Sunday, October 30, 2011

Give-Away Winners!


Hello everybody!

Thanks to you all who have purchased your Flowers DVDs  on pre-order!

The duplicator is supposed to have them to me by November 5th, and we will ship them out as soon as we receive them.  All of the orders are boxed up and just waiting for the DVDs to be added and mailed. We thank you so very much for your patience; we know you are anxious to get them. And we are eager to get them to you!

By random draw, the three tote bag winners are:

Deb Werner

Dawn Beckley

Grace Hanson

Your tote bags will added to your pre-order shipments. Congratulations!!


And the winner by random draw from the sunflower tutorial post is:  
Rita Greer 
Rita please email us to claim your prize.


 Stay tuned as we will have another contest soon.

Thank you all for business!!

I hope you all enjoy  your Halloween festivities tonight. Then it is time for us to go right into Thanksgiving preparations! I have a few great blog posts coming up in the Turkey Day theme, so stay tuned!

Happy caking,
Sharon


Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Easy Halloween Cupcakes


Halloween is almost here!
Are you ready?  No? 
Well I am here to help!


This post is for all you procrastinators out there.  And I say  this with the utmost love and respect. For I am a champion, card carrying, flag waving procrastinator.  I even joined a support group, but it hasn't been much help:





I feel your pain. You had all these great delusions of grandeur of all the amazing treats you were going to make for Halloween. Maybe a haunted gingerbread house. Or a topsy turvy Tim Burton style. Or a batch of fabulously  custom decorated cookies. You had it all planned in your head. You laid awake at night with excitement thinking of the joy you were going to experience while creating  your  incredible Halloween confections.

And here we are, just a few days before Halloween and...... nothing..... nada...... crickets. Where did the time go?  What will we do? The kids are looking up at you with those sad longing eyes, asking what you will be making for their class or neighborhood party. Crikey! Why did we wait so long? Your heart starts to race; sweat forms on your brow; the room is going white. Pure unadulterated panic.

Raise  your hand if you are with me so far. I have been in this situation more times than I count.  


Well, have no fear. Queen Procrastinator is here to help you. 




Oops wrong queen. I will fix that. Later.


So let me share with you these super duper easy Halloween cupcakes that you can whip out in no time, but still impress even the most discerning goblins and ghouls.





Ghosts and skeletons and graveyards, oh my!



Let's start with the standing skeleton:


You will need white chocolate covered pretzels, sucker sticks, and marshmallows.





Draw a face on the flat side of a marshmallow that has been cut in half with an edible food marker. Three of the pretzels need to be glued to the sucker stick with some melted chocolate to make the rib cage.




And that was the tricky part. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get those finicky pretzels to line up correctly on the sucker stick without flopping over or getting out of alignment. I found the above method worked the best. I used gravity to hold the back edges of the pretzels onto the stick while the chocolate hardened.  Worked great and was very easy.




You use another pretzel cut as shown above to make the arms. You use the piece on the left, and eat the piece on the right. It's a win/win  for everybody.





After you pipe your icing swirl, just stick the sucker stuck in and lay the arm bones into the holes of the upper rib cage pretzel. Done. Fast. Easy. Cute. ( I must give credit to Woman's Day for  this idea. I saw it online and copied it.)




 Now to the spooky graveyards:



I found these adorable sugar skulls at Wal Mart In the Wilton isle.




They appear to me to be gumpaste, and they were a very nice shape with good details.




To kick them up a notch, bring out a couple of brown petal dusts and  give them a roughing up.




That took all of about 30 seconds, and they look awesome!




To make the tombstone, just cut a rectangular piece of fondant (with tylose added) and impress the RIP with your favorite alphabet cutters.   The cute cupcake wrappers were also made by Wilton.




Once the tombstones dry, hit them with a little luster dust. Pipe a swirl onto your cupcake, and slap a tombstone and skull on top. Done. How easy was that?




Crazy easy ghosts:


A Dum Dum lollipop.




 Drape a circle of white fondant over it.




Add two  eyes made from either fondant or your edible ink pen. Stick into cupcake icing. Woooooooo.




And you are done!




Group shot!




Cuteness overload.




Tread only if you dare!




He is a happy little fellow.




I don't know what came over me. I lost my head.



And you saved the day! You have created this wonderful spread of amazing cupcakes,  and it was fast and easy. You can take convenient pre-made products, do a little doctoring, and turn them into a custom made and impressive result:







HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!





Sharon
www.sugaredproductions.com




Friday, October 21, 2011

Two New Flower DVDs!


Sugarpaste in Bloom
Volumes 1 and 2





We have two brand new DVDS on the horizon for you!



Sugarpaste in Bloom  Volume 1  
Beautiful Blossoms

Learn all the basic techniques needed to make gorgeous sugar flowers, while applying those techniques to the 6 flowers taught in this DVD. Once you learn these techniques, you can apply them to making any kind of flower you desire.




Magnolia




Diva Flower





Small Pink Lily



Large Pink Lily


Large Stargazer


Small Stargazer


Tiger Lily



Small Yellow Lily


Casablanca Lily




Daisy and Sunflower




Sunflower



Daisy



Daisies



See a video preview here:





Sugarpaste in Bloom Volume 2 
Fantasy Flowers


Learn 11 fantasy flowers that will add a 
custom touch to all of your cakes.



Fantasy Rose







Bermuda Bling






Lacy Flower






Ribbon Rose Topper



Ribbon Roses and Pinch Flowers



7 Petal Pinch Flower


Carnation Pinch Flower


4 Petal Pinch Flower


Bow Tie Pinch Flower


3 Petal Pinch Flower


5 Point Star Pinch Flower


  Stenciled Flower

 



See a video clip here:






SPECIAL PURCHASE: 
Purchase both DVDs and get a $13 savings plus a
FREE BLOSSOM CUTTER used in the DVD.









 And a Give-away!

All orders placed by October 28, 2011 will be entered into a drawing for three of these great logo tote bags:







BOTH OFFERS EXPIRE  10/28/11

We thank you for your business!