Easter novelties

Hello

I started on my mammoth task last night of making a number of Easter novelties requested by my work colleagues for friends and family members as a bit of a different Easter gift. I only made one last night as this one is for a work mate who's last day before Easter is tomorrow - I will hopefully complete the rest over the weekend. I have a total of 11 orders plus an additional one I'll be making for my niece Ella. All of these customers are paying me as well so that's very exciting!

I offered everyone the choice of the decoration being made of icing or marzipan, choice of a duck or a rabbit, choice of sweets to go into the egg (something small like buttons, dolly mixtures, maltesers etc), choice of colours for the 'duvet and pillow' (usually pink for a girl and blue for a boy if they're for children) and whether you want the recipients name put on it. The finished product will then be wrapped in cellophane to make it look more of a present.

I'm not very good at asking people for money for what I make so two of my friends at work decided the pricing for me and they are £4 for 1,

£7 for 2 and £10 for 3. I have a huge task ahead of me this weekend to get 10 done, but I'm sure I will succeed. I'm just really nervous that it will all go wrong or I'll write someone's name incorrectly or mix up sweets and colours and even worse, break bits off it as I try and wrap it up!

:-( Please all have your fingers crossed for me :-)

Here is a picture of the first of many I have completed:

Cake Decorating Class update

Hello all

I can't actually remember what my last post was on this and whether I'll miss any weeks out but I'm going to tell you about the last 2 weeks.

The week before last we made a little novelty, ideal for Mother's Day or as a little gift to give someone for their birthday. This didn't actually involve cake in any way. We made a Pot of Primula's. I had to google what Primula's were - I mean I guessed they were flowers but I'd not heard of them before. Apparently they are from the same family as primroses and come in all kinds of colours.

This little novelty was quite simple to make and looked pretty effective. We were instructed to bring a walnut whip and sugarpaste, along with a bright colour, green colour and terracotta colour. I could do the first 3 things but I don't have the colours to make terracotta but the teacher had these available on the night.

Here are a couple of pictures of the finished product.




Last week we made an Easter novelty - a duck in bed :)

For this we were required to bring in an Easter egg, a creme egg, some buttons and plenty of sugarpaste with yellow and green colours and also another colour for the duvet cover. I really enjoyed making this novelty gift and feel there was much scope for differing the design.
It did take a fair while to make this but there was quite a long session where we sat and watched the teacher make it and then we had to go and follow her instructions. We used one half of the Easter egg for the 'bed' and the creme egg was used as the duck's 'body' beneath the duvet. The egg was filled up with buttons and then the duvet cover was placed over most of the egg and covered the creme egg and buttons. A pillow was also made to place the duck's head on, all of which were created with sugarpaste. Although I imagine should someone prefer, marzipan could be used in place of this.

I decorated my (too large) cake board with the moon and stars but there's so much more that could be done - slippers, book, anything really. Also I think a rabbit would be a cute change to make and also Easter-y.
I took my novelty into work and gave it to Karen for her daughter Emily and used this "prototype" to send an email around work to ask if anyone would like one for any friends or family etc and to date I have 7 to make for Easter, for 3 orders and I also have one to make for Ella also! Lots to do, I'll be busy that weekend before Easter. To do this though, I still have a few bits to buy - I need the smaller cake boards and also a roll of cellophane, both of which I've sourced on Ebay, I'm just waiting for pay day now lol.

Next week we'll be making another Easter novelty, possibly two so that'll be fun :)