Frozen Buttercream Transfer Resource Page to make Awesome DIY Homemade Cakes for any Occasion!

I'm not a cake expert, I'm just a busy mom with a full-time job trying to make homemade custom "awesomeness" for my family. So don't expect to see cake perfection here.! The main reason I make homemade custom cakes is because my son has food allergies. I don't have the luxury of running to the local bakery for a child's birthday cake, so homemade is what it has to be for most of our special occasions. I had to find a simple solution for birthday celebrations and that's when I stumbled upon frozen buttercream transfers. The are safe, yummy, fun and easy to do, and the designs are endless!

Here is a list of my favorite resources that helped me learn how to make Frozen Buttercream Transfers for homemade cakes.

A wonderful step-by-step tutorial (complete with wonderful pictures) on Cake Central.


Great video by Kerry's Kakes that shows the motions (no words, just awesome ).

A video by Wiltoncakedecorating that take you through the process from start to finish. I couldn't help but laugh every time she said "wax," but it is a great tutorial.

"How to decorate a cake - Easy Cake Decorating Ideas and Tips" from BettyCrockerTV. This is what helped me learn how to work with icing.

My cakes. Not perfect, but fun enough!

  

Sonic the Hedgehog cake
for my son's 5th birthday.

My first
Frozen Buttercream Transfer Experiement.

Oilers Cake for my hubby.

DIY Hello Kitty Key Cover

I was told that I needed to blog more, so here is a quickie :P

We bought a used Durango last December and the one and only key didn't have a ring/clasp and the buttons were missing. That's my luck. But the vehicle had AC and living in 100+ degree weather 8 months out of the year (exaggeration) I didn't much care about the condition of the key. 

My husband globbed some kind of industrial glue to the back of it and stuck a ring on it because he liked it I guess (see what I did there.) It lasted for a few months, then the glue started to crack and then the ring fell off. So here I am trying to keep up with a loose key along with my other keys! And I am the type of person that is always losing my keys. So it's a pain in the butt but I still kept putting off a fix. Until I nearly dropped the stupid thing down a storm drain the other day! So it was time to do something, so I made my own case in a very small amount of time while sitting next to my kiddo while he played on the Xbox.

So here it is. Dang that thing is a big piece o'crap.

And here are the materials I scrounged up:

First thing I did was made the tiniest, tiniest hole in the center of the felt square:

Now trim a little itty-bitty snippet off that corner to make your key slot.

I trimmed a little bit off felt off the sides and top of the flaps and stitched them together.

For Hello Kitty's Face, I cut out an oval from white scrap felt. Then I cut out a bow and then hot glued them to the case. If you can tell from the first picture, I also hot glued two strips of felt the the sides of the case for reinforcement and to cover up my crappy stitching job. Then I took a fine point sharpie and drew the face. and TA-DA! The felt may be a weak fabric to use, but it will hold me over for now. 

Stupid Easy: How To Make a Fun Flower Pen

These are so easy that it took me 5 minutes to make this one, pictures and all. It's taking me longer to write this blog! They are so inexpensive, really cute, and the creative possibilities are endless. These have seen in many offices, even my own. I also made a few for my Scentsy parties and they always get some kind of compliment because they are a lot of fun. They are a great for  baby showers, weddings, or any kind of social event. But I keep them around just for personal use. And they make great journal companions. :)

Here is all you need:

• A pen.
• Floral tape (they come in many colors but the most common you will find is green. This can be found at Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, Michaels, or any other craft store).
• An artificial flower of your choice (or two flowers, or feathers, or anything with a long slim stem. If it doesn't have a stem, then you might want to grab some floral wire as well).

First thing you want to do is take the cap off the pen (if it has one). Then align the stem along side the pen like so:  

You want your stem long enough to be able to stay put, a short stem is harder to work with. But if your stem is longer than your pen, trim it down with a wire cutter.

Now, Try to get the flower bit as close to the end of the pen as possible. Then start wrapping your floral tape snugly around the stem and the pen. If you pull the tape too tight, it will  easily rip. I like my starting wrap to go around at least 2 or 3 times. 

Once the tape is secured well, I like to cover the end of the pen and wrap as close to the flower part as much as possible. It holds the flower on better, too. 

See how the tape in the next photo is somewhat starting to go up the flower part? After that, go ahead and just start twisting the pen while guiding tape around the entire length of the pen.

Stop right about the place as shown below. You could probably take it further, but just make sure you wrap past the end of the stem a good ways:

Then start going back up the pen to about halfway. Again, this is just to secure it better. 

At about halfway, just rip the tape off from the roll and then smooth it out on the pen.

Now you have a fun flower pen!

Photos by Lainy @ Geek & things

Repurpose a toothbrush holder and decorate with some scrapbook stickers for a cute pen-holder. Happy toothbrush holder is happy!

 

Edmonton Oilers Birthday Cake Using Frozen Buttercream Transfer.

