Week ending 27 September 2009

This week was a busy one...

First up on the Tuesday we had our photoshoot (which we talked about in our last post here), and that was an experience - especially when the studio rang to say that the photos were corrupted and it would all have to be reshot! (Glad I'm not the photographer!)

We had some floral weork in the middle of the week and runniong around with appointments, then onto the sweet stuff at the end of the week.

First up was a Friday wedding for Jackie and Peter, held at Potters in Warrandyte.

The spec was for Asiatic lillies with hot pink, with silver, white and hot pink accents.

This is the result of that design brief:

A cutting cake of vanilla bean, torted with vanilla bean buttercream, with white fondant over ganache. A single Asiatic lilly sits on top of the cake, and the base of the cake is banded by a hot pink satin ribbon.

The co-ordinating cupcakes were a mixture of vanilla bean and chocolate fudge, all in silver cases, with white fondant over vanilla bean buttercream, and decorated with a swirly monogram of the couples' initials in hot pink royal icing.

Next order on the calendar was for a 50th birthday high tea, where the overall theme was the colour lavendar. So we went a bit to town with this one, as what else can you do for a high tea but be grand?!

So, vanilla bean cupcakes in silver cases were the order of the day, with lilac fondant over vanilla bean buttercream. Three decorative styles made up the order; 1 - purple hydrangea blossoms with pink royal icing centres and some baby lilac edible glitter; 2 - lilac sugarpaste butterfly with an edible silver glitter body and a pink "...50..." piping detail; 3 - dark purple rosebuds with lavendar royal icing polka dot details and baby lilac edible glitter (not pictured)

Las order on the books for the weekend was a mini-cupcake order for a 2nd birthday celebration with a Dora the Explorer theme. Plain and simple was the request (2 year olds are not big on fussy details!), in the Dora colours of pink, purple and orange.

Vanilla bean mini-cupcakes in white foil cases, with vanilla bean buttercream snail-shell swirls, topped by sugarpaste hearts with a royal icing "2" motif, and royal icing 5-petal flowers again in Dora's colours of purple, pink and orange.

This week we haveappointments up the rahzoo, and our last Expo for the year is this coming Sunday, at Amberlee Estate in Cranbourne. We will also be putting the finishing touches to a cupcake fundraiser where we hope to be the sole cupcake sponsor, so when details for that are locked away, I shall spill all.

Here is the link for the Amberlee Expo... looking forward to seeing you there!

Week ending 20 September 2009

Sorry folks, life has been so busy these past couple of weeks that I completely missed posting for the 13th of September, and here it is the 22nd already, and I am only just posting for the 20th!

Well, as of 12:15pm today, the photoshoot for Melbourne Wedding and Bride is done.

Here is a teaser shot of what will be on newstands from December 2009:

So, what else have we been working on for the past couple of weeks you ask?

Well, answering the phone a lot, that's for sure! The level of enquiry that I am receiving at the moment is huge, thank you! Enquiries are ranging from short-term (as in, this Sunday!) to long term (November 2010!)... but they are all equally welcome, and they keep the days interesting - I love hearing about people's ideas, and how they want to incorporate cupcakes (and cookies too) and cakes into their big day.

Let's see, I took the Father's Day weekend off, and spent some quality time with my husband. Amazing, I know, and we even squeezed in another roast dinner for good measure!

Then we hit the kitchen pretty hard, with flower orders, and cupcake weddings, and a birthday, and a shower tea as well, which incorporated both cupcakes and cookies with messages of love on them. They were a huge hit, which is always great to hear.

So, onto the photos, which I know you want to see:

First up, the wedding of Trish and Pete. Pete is a muso, so music had to feature strongly throughout the wedding and celebration afterwards. What better way than to incorporate two musical symbols into the cake?

So, a mixture of white truffle and carrot cake cupcakes were the order of the day, with a matching caramel mud cutting cake. The decoration speaks for itself really - treble and base cleffs piped in royal icing and overpainted with edible silver lustre.

