CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY!

It's time for me to rest and concentrate on my turkey!
We thank you for your patronage, your wonderful comments, and encouraging words throughout the year.  Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

(we are fully booked until the end of January 2012)

Merry Christmas from all the Sugar Penguins!

Angry Birds Redux

There's something about these birds that you just can't say goodbye to.  The more you play the game, the more you get addicted to it.  I managed to wean myself off completely, finally, but they pull me back in as I have to revisit them as I got to do yet another Angry Birds cake.  When do you have the time, you asked, as my days are always filled with things to do (and clean)?  I worked on these little guys at night, after the boys are all asleep, where there's peace and quiet in the world... :)

My grown-up-so-fast Robert was so sad as he had to say goodbye to the Angry Birds cake, as the customer picked it up.  He shed a little tear and said, "No, Mommy, don't..."  It broke my heart a little, but hey, his birthday is coming up in January, so he is bound to get an Angry Birds cake!

Here's another version of my Angry Birds cake:

Sugar Penguin Cakery's Day of Fun

Last Saturday, I was privileged to be able to teach 3 fabulous and talented girls for the very FIRST Sugar Penguin's workshop.  We had a fun afternoon making little of "presents" with bows, Christmas trees, and of course the figurine that started it all, the penguins!  We covered the basics of covering cake, going over essential tools of cake decorating, learning the basics of cake decorating, and figure modelling.  All the students came home with their own versions of the model

Here is what they said about the workshop:
"Thank you so much Ivone for such a wonderful time. Learned lots of new/neat tips and I can't wait to attend your second class!"


And here are the pictures from the workshop:

 If you are interested in the workshop, please contact me at ivone@sugarpenguin.com
We are currently working on a new material for the upcoming workshop on Nov.19th.

my first little sugar people!

I have problems when it comes to making little sugar people. Not only they are hard to make, I don't know how to make them to have "characters." I don't want them to end up creepy looking or just plain weird.  For the longest time I tried to avoid in making little sugar people (and Hello Kitty for that reason). But a couple weeks ago, I answered a challenge from the biggest ambassador and supporter of Sugar Penguin Cakery, my good friend, WP.  He wanted to make a cake for his special person in his life and he wanted to have a classroom scene as she is going to teach in kindergarten later. Immediately I was thinking of A as the teacher, reading a book during circle time to her students.  WP wanted me to include A's gray bunny in the classroom too, so I added the little gray bunny to the classroom scene.  Oh did I mention that WP had to take the cake on a flight, all the way to Ottawa?  I had to secure and "glued" everything!  The only snag was that the "chalkboard" was a little too tall for the cake box which posed an issue of WP to carry it all the way to Ottawa.  My husband, came up with genius idea of making an opening on top of the chalkboard and added a covered "dome" using one of the hot wheels' packaging... and voila!  All is good!
The design that I had in my head was the classroom scene, during circle time, then added a little desk for A, with of course, a red apple, a chalkboard, books, and crayons.  My oldest son was the one who got so excited with the tiny crayons.  I still didn't know what to do at that point for the all around design until I dropped my son off at his preschool.  I saw lots of art works did by the students and posted on the board.  It gave me an inspirations of making tiny arts to wrap around the cake.  Then I wrote WP's name and A's name as part of the students' art works!  I hope they could see that part.
My work was paid off until A left a wonderful message the next day on my cake page and there's this candid picture of A had a BIG smile on her face as she saw the cake for the first time.  Priceless.
Finally, WP, I know you don't really read blogs since you have tight day to day schedule, just wanted to let you know that you are appreciated and I am grateful.  You always encourage and provide me with challenges that allowed to push myself to be a better cake artist.  Thank you, my dear friend!

more details of the cake:

 

my baby's FIRST birthday!

I can't believe that my little JP is turning one!  One year ago, he gave us quite a surprise by showing up early, about 5 weeks before his actual due date.  He had to stay in the NICU for about 16 days until he was strong and able to feed without assistance of the gavage tube.  I still remember how small he was when he was born, how I was a wreck when I had to say goodbye to him after I was being discharge from the hospital, that we couldn't take him home yet.  But now he is grown to be a healthy and smart boy who brighten our days with his smiles, his quirks, and babbles.

I'm dreaming of a themed birthday party, how everything was custom-made and beautiful.  But my lack of imagination and being on EI, only allow me to do so much.  After hours and hours of poring through internet, I found inspirations!  The theme that I came up with, I have to admit, this is not my original idea, I blatantly copied it from these talented ladies at Dulce Sobremesa and Style Me Gorgeous.  I don't know how to do graphic design, so I turned to my little "haven" that I like to visit almost on, at least, weekly basis, called Michaels.

I LOVE the simplicity of this blue elephant with the red balloon.  I turned to my trustee inspiration, Martha Stewart.  I purchased some felt stickers with elephant in it (I love you, Martha Stewart!), a couple punches, one is the elephant punch, and a balloon punch!  With a little imagination and a few countless hours after the boys were all asleep, e voila, all done!

It was such a blessed day too, after a whole week of rain and gloomy gray days, we finally had some sunshine today.  We enjoyed the good food, the great weather, and of course, the company of our close friends.  Thank you so much everyone for coming and the wonderful gifts for our little James.....

Helloooooo Kitty!

Oh Hello Kitty, you are so hard to make!  I took a challenge to make Hello Kitty figurines and hoped for the best.  One wrong placement of