For my husband's last birthday (which was last September so I'm going off memory here), I wanted to surprise him with an Edmonton Oilers cake. For the most part, I thought it turned out decent enough and not a complete fail. But my husband thought it was the most awesome cake ever and it earned me the "You're the Best Wife in the World!" award. I think it was mostly because I presented him with "Oilers logo on chocolate" and the "Thought" of it, but he still insists it was the best cake ever. So for that, I call it a success!

However, there were a lot of mistakes made and I will point out some tips of what not to do. First of all, it isn't a good idea to rush a FBCT at anytime. I was burning the midnight oil on this one and was very tired so I was pushing myself. Second, it was my first time working with words within the transfer itself. There were several straight lines at the bottom of the text and I don't have the steadiest of hands (especially when I am tired). Plus I clumped too much icing into it. So all that made the design turn out to be very jagged

For my Oilers Fan :P

As you probably noticed, there are also a couple of spots in the "L" that didn't get filled. I will get to that later.

The How-to:
Might want to also check out the tutorial at Cake Central as a follow-along reference as well. They will cover more details that I may have missed.

To start off, here is the logo I used (larger image found here)


I saved the logo to my computer and then used Paint Shop Pro to create a mirror image. This is an important step! You have reverse the image or else your letters will turn out backwards on your cake. If it's just a picture, then it really doesn't matter unless it's a personal preference.

After that, I printed the logo on regular paper as a full page photo (make sure you deselect "Fit picture to frame." That way the image won't be cut off). Gray scale is fine; you don't really need the colors unless you need it for reference.

Then, I took my handy-dandy cutting board and taped the corners of my page with the logo onto the center of the board. After that, I laid a single layer of wax paper and taped that to the board as well. That way, none of my papers will be sliding about while I am tracing.

This is is what it looked like with the wax paper on top of the image I traced. I personally like to make sure the wax paper is larger than the image paper. You can see it in the picture.



I then outlined everything except the oil drop (sorry, no pics of that) in icing colored with Wilton's Navy blue. Then I outlined the oil drop with icing colored with Wilton's Orange.

Then I filled them in. This is what it looked like:


At this point I am pointing out how thick and jagged it looks because, like I said, I was rushing and not using the proper pressure with the icing. Plus, I found this design kind of difficult because there were a lot of straight lines that were fairly close to each other. That, combined with improper icing tip size, caused the lines to look very unclean and thick. I made my own icing bags using wax paper and I cut too much off the tip, creating a bigger hole than what I needed.

Remember the white areas in the "L" that didn't get completely filled? I decided to point that out to show that smoothing the back of your icing is an important step. If you don't, it will have holes just like mine did. So gently push and smooth the back of your icing with a small, clean spatula to help it settle in the empty areas (see pictures of this at Cake Central). Do this before you cover the back with your final layer of icing.

After smoothing your colored icings, cover the entire back with icing. This is what it looked like before I smoothed it out.


It is recommend covering the back of your FBCT with the same color of your iced cake. Even though I was making a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and considering the entire FBCT would cover the entire top of my round cake, I figured it wouldn't matter much (which it didn't for this particular case). Otherwise, I would recommend using the same color as well.

After smoothing out the back (la-la-la, Cake Central has pics of this step because I forgot to take), I stuck it in the freezer for overnight. Cutting board and all. Some say you can freeze it for a couple of hours and it will still work, but I love preparing it the night before to let it get nice and stiff.

Since the logo is round, I thought putting it on a round cake would be a great idea. Wouldn't you know, the FBCT fit perfectly. :) I wanted to add the icing trim, but I completely forgot about it until it was too late. But I served it on my glass cake stand and then presented it, as is, to one very happy and grateful hubby!

Transfer is still frozen in this picture. Those spots really irritate me. LOL! 

Birthday boy gets to cut the cake! Icing is somewhat thawed at this point.

Sonic the Hedgehog Birthday Cake using Frozen Buttercream Transfer (Beginner Level).

My son can be so unconventional, he always wants something that is not the latest craze. Totally cool if you ask me; I'm proud! But sometimes Mommy would like something easy, ya know? Go to Wal-Mart, order the latest Iron Man cake and swing by the party department for matching plates and DONE! But that is not the case so I had to put on my creativity hat. For his birthday this year, he wanted a Sonic the Hedgehog cake. So I discovered Frozen Buttercream Transfers and taught myself how to work with icing.

It was so much fun to make! It was very time consuming and I am glad I practiced on a smaller cake first. I went for something easy since I am still a cake noob. I just traced Sonic's face, not the whole body. I wrote Happy Birthday on the side and presented it for the one and only person it mattered to: my son. He loved it and was as giddy as... well as a 5 year-old on his birthday!

I wanted to use a lighter colored icing for the background, but the kiddo wanted chocolate everything. The FBCT, however, was made with store-bought vanilla Betty Crocker icing so the food coloring would be at it's best. The cake was a simple Cherrybrook Kitchen Chocolate Cake Mix - allergy free, of course! Peanut Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free, & Nut Free to be exact. Quick review of it: Everyone thought it tasted great! Found it at the local health food store, but I heard Albertson's carried it as well. I used two boxes to make a double layered cake, which it wasn't easy to do with this cake mix considering there isn't much to hold it together. But icing is a nice glue and cover up, so I practiced with it and it turned out nice!