Then we had a Bridal Shower / Kitchen Tea for Sarah. The order of the day was pink and white, very girly, very "lovely". This is the result of that wish list:

Then we celebrated a 15th birthday with giant daisies on vanilla bean cupcakes. An army of daisy cupcakes in fact! For some reason, I couldn't get "Wee-ee-eed" (from 'Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men') out of my head when I was assembling these lovelies... (wee-ee-eed was their favourite word) - you be the judge:

Last up are some cupcakes I sort of threw together at the last minute for a meeting with one of my suppliers who did me a favour for some material for the cake stand for the Melbourne Wedding and Bride shoot...

Phew, so that's the thge last couple of week's photos out of the way... big wedding coming up next weekend, pink and white and silver, should look splendid, plus a High Tea for a 50th birthday... and designs for a fabulous Art Deco wedding to do, plus the next Target catalogue should be out next week too... here is a big look at the shot ('cause you can bet the shot in the catalogue will be teenie-tiny):

Plus a big cake design to work on, then after that, our last wedding expo for the year at Amberlee Estate in Cranbourne. More details on that next week!

Have a good week everyone!

Week ending 6th September 2009

Another busy week ahs passed us by, and it is now officially Spring, and there are only15 weeks until Christmas. How scary is that? Where has the year gone??

As usual, the best laid plans for some "me" time seemed to vanish into the ether, and we had four orders and another photoshoot demanding attention for the week!

First up was a 21st birthday for the lovely Paris.

These were a mixture of two designs and flavours. The first (pictured) were chocolate fudge cupcakes, with pink fondant over buttercream, and decorated with a royal icing "21" highighted with edible silver lustre.

The second (not pictured) were white truffle cupcakes with a pink buttercream swirl and decorated with a white paste star, overpiped with a royal icing "21" highlighted with pink lustre.

Our next order came in two parts. The first part were these gorgeous Birthday Gingerbread Men, for the birthday boy to take to school for all his classmates (and Teacher!) to enjoy. His Mum reported that they were a huge success! The theme was blue and green, so all the G-Men were trimmed with a lovely woven blue and green ribbon.

Second part of this order was for the following day for a family celebration - vanilla bean cupcakes again in shades of blue and green; this time decorated with blue sugar handmade Leggo pieces (propped on a royal icing swirl) with fondant over buttercream. The blue cupcakes were topped with a green paste "9".

Our final order was for a remote wedding at The Lakehouse in Daylesford. These were being collected by a relative, so unfortunately I don't have a photo of everything set up ready to go, but you can get the general idea below.

This order was comprised of lemon delicious cupcakes, decorated in two styles: First was a buttercream swirl topped with a red, double Dogwood blossom with white centre. Second was white fondant over buttercream, trimmed in a quilted pattern with small silver cachous and red mini-blossoms.

The matching cutting cake was dulce de leche, with caramel ganache under buttercream, and trimmed with a red chiffon ribbon and two red, double Dogwood blossoms.



Last on the board for this week was another photoshoot order, which we don't have pictures for yet - in fact, I don't know yet which catalogue it's goinmg into, or even if it was for Target! I do know it was for a girl's tea party shoot, and the colours were peachy pink and dirty blue, with little white flowers to feature... but that's it! Hopefully this week I'll see the picture and find out where it's destined to show up, so I can let you all know when to look out for it!

Next Week - well, next week is so far shaping up as it's booked... quiet (only a couple of orders) and lots of time to get my flowers done for the photoshoot on the 22nd for the Bridal mag. After that, well, that's prime Wedding Season right up until New Years. But that date is likely to book out soon too! Oh, well, no rest for the wicked!

Have a great week, and see you back here next Sunday!

Important News!!

We have a new contact phone number - 0411 162 132

Thanks to the "super smart" telephone salesperson who hit "disconnect" instead of "transfer carrier", we have had to get a new number issued... thanks to all my customers who alerted me to my disconnected status today!

Have a great weekend everyone, and see you SUnday with our weekly wrap-up!

Week ending 30 August 2009

Another week has passed, and on Tuesday, it's officially Spring. Mind you, my plants all think it's Spring already... the grape vine over my pergola is budding, as is my weeping Japanese Cherry, and my Silver Birch trees... I don't think they really got a decent Winter at all!

But onto Cupcakes - the whole reason you read, right?

OK, OK!

