Month: December 2016

No Regrets

~ Laura ~ Leave a comment

This is a Facebook post from last year on this date …  I know so many people that this still rings true for. Sometimes we need to put ourselves first – as hard as that is for some of us. Sometimes you just need to find someone to listen, sometimes you just need a hug and a shoulder to cry on, and sometimes you just need someone to SEE you.

“I know several ladies right now that need to hear this message in this picture. I truly share this with every ounce of love I have to give you and from a place of having been there.
This post is a personal one and “scary” to post, but if I truly want to give you strength and courage, and ask you to be brave then I need to be brave and honest enough to tell you my story.
I had to jump in the dark off a deep cliff once and I was surprised to find a soft landing. Fear can be crippling but the relief that comes after the first steps and jump are made is so indescribable.
One of the lessons I am still working on is if you don’t make yourself a priority and love yourself first – no one else will. A very wise person recently told me “you have to take the flight attendant’s instructions – ‘put your oxygen mask on first and then help others.'” I had to learn to save myself first. I had to overcome my thought process that saving myself first was selfish – but what good am I to my beautiful little girls if I am falling apart at the seams from the inside out? I am not. It is a falsity. I am not teaching them strength and independence that way.
I have laid in bed sobbing thinking how did life get like this? Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong? Why am I not good enough? Telling myself over and over that I am not strong enough for this.
I made it through. It wasn’t easy, but it was way less harder then I had thought it would be. I had to learn to ask for help and learn also that it wasn’t a weakness to do so. I had to learn how to remove the voice in my head telling me I was worthless and stop it from repeating every negative name I had been called. I learned to breathe again. I learned to give myself permission to live my life the way I wanted.
I will always be here to listen 💗 XOXO”

It’s all in the details …

~ Laura ~ Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of creating two cakes for a logo dessert auction a few weeks ago. I decided to have one presented from my blog and one in coordination with my blog and my place of employment. One of our core values is Community – what better way than to demonstrate this than to participate in the auction.

15095069_574277656112600_5298245113177960289_nI knew when I decided to participate in the auction that I would make a candy cake – as those are always a big hit – I mean come on … who doesn’t love them some candy! The second cake I decided on the “Lumberjack Cake,” which has not only taken the internet by storm, but also has been tagged with my name on Facebook many times by friends and family. I decided to forgo the axe and use simple ribbon to accent this great looking cake.

15085701_574316222775410_4655919799120926257_nFor those who are not familiar with the “Lumberjack Cake” it is a red and black checkered cake to simulate plaid and the outside looks like a tree stump. For obvious reasons, I didn’t cut into the cake to see the checkered effect, but I will be making another one in the very near future just so I can cut it open and see it!

It amazed me how many compliments I received on these cakes by coworkers and friends after I had posted photos online of the cakes, and it’s all in the details! Simple details!

For the candy cake, I made a chocolate cake and frosted it with a chocolate buttercream. I then used King Sized Kit-Kats to wrap around the cake. I broke them into two segment pieces and placed them side-by-side with the flat side toward the buttercream. Once they were set, I wrapped a ribbon around and tied it tightly to ensure the Kit-Kats stayed upright! Then I simply placed the GIGANTIC Hershey Kiss on top and proceeded to place candy around it. I did use scissors  to open each candy bar and push down the wrapper so that I could stick the candy bar into the cake to keep it upright. I filled in the open spaces with M&Ms. The baking and cooling time were the longest parts of putting this cake together! This type of cake is a visual crowd pleaser. Kids go nuts for it (I think because they think they get to eat all the candy!). I don’t necessarily think that anyone would eat the cake AND all the candy on this cake – no judgement if you do! – however, I look at this similar to fondant. Does anyone actually eat the fondant and/or all the details made from fondant?

For the “Lumberjack Cake” I made a vanilla cake colored red, maroon and black, and I used my Wilton Checkerboard pan set. I colored my same chocolate buttercream black and used that to put between the three layers of cake and then used the plain chocolate buttercream to frost the rest of the cake. I used Giant Sized Hershey bars to make the “bark” on this cake. I simply held the bar up to the cake to measure how much needed to be removed and cut it off. I then used large end of a piping tip to “chop” up the end to make it look uneven and broken. To make the grooved marks to simulate bark I took a writing piping tip and simply drew lines up and down and sideways onto the flat side of the candy bar. I put the Hershey side towards the buttercream. To give it a little depth and dimension a dipped a piece of parchment into some white candy melts and gently wiped it over the grooved marks. Once all the pieces were done, I wrapped the cake in them and secured the bottom with a ribbon. For the top, to simulate rings – I just darkened my chocolate buttercream with a little more chocolate ganache and piped circles on the top and used an offset spatula to smear it all together – turing the cake as I held the spatula to the buttercream.

Two impressive cakes, that honestly didn’t take me long at all once I had figured out what I was going to do! It’s all in details for these two cakes, and those details were easily done.