My Weekend of Bliss!

I am back from an amazing time in Kitchener visiting with cake friends old and new and learning from the extremely talented dynamic duo of James Rosselle and Marina Sousa!  It is no secret I love taking classes at Icing Inspirations - the warm atmosphere, the spacious and relaxed classroom, and the talented instructors.  Here is how my trip went:

Thursday morning, my dad dropped me off at my friend Paige's house and we piled into our friend Suzanne's minivan ready to go.  The 6.5 hour drive flew by as we talked cake, the Montreal cake show, and listened to songs from Glee.  We arrived in Kitchener and immediately headed over to Icing Inspirations to check out our spots.  Upon arrival, we saw 5 styro dummies stacked and waiting for covering.  One tier in particular was going to be daunting for sure (more on that later).  We headed to our hotel to check in and meet up with my friend Terra who arrived from Nova Scotia earlier that day.  We went to Crabby Joe's for dinner with our friend Jen and then on our way back saw James, Marina and Chrissie (owner and BCF extraordinaire) heading into the hotel.  We (and I do mean the girls) swarmed them like a bunch of seagulls.  Introductions were made and we all turned in for the night to our rooms to rest up for Day 1.

Day 1 brought some initial anxiety.  The moment Marina started talking, I felt at ease.  She has this way of settling any uneasy feelings just by talking.  She and James introduced the class - haute couture cakes and described what we would be doing.  We started with covering our 5 tiers with my new favourite fondant - fondarific.  It rolls nice and thin and covers seamlessly!  We also had to roll, cut, wire, vein and shape 125 peony petals.  Back to Crabby Joe's for dinner and $4 drinks (mmmm swedish berries).

Day 2 we finished up our peony petal, learned all about isomalt (although I had used it previously, I really learned alot) and how to pour it using Marina's bead molds, started making buttons with Marina's button molds, and made beautiful lifelike roses thanks to James' tutelage and use of his cutters and veiners.  We wrapped up the day and headed out to Wild Craft for the usual class dinner.

Day 3 - the final day!  Always bittersweet - you are anxious to finish up your project and return home (hotels are nice and all, but I love sleeping in my own bed), but you are also sad to be leaving the teachers and cake friends family behind.  Here are a couple of close up shots of my flowers all airbrushed (yes airbrushed!  James converted me to wanting to airbrush all my flowers as opposed to dry dusting) and the blinged out part of my cake.

  We used lusters, shimmers, discos, pearls and ruffles to bring our masterpieces to life!  We had a quick demo on making our own molds using silicone plastique and also got to incorporate some scrolls from my recent favourite cake toys - the line of molds by marvelous molds!  Chrissie arranged to have a professional photographer come in and take pictures of our final cakes, so once I get them, I will be posting them proudly!  In the mean time, if you would like to try re-creating any of the things indicated here, just click on the links above.  And I really hope this experience has inspired you to take a class.  Chrissie has some amazing ones coming up with acclaimed and award winning artists like Diane Phillips, Karen Portaleo, Kaysie Lackey, Courtney Clark, Lindsay Sinatra, and UK's sugar flower master Robert Haynes who has just agreed to adding a second class after his first one sold out in under 36 hours!  Don't miss out by waiting to register -  Diane, Karen and Courtney's classes will be her before we know it, and they are sure to sell out soon or just about to sell out!

Until Next Time,
Happy Caking!