The first two shots are my own "official" photos of the magazine shoot cupcakes. In the magazine they will be on a stand, and presented with a matching cutting cake, but I was playing around with some silk flowers in a vase and thought that they would make a lovely backdrop. I'm thrilled with the shots, and they now take pride of place in my design book... I only hope that the magazine shots live up to my expectations!



Camelia Rose Cupcake

Double Dogwood Cupcake

Now, onto orders, customers and this week in the kitchen.

First up was an order for some pretty cupcakes for a birthday party for a little girl, who just loves purple and pink. And daisies! So I combined all three elements and out popped these sparkling daisy cupcakes, with pink and purple fondant over vanilla bean buttercream (Vanilla bean and Chocolate fudge cupcakes), topped with a sugarpaste daisy and an edible glitter centre.

This week was packed solid with customer appointments, and it was a bit of a challenge on Thursday to get everyone covered, as I had to rearrange Tuesday night appointments as we had another Barney of a storm in Melbourne, resulting in a loss of power, and no way out of my garage (the door motor seized, blocking out even the manual override lever!)... so 3 appointments had to get squished into an already crowded Thursday, but we pulled it off, and got to everyone on time... thank you to everyone for understanding my dilemma!

Then during a design session, the "final" design for the next magazine shoot has completely changed - twice! But it's now completely settled, the cutters ordered, and we have also had word of the shooting date - September 22nd... so revealing the final design is a way off. I think you will be pleased though. I know I'm excited to get to work on it!

And my new website has had a facelift! I got to playing around during a sleepless night (after the power came back on on Tuesday night, actually!) - I hate the wind - and have come up with a completely new design for the website, as well as a new logo (which you can see in the pictures above, as well as on the greeting page, below)... have a look and let me know what you think. For now the "Sweet Boutique" is having a holiday while I investigate shopping carts, but it will be back.

Next week: Just when I think that I'll have a quiet moment to (a) get housework done (how does that iron work again??) and (b) re-acquiant myself with my husband... the phone rings, and the diary is suddenly full again! Now, I'm not complaining for one minute, it is after all, this is a business that I'm running!, I'm just, well, busy! Too busy to iron anything it seems, and too busy to roast a chicken for my husband on our anniversary (I know, the shame!) - which was last Thursday!

Tomorrow, however, is a new day, and, if my luck holds, that chicken is doomed!

Have a great week everyone!

Week ending 23 August 2009

This week has passed in a blur... it's now only a week until Spring, and before we know it, Christmas decorations will be going up! What happened to the first half of this year, where did it go??!!

On Monday night I received a call from the RDNS (Royal District Nursing Service)... they were planning a special afternoon tea to thank their staff for a great effort, and would I be able to fit them in? Well, fit them in I did (the RDNS was a huge help to my husband and I after he suffered an incredibly serious illness last year), and below is the result... I was really happy with how they looked, they fit the brief perfectly (not pretty, but classy and elegant), and best of all, the client was thrilled.

These cupcakes were a mixture of Vanilla Bean, Chocolate Fudge and Citrus Delight cupcakes. All with ivory fondant over vanilla bean buttercream, and decorated with white royal icing accented with edible lustre, and white mini blossoms and pearls, also highlighted with edible lustre.

Also on the workboard for this week was to get the designs finalised for our next magazine shoot, coming up in early September. I'm pretty happy with the final concept - now the challenge is to translate that concept into cupcakes! I'll give you a sneak peak once the cakes are done... then the magazine itself doesn't publish until all the way into next January! (which is only 4 months and one week away - ack!!)

This week we also had another Target shoot... the shot looks fantastic, and the catalogue will be in letterboxes in about 6 weeks. I'll post the page up once I see it.

Next week is jam-packed with client appointments, and we also have a little girl's birthday to celebrate... I'm looking forward to those! Then it's head down and bum up as we plunge head first into the wedding season...

Target Catalogue is out now...

The cupcakes look great (it's a shame they only ended up using 2), but I was really surprised by how the cake looks - completely different to the stylist's specs, and certainly not as I delivered it! You can see for yourself in the catalogue shot below, vs the cake shot I took before delivery - just a wee difference!!

You can get a better look in a real catalogue, or you can also see it online at target.com.au

Still, better than nothing!

(And the next shots are due in about 6 weeks time...)