At the party I got a lot of compliments from the parents, even an, "She didn't make that. She bought it." LOL,  yes, I did take that as a compliment! Everyone enjoyed it and I was very proud of learning something new (and thankful it turned out well). But mostly, I was happy the kids were really tickled with  it.

UPDATE (2-11-12)
I have added the pictures I snapped of my the order of my process:

The image with wax paper on top.

Black icing outline of Sonic's Head (I wish now I did the whole thing!)

Filled in the cream colored areas.

Filled in the green eyes.

Filled in the white areas of the eyes.

Sorry, I skipped some steps in the photos. But Then I filled in the rest of the areas with blue icing and then covered  the entire back with brown icing. Then gently smoothed out the back to make sure the icing settled in the empty areas. Then placed the FBCT in the freezer overnight. 

For more detailed instructions, please visit Cake Central's "How to Create a Frozen Buttercream Transfer", or check out my FBCT Resources page for links to tutorials and videos.

.hack//SIGN "Macha" Cosplay DIY Hat with Kitty Ears

I went ahead and posted a pic and brief summary of the kitty cat ears on cutoutandkeep.net (awesome site by the way) since that's where I found the easy tutorial on how to make them. The original version and tutorial is by "Cat Morley" on the same website. Hers are definately better, but I still got compliments on it.

The hat I made myself using brown felt and the McCalls costume pattern 3789 (Misses'/Men's/Teens/Children's/Boy's and Girl's Witches /Wizards Costumes).

It was my first time making a hat and it was fairly easy except for one step: matching the two pieces together! I piddled with it for days and got so frustrated, but I eventually threw my hands in the air and said, "Screw it!" and sewed it together. It ended up looking good, lol.

I cosplayed Macha at A-kon 21 in Dallas this past June. I still haven't posted pics of the kon yet and I'm sorry! Wedding planning and my getting my kiddo prepared to start school has made me into a busy Queen Bee. But A-kon was fun, as always, and I got to cosplay as "Macha" from .hack//SIGN and "Zoey" from Left for Dead (she was way fun!).

How to create an audiobook in iTunes.

I had Pride and Prejudice on my ipod and it was driving me crazy how it would play random chapters while my music was on shuffle. Also, the boyfriend added an audio CD on how to speak Japanese on my laptop so I could add that on my ipod, too. Although throwing in random Japanese lessons would be like a random pop quiz and may help me learn it better, it would still be annoying if I only wanted to listen to my music.

I knew there had to be a way to separate audiobooks from music, and I found it here. It's a great photo tutorial that guided me through it, and it was so simple! 

1. In iTunes, select and highlight all the audiobook files. 

2. Right click, the select "Get Info." (iTunes will ask you if you want to edit multiple files at once and just say yes.)

3. Click on the "Options" tab.

4. Check the "Media Kind" box, then from the drop down menu beside it, select "Audiobook."

5. On the same screen, check the "Remember Position" box, then select "Yes" from it's drop down menu also.

6. Then click on "OK" and there! You should have a section for "books" or "audiobooks" listed on your itunes Library menu!

The rest of the tutorial will show you how to add a graphic if you choose to do so. 

Hope it helps someone else, too!

DIY Sewing Machine Cover Using Scrap Fabric.

I've been working on a few projects these past few weekends but haven't had the chance to post any of it yet. So here's one of my first projects after I finished my Loli Bloomers: A Sewing Machine Cover.

I got tired of putting my sewing machine in the box everyday, or leaving it sitting out on my desk collecting dust in between weekend projects. And since A-kon is just around the corner, I wanted to keep my machine ready at a moment's notice so I can sit down and get to crackin' whenever I could.

I had some awesome remnant flannel fabric that was just sitting in my sewing trunk. It was too small for anything else, but I just loved the design. So I worked with it and viola! Here it is:

Here's a brief explanation on how I did it:
I couldn't make the remnant fit properly, it was really long but not wide enough to cover the whole thing. This is what it looked like:


But luckily I just learned how to make ruffles! So those could give me the extra length I needed to cover it completely in the front and back.
I measured how much would cover the sewing machine, then I trimed off the extra length and set it aside for ruffles. Next I postioned it on my sewing machine, centered it, then pinned along all 4 sides to make long darts for an almost snug fit. I didn't get any cool pics of all that, but if you know about darts, then I'm sure you get the gist. If not, then watch this vid that taught me how to sew darts last year. This is what my finished darts looked like:

Once the darts were finished, I took the remaining piece and cut it in half  lengthwise and made the ruffles. Then I sewed once ruffle on the front, and then one on the back (there was enough length on the sides to make sort of a 'lip,' so no ruffle was needed there). Then it was finished!