with pink wrappers, pink icing, chocolate shavings, and a strawberry on each one.

They turned out extremely cute and smelled absolutely delicious!!

I hope you had a great birthday Catherine!

Jackpot!

This cake was for Kayleigh's grandpa's 60th birthday. She was my twinkle dancer who ordered the super colorful first communion cake. Her mom asked me to make her father in law's birthday cake.

He loves going to the Casinos, and Carrie thought a slot machine would fit him perfectly! It turned out super cute! Hope it was a wonderful time! :)

Firecracker Baby

My grandma asked me to make my Aunt Annie's birthday cake this year. Annie is her first born, and her and my late grandpa's firecracker baby. She always gets to celebrate with fireworks with having an independence day birthday!

Chelsea, one of my best friends and blog frequenters, helped me with this one. We LOVED the colors.

The inside was chocolate cake, raspberry buttercream and chocolate ganache filling. That just screams Annie. It was pretty delicious!! Hope you enjoyed it Annie and I hope you had a wonderful birthday!!

Saint Paws to C Paws

I danced with Ali for 2 years, but it seems so much longer than that! She is an awesome dancer and such a fun person to be around. So I was so happy when her mama asked me to do her cake for her graduation party. Here it is! ( Another fellow Seton Saint)

Our parents have become very good friends over the past few years. Our dads are TOTAL dance team dads. If there's an asymmetric formation, non-pointed toes, big fall, or unsynchronized straight leg sequence, these guys will tell you! And after dancing with Ali at Seton, she will be making us all proud as a University of Cincinnati Bearcat Dancer! I can't wait to come and watch you and Ash. And I am so glad I got to spend the time dancing with you like I did! You're awesome A Rebz :) love you!

Krista's Birthday

If any of you remember Krista's cake from last year, it was the Hello Kitty 2-tier pink cake. This year, she asked for an elaborate cake- 2 tiers. Strawberry cake with pink icing. bottom layer sparkly pink on the fondant. top layer cheetah print with a little sparkly pink band. but this is what her cake and cake display ended up like:

Yes, she still loved them!

Pink, hello kitty, pink, cheetah print, and pink. Did I mention Pink!?! All of K buddy's favorite things in one! She loveddddd it all. Even down to the pink victoria's secret boxes for her display. Which she asked by the way: "ooh! Is there anything in those!?" Sorry Krista :) Hope you had a great Birthday. love you :)

Not Only a Graduate, but a Fashion Designer

This weekend, we went to my cousin Kate's senior fashion show for the DAAP program at UC. This is a prestigious design school, and Kate deserves to be in this elite group! These are just some of her pieces from the show.

My aunt Annie asked me to do Kate's graduation cake, and I wanted to make it extra special. I decided to incorporate some of her designs into the cake! I think it turned out really well. The cake was beautiful and is definitely one of my favorites to date!
The top tier was modeled after the light blue knitted top. She knitted this herself!

The bottom was modeled after the top with the ruffled bottom on it.

The finished product:
Top view:

Congratulations Kate! You are so extremely talented, and I am so proud of you and your accomplishments! Can't wait to see what you bring to Abercrombie! (Yes, she will be designing for Abercrombie) Love you!

Wildcat to a Bearcat

My cousin, Caleb, is an official high school graduate! He is extremely intelligent: part of Harrison's award-winning academic team, and is going to be in the engineering program at UC. Yes, we'll be rivals during crosstown shootout week, but that's okay :)

Happy graduation Caleb! Good luck in all you do; I know it will be nothing but wonderful things ahead of you!

Let's Back Track - Last Weekend's Cakes

My family has known Will and Lisa's family for such a long time. Will is actually my godfather, and their family lived right next door to us growing up. So I was happy to make a cake for Lisa and Will's oldest son Matt who graduated from 8th grade! Not only was it fun because I also graduated from St. William, but I remember when Matt was born! Needless to say, I feel a little old!

Matt requested something new (ish). Half vanilla, half strawberry. I was excited to do something other than choco and vanilla. Not that there is anything wrong with those flavors though. :) Lisa asked if I could do a skateboard cake. That is one of Matt's favorite hobbies. I was a bit unsure at first how I was going to do it, but I quickly figured it would be easiest to make it upside down. This made the most sense though too, luckily for me, since the designs are always on the bottom. All fondant, complete with edible cupcake wheels!
Congratulations Matt! I know you will do great things next year and beyond!

Another Vaughn

So it was finally Julie's turn to get a cake of her own. I knew she wouldn't order one from me, but I also knew her sweet kiddies would make a cake for her too. So I made a cute little individual cake just for her. It was chocolate cake, with chocolate, mocha, espresso buttercream between the layers and iced all in chocolate buttercream. Julie is a self-proclaimed choco-haulic ;)

Julie got to enjoy this all for herself, she said, because no one else likes coffee. So it was the perfect cake for a great friend, to have a great birthday! I do have to say though, the cake Maddie, Luke and Lauren made was so adorable. Maddie was so proud to show me that she wrote on it!! But I'm glad the kiddies and George had a cake to enjoy as well! Hope you had a great birthday Julie! Love you!