It's almost cake show time

The Great American Cake Show, formerly part of the Mid-Atlantic Cake Show and Wedding Cake Competition, will be held on May 2 and 3 in Westminster, MD.

The past several years, I attended and participated in the Divisional and Wedding cake competitions at the Mid-Atlantic Cake Show. Last year I decided to focus on classes and was able to take classes with three of the nicest people; decorating a whimsical cake with Carrie Biggers, freehand brush embroidery (flower picture) with Toba Garrett and piping icing characters (lil' croc and fat frog picture) with Mike Terry. I had a great time! I was even brave enough to enter into a one hour cake decorating contest! (Gee, what was I thinking, lol? I do like to challenge myself sometimes but in front of a live audience, lol, that is why I say I was brave, lol!) That hour went sooooo fast but it was fun! (There was no judging but the cakes were put on display and individuals at the show placed money into a jar beside the cake they liked and all the money was donated to charity.) This year I hope to make a few cakes and maybe some cookies. My cookies tied for second place in 2007 so I want to try again for first place. If you live nearby stop in and take a look at some fabulous sugar art or take a class! There will also be a live competition too! So if you like watching those competitions on Food Network stop on in and be part of the excitement live and in person! (Click on the show name at the top to get all the details.) Happy Decorating!

VLVFeb01

Here is a card I made using the Viva La Verve sketch. I used my paisley Cuttlebug folder to emboss the red card stock. The patterned paper is by My Mind's Eye. The flower and sentiment image is a Studio G stamp I found in the $1 bin at Michaels last year.

Baby and Flower cards

Here are a few cards I made last month using stamps from Papertrey Ink. The baby card uses images from the Bitty Baby Blessings set. I wanted to make little squares to stamp the small images in the set and I don't have a Score Pal so I used my paper cutter and a bone folder to make the score lines. I also used my Fiskars template to make the scalloped rectangle.

The last two cards uses images from the Garden of Life set. On the first one I used kraft cs (also from PTI) which I cut down to a mini card, approx. 3x5. I embossed the images in gold and colored in the flower with a Marvy LePlume marker. On the last card I used the PTI sketch found here. Again I used PTI's kraft cs along with some My Mind's Eye papers and rhinestones for the flower's centers.

Recycling - from one card to another

I made this card a few months ago for the From one card to another challenge. The card I received last year for my birthday pictured below had a nice focal image of glittered candles. And as you can see, I used the center image on the front of my simple card. I also used the interior message for the interior of my card. This is a great way to recycle.

SDDC5 Monochromatic challenge

I made this card for the Stamper's Dream Dreamy Challenge. The challenge was to make a monochromatic card. I had a tough time with this but I finally settled on SU's not quite navy, bashful blue and brilliant blue cs. Stamp images are from Papertrey Ink's Bitty Baby Blessings. I had planned on using Sizzlits die cut buttons for the space between the two images but they were a little too big so I embellished with some rhinestones which I think added a nice pop to the card as this was a quite simple card. Not sure if you can see the score lines on either side of the card but I made use of a mistake. I cut my card base from the cs and scored it in half but I scored at 4 instead of 4.5 (oops) but I decided to leave it and let it be a decorative detail by scoring the opposite end to have a score line on each side. I'm proud of myself for taking advantage of this mistake, something I don't do much, lol.