T-2 days

There was no blog yesterday (duh! You all probably figured that out already, lol).  I actually worked on my cake until Midnight (shocking - I know!)!  Tonight was only 11:30pm, lol.  I guess I'm either getting motivated to do the cake (finally!) or just want a cake to put on the table.  It was refreshing to find out yesterday that I am not the only one that is finding it difficult to get motivated to work on my cake.

Be prepared to be amazed at everything I managed to get done yesterday.......... (not sure how many witty comments there's going to be....in all honesty I only remember what I did yesterday because of the pictures,lol).

I made some "Moose Crossing" signs
(hand painted moose by the way!)

The state flag of Alaska

Alaska's #1 past time - HOCKEY!!!








And of course, where the eskimos live....ok, that might only be in stories, but they still have them!

If you're wondering what the heck this is......it's and eskimo totem pole.  Yes, I made it by hand, and yes, it was quite interesting to do.  Apparently from what I've read, eskimo totem poles are meant to tell a story. 

So, I decided this one was going to tell MY story...my cake decorating story if you will.  There are three faces on my totem pole....they represent the three phases of cake decorating that I go through with most cakes that I do: Happy, So-So, and Frustrated/Aggravated.  There is no particular order to the faces, it's the order I ended up making them in.







I also taped all the little forget-me-not flowers into bunches of five.  They may get bunched together again, depending on what I end up using them for on the cake.

Today was airbrushing and painting day!

I started on the bottom tier of the cake by airbrushing the Iditarod Sled Dog Rage trail on the side of the cake.

I had anticipated this filling most of the cake side - it ended up filling 1/3rd of it.  Thanks to this, I airbrushed (or attempted to at least) the silhouette of a sled team - this filled up another 1/3rd of the cake.  



 What to do....what to do with the 1/3rd of the bottom tier that was BLANK!  In my earlier plans, I was going to make a 'Welcome to Anchorage' (where the race begins) and a 'Welcome to Nome' (where it ends) sign, but had nixed it because of time (silly silly me!).

Needless to say, it was the only ideas I could come up with for the remaining empty portion of the cake.




The blue parts are gumpaste, and the rocks are chocolate rocks....the rest is hand painted.




This is where you realize that a little for-thinking is always good.  You see.....looking at the bottom tier of the cake, I have the Iditarod Trail going from right to left (geographically correct)....then I have the 'Welcome to Nome' sign, then the 'Welcome to Anchorage' sign, then the sled team.  The welcome signs really should be on their respective sides of the trail map, with the team in between.  That, however, is a lesson learned for the future (I just hope I remember it then, lol)!



Then I set about working on the middle tier.  I attached a lot of what I made yesterday, as well as painting the polar bears white.

I then stacked the cake boards (only 2 of them, the third will get stacked at the show), and attached the bottom and middle tiers to the cake boards.  It was then it occured to me, there is a huge GAP between the cake and the board, and between the two cakes.  Sooooo, making Royal Icing was added to tomorrow's to-do list, lol.

If you're wondering what the holes in the top of the tier are, they are the holes that the trees and totem pole are going to go into when the cake is assembled on-site at the competition.

I also attempted to airbrush a night sky, mountains and the Northern Lights on the side of the top tier.  I also attempted to paint some trees on the side of the tier. 

It went........well, you can just judge for yourself how it worked out, lol



By the time all that was done, it was dinner time.  Here's the funny thing about dinner time.....once it's over, I usually have absolutely no motivation to work on cakes.  I, however, pushed past it today (it was that or there would be no cake).  I took a look at my to-do list, and decided to go ahead and put together the decorative tablecloth for my cake table.

I went to the craft store yesterday and purchased a cornflower blue satin (to match the flowers) and some toule with little crystals on it (hopefully resembling ice??)  Let me tell you......cutting two pieces of fabric to the same size and attaching them together is not as easy and one would think!

I did manage to get it done, and it looks fantastic.  I hung it on the contraption I made the other day with the PVC pipe from Home Depot.