Award time!!

Sue, thank you so much for this award. This was really a great surprise.

Like you,I did jump !! It means a lot to me and I really appreciate it. Your blog is full of great ideas and I absolutely adore it. Thank you so much!!

I am passing this award into 5 other fabulous bloggers that are very talented and I admire a lot.

Here is to you girls:

Cookies and Cups : I would love to try your cookies, they look so good.

Indigo Wings: You are so talented! I wish I can make cards like yours.

My Creative Way: You are a super mom and very talented.

Bunny's Warm Oven: If I have another life I will tried to cook as good as you.

Yumsilicious Bakes: You are so young and a great baker.

I hope you all have a great week full of shopping ,cooking and cleaning, (why not)? In my house we are all ready for Santa ( minus the cleaning part). I can't wait to see Cami opening all her presents.

Kathia

I have a winner and... a surprice!

The day has come, and I have a winner:

Congratulations to Butter Yum

You are the winner of the Martha Stewart Candy Cane Treat Box. And then I thought...I have been blogging for a year already, and to celebrate I want to give these girls a little something for her ideas! Do you like this cupcakes liners? Aren't they adorable?

Congratulations to:Avanika, MiniBaker, Crystal,Susan, Sue Sparks, and Raychel you all are getting one box of these adorable cupcake liners. Thank you so much for your ideas, I think I know what I am going to get for Cami's teachers. Please contact me at castrokm@hotmail.com to send you the liners.



Kathia

Cookies...inspired by you.

It's cookie time!
Orders are coming in and the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy for me, I have some cakes to do, a cake tasting with a future client for a princess cake and lots of mini desserts and cupcakes for a few parties. Pretty much my lack of sleep already started this week ( you know I only bake/decorate at night). I had to get my cookie dough out of the refrigerator and bake, I had no choice! I have seen many of your cookies lately and they all look so good, these cookies are inspired by you ladies. Your, your and your cookies are awesome! Please keep baking.

Sneak Peak at my class and a little giveaway

Today was my "clear my mind day". I left home early and I went to the city to take one of my gumpaste classes with Chef Ruth Drennan.
My original idea was to go to my class and then walk around Manhattan and take some pictures to share with you, lately I have been having an obsession with apertures, exposure and taking pics of everything I can. ( As you can imagine I have a cool camera and I am having lots of fun with her). Well, to make the story short, after being lost in the middle of Chinatown for almost 45 minutes and of course with all the rain I wasn't able to get a cab! I arrived at my classroom almost having a nervous breakdown

After my wonderful class and my brain not quite yet in place I took these poor sad pictures of people on the street, please keep in mind that I was holding a camera, an umbrella, and two big bags and yes, using only two hands. I just pointed and shoot! by the time I got to NJ it was snowing. I love the snow, but I love her more when I am under my blankets watching TV and drinking hot chocolate.

The Beautiful Cattleya Orchid


Hopefully one day, I will be able to make one as good as the real ones.

Ruth is very nice and she let us take a lot of pictures, unfortunately I can't share them all but here are just a few:

GIVEAWAY

I got this really cute Martha Stewart treat boxes for one of you, just a little something to kick the holidays off. I really need your help, I need ideas. ..I have to get a Christmas gift to Cami's teachers and I don't know what to get. They are 5 and I don't have a big budget.

ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN

Just leave a comment on this post and let me know:

-What do you think I should get them?

-Please, leave your comment with a way for me to contact you if you win.

-Deadline to enter is Friday, December 11,2009 at noon.

-The winner will be chosen at random and announced on Friday night.

-I almost forgot, Santa is not included with the boxes, he is just hanging out !

In another note..today is my one year anniversary of my blog!! Thank you so much for following me, for your sweet comments and just for be there. Laura, you brought me luck!

Kathia

Thanksgiving Cake

Hi everyone, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with your family. Here is a Thanksgiving cake that I made for a friend's family dinner.

The pumpkins, acorn and fall leaves are made out with gumpaste. I actually didn't have fall leaves cutters, so I used my small fall cookie cutters. For the leaves, I colored the gumpaste in shades of brown and orange, then I dust them with green lusted dust.

Can you see in this picture how shiny the pumpkins are? Well I use a steamer on them! They end up with a great shine.

