Archive | February 2012

“Thank you for being awesome!” Giveaway

Feb17

THE GIVEAWAY IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED!

The winner is Kelly!

 

Thank you so much to everyone!  I appreciate you so much!

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I need to start by saying that you guys ROCK!

18 days ago, I changed my name.  I was once the baker formerly known as The Sugar Tree.  But thanks to you all and your wonderful support, I am now whole-heartedly “The Shaky Baker.”  In a little over 2 weeks, you guys have gotten my number back up to where it was when I was The Sugar Tree.  You guys are the best.

So to say “thank you” for your overwhelming support, I’m doing a giveaway.  And since I’ve had 2 weeks to shop for things, it is a cuteness overload, I tell ya.  If you don’t like cute, this ain’t the giveaway for you.

And I went with a cupcake theme.  Not to make them.  But to decorate with them.  Stare at them longingly.  I mean, who doesn’t like to look at cupcakes?

This giveaway will include all of the following:

  • 8-inch cupcake mini cake stand
  • 4-inch “Have a Cupcake” pink cupcake stand
  • Ceramic cupcake measuring spoons
  • “Live, Love, Laugh” mini ceramic vases
  • 9oz bottle Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla (just because it’s yummy)
  • Pink cotton ruffle half apron
  • Cupcake spoon
  • Cupcake with sprinkles spatula
  • Writing set with mini notebook, magnetic list pad and chunky pen
  • 1 1/2 inch and 1/2 inch cupcake ribbon
  • 2 packages of cupcake bags
  • Cupcake notebook
  • Cupcake ziploc baggies
  • Cupcake stamp kit (works great to use with food coloring instead of ink)

It has sprinkles on the back!

Just looking at all this cuteness brings me great joy.

So, who would like me to send them all of this sugary-inspired goodness?

TO ENTER:

1) Make sure you “like” my Facebook page (if you don’t already)

2) Share this giveaway on your Facebook page, twitter, blog, scream it from your roof…any of those will be great! (probably the first ones more than that last one, though)

3) There is a small restaurant in my area that has been very supportive of me and my baking.  I would like to help them out as they try to grow online.  Please go “like” their Facebook page – The Mt. Pleasant Grille

4) Once you have done those 3 things, come comment ON THIS POST telling me about the best cupcake you’ve ever eaten.  It can be one you’ve made.  Don’t be modest.

That’s it!

One entry per person. US residents only.  (I promise I’ll do an international one soon!)  I’ll keep it open until Monday, February 20th at 5pm CST.  I’ll randomly pick a winner and announce it Monday night.  Tuesday is my birthday, so it will be a great birthday present to be able to send all this fun stuff to someone!

Good luck, and THANK YOU again for all your support.

Hope you have a SWEET 3-day weekend!

It’s all about the children.

Feb9

I love children.  I have three of them.  I work at the nursery at church on Sunday.  I have taught Sunday school for 5th grade.  I am co-room mom for both of my girls’ classes at school.  I just love kids.

That being said, this week’s project has given me a whole new perspective on them.  I could have 30 of these kids!

And by “have” I mean enjoy them with coffee.  And I don’t mean let them sit and have coffee with me.  I mean have them WITH my coffee.  Literally. (and this picture quickly comes to mind….)

See how happy he looks?  I love making children happy.

This week, I was asked to make cookies for a silent auction fundraiser for my kids’ school.  The item for the 1st grade (my youngest’s age) is a cookie jar with their thumb prints and names on it.  How fun, right?  And a cookie jar needs cookies, so that’s where I come in.

We came up with the idea to do a cookie representation for each kid in the 1st grade.  So I went by their school pictures and made a cookie look like each of them.  It was a blast putting their little personalities on a cookie!

If only all class pictures were this easy to take.

Look at how well behaved they are!

This is one of my daughter’s BFF’s.  Love her little curls!

Say “CHEESE!”

My daughter is the one with the blue hair bow, in the second-to-the-last row.  I put her towards the back because she is the second shortest in the entire grade, so she is always in the front row.  This is the only way that she gets to stand in the back.  (Yep, my Mother of the Year application has already been filed.)

As is expected with children, this was not the quickest project I’ve ever done.  Lots of colors (12, to be exact) and lots of small details.  (Not everyone parts their hair on the same side, ya know). But I think it was one of my all-time favorite cookie experiences.

My daughter is a little disappointed that she isn’t going to get to eat “her” cookie.  She asked if I would please win the auction so that she could.  “Yes, sweetheart.  I’ll pay lots of money to buy the cookies that I made for free so that you can eat one of them.”

As if.

If you ever need a fun idea for a school cookie project, I highly recommend this one.  Everyone is getting a kick out of seeing their kid as a cookie and trying to figure out who everyone is.  And it will give the teachers an opportunity to see what their class actually looks like quietly standing still.

And that, my friends, is a gift.

Hope the rest of your week is sweet!

The deed is done.

Feb6

I have officially closed “The Sugar Tree” page.

Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement of my name change.  I really appreciate it.

And I’ve been shopping for the giveaway!  I have found some very SWEET things!  Look forward to sending these goodies to someone very soon!  Only 175 more to go!

Hope you have a sweet week!

Hooray! It’s a Girl!

Feb2

NO! It’s not me!

Bite your tongue, man.

Don’t get me wrong.  I LOVE my children.  More than I love chocolate or bacon.  (Well, most days anyways).  But the thought of having ANOTHER one…..whew.

But I have wanted to make sugary goodness in pink for quite some time, and it’s just never happened.  Always boys.  And while boys are fun, they are very non-pink, non-flowery and non-sparkly.  And well, I wanted to create those things.  But it has always eluded me.  Until last week.  Hooray for first-time moms and big baby showers!

**DISCLAIMER: Once again, I was decorating right up until the last minute, so I didn’t have time to take pretty pictures.  Well, not that my photographic skills are good, but….you know what I mean.  Thanks for understanding.

They wanted cupcakes for 65 people.  No problem.  And they wanted pink.  VERY pink.  Delicate. And VERY girlie.  Oh, how I’ve longed to hear those words.

(Forgive the background.  One of these days I will get to do a party where *I* am in charge of the decorations.  Presentation, people!)

Since there were quite a few cupcakes, I decided to mix them up a little so they weren’t all the same.  I used the cupcake tower for the flowers. (I use this tower and love it)  And of course, I had to have the pink feet.  Love those.  Great tower topper.  The sparkles didn’t show up very well in the pictures, but if you look closely, you can see the fine sanding sugar.  Just added a nice subtle sparkle.  (Too subtle for pictures, apparently).

Since it is so close to Valentine’s Day, I found these pink heart suckers.  I just piped “It’s a Girl” on them for a different look.  I also did four toppers that spell out GIRL.  I didn’t get a great picture of those, but you can see them peeking in this one.

I also made the cupcakes like rattles.  I used a #1 icing tip to poke the hole in the liner for the stick.  The cone shape of the tip worked really well to help make a large enough hole without messing up the liner.  The worst part was tying (who decided how to spell that word?) those little bows.  I am a baker.  I can ice bows all day long.  But tie a tiny one from ribbon?  Faggetaboutit.

I also made some that had minimal icing and a single flower in the middle, for those who weren’t big icing fans.  But, I forgot to take a picture of those.  I’m drawn to swirls and sparkles.  What can I say.

I had great fun making these.  Granted, they wanted white cake with vanilla buttercream, but I guess you can’t have it all.  Now I can mark these off my Baking Bucket List.

Now I can move on to Dr. Seuss.  Oh yes.  I’m going there.

Happy Sparkling Pink Flowery Baking!