A Long Time Ago in a Kitchen Far, Far away

Determined to make good on an extremely ambitious birthday promise, I was faced with the task of creating a DEATH STAR birthday cake for my six-year-old nephew. Although I'm sure he envisioned an edible version of his 3,417-piece lego, I decided on a three-tier cake featuring the Empire's famous satellite as a topper. The black cake is dotted with silver dragees and edible mini silver stars and features my nephew's name in a yellow-fondant "Star Wars" font. And what would a such a party be without lightsabers? We found some neat little light-up figures to fill that need!

For the Death Star, I rolled white fondant out over a tin foil ball and used a toothpick to fashion grooves. Next I darkened the grooves with black food coloring and coated the entire satellite in a matte silver edible glitter.

May the force be with you, Craftheads!

Engagement Extravaganza!

Felicitations, fellow craftheads!!!!

My beautiful cousin Catherine is getting married to her high school sweetheart in December of next year and I'm thrilled to be her maid of honor! When she told me she wanted to get "crafty" for the engagement party, I was naturally excited. We were mainly in charge of desserts for the affair and boy, did we get our creative juices flowing!

Our most daunting task was the party favors - Catherine and Tim absolutely love black and white cookies, so we decided to inject a little purple (part of the wedding's color pallet and Tim's favorite color) and make "save the date" cookies for everyone to take home.

To get the perfect, circular shape, we trimmed the top off of a plastic cup and poured batter in it as a little mold. For icing perfection, we used a piece of computer paper as a stencil to ensure the glaze would form a straight line. We used melted chocolate for the writing and once they were fully dry, we wrapped them in cellophane, donning them with purple curly ribbon.

Next up: Engagement ring cupcakes! I used a coconut cupcake recipe and topped them with a chocolate ganache. Then, we used engagement ring chocolate molds (A.C. Moore's) to create these white chocolate wonders.

Catherine dusting the rings with iridescent (for the diamond)
and silver (for the band) sugar-glitter.

And voila! Delectable cupcakes! For an alternate design, we made white-chocolate drizzle hearts.

And now onto the gifts...
Catherine and I have been going to Busch Gardens/Virginia since we were in middle school. Therefore, I thought the best way to officially initiate her fiance into the family would be to take him to our Mecca! I paired this idea with our love for Halloween and made a gift basket featuring to "tickets" to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens! First up, the card...

I used some engagement-themed stickers for the front and added some floral flourish and bling. The inside carries over the floral touches but incorporates the "Busch Gardens" aspect of
the gift.

 As for the actual content of the basket, I included 

a couple of small gifts from Yankee Candle  (a necessary excursion for any visitor to Williamsburg) and a few homemade touches. I printed out the Howl-O-Scream logo, glued the image to black card stock, added an "admit one" text at the end of the paper to create a "ticket-feel" and added glitter over the letters for a festive touch. I also put Halloween family pictures in clear, plastic frames and added scrapbook embellishments to jazz them up.

And here's the final product! 

Congratulations, Catherine and Tim! Can't wait for the DIY wedding crafts!