I hope you like the pictures, so now let's get ready for Christmas, my favorite holiday. I am actually done with my shopping, I just need to start wrapping all the gifts, I can't wait to see Cami open them up.

Happy Thanksgiving !

Hi ladies, I hope you all are doing fine. I bet you are cooking already! My thanksgiving dinner will be very quite, my husband will be working, so it will be just Cami and me, I am not making nothing fancy, roasted turkey breast, mash potatoes,gravy and salad. So, please post some pictures of your delicious meals. I hope you have a great time with your family. Here I will leave you with some cookie pictures from a few orders that I had to do for tomorrow and a few goodies that I made for some of my love ones.

I don't know you, but I never seen leaves like these, I just love red!

Pumpkins of course...

I made pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting for Camilla's teachers and I also made chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. These cute yellow boxes I got them at Michael's for a $1.

Check out these adorable cupcake toppers.

Packing some cookies.

A box of goodies for one of my good friends, who comes to babysit Cami when I need to get some fresh air .

At last...here is Cami sleeping in our living room, she has been with a cold and ear infection for the past 4 days. Lucas is always cold, so I got a blanket for him too, he loves to be next to Cami .

I hope you enjoy the pics. Thank you for all your comments, I enjoy every single one of them.

Easy Ivy Leaves

Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well. Here in New Jersey the weather this week has been great, I really feel that the holidays are around the corner. I already started to decorate my house with some Christmas stuff, since I don't have a lot of time I just do a little at the time. In another note...I had to make these ivy leaves for a project this weekend, since I didn't have a cutter ,I tried something different and I think they come out cute. I want to share it with you because it might help in your cake decorating projects.

A few things you are going to need:

-Fondant mat

-Rolling pin

-Green gumpaste

-Scalpel knife

-Plastic wrap

-Ball tool

-Dresden tool

You are also are going to need some pictures or templates of ivy leaves, since I didn't have any, I just googled them and printed out 3 different leaves .

-I rolled out the green gumpaste on a greased surface as thin as possible.

-I let the gumpaste dry for a little

-I put the templates on top of the gumpaste and using the scalpel knife I traced around the edge of the leaves and cut them out.

-I lay one leave on thin foam and I covered the other ones with plastic wrap ( so they don't get dry too fast).
-You can choose whether to give your leaves frilled or flat edges. I use the ball tool to smoothed the edge of the leaves.

-Since I didn't use a veining tool, I just took the Dresden tool ( from the Wilton Gumpaste kit) and draw on a few lines here and there .

Too bad the picture didn't come out good for you to see the details.

-I let the leaves dry for a while before dusting them with green luster dust.(you can use a little bid of yellow on the edges if you want, or use a different tone of green, that's up to you)

IVY LEAVES

Well, I hope this works for you.

I have a question not related to this post, but I am brainstorming another giveaway.At Christmas time, do you bake sweet goodies for your friends or neighbors?

Have a nice week,

Kathia

Almost Tweety

When I say almost Tweety is because I think he doesn't quite look like the really cute Tweety bird we see in cartoons. But I can tell you I did try to do my best. I made it as a cake topper for one of Cami's teachers. Her mom's birthday is on Sunday and she is making her a cake, but since her mom loves Tweety and ivy leaves she ask me if I could do them for her. So, here is the result. To do the head I use rice crispy treats. I made the head and then I wrap it in plastic wrap and let it sit over night.

I rolled a piece of lemon yellow fondant

and covered the head.

2 little pieces of gumpaste and I made the mouth!

For the body, my idea was to have Tweety sitting on top of the cake, which I think is what it looks like now, but I forgot to attached the feet in a different position, so he kind of look like he is standing ( I guess a need an anatomy lesson?) I let the head drying for a couple of days. I got a little piece of sanding paper and I smoothed the head as much as I could to take away any finger prints on it.

I rubbed a little water on the top of the neck and I inserted the head on the wooden skewer.

For the eyes, I just traced the eyes on paper, I cut them out and then I rolled a little piece of white fondant and cut out the eyes using the paper pattern . I did the same to add the blue and black centers.I used and eatable black market to draw the eye lashes .

And here is my almost TWEETY BIRD!

In another note.. here is my baby. Half a princess at her Day Care parade ( because pretty much everyone was crying and by the time Cami came out her face was red like an apple and her eyes were swollen, thank Goodness for a little bag of M&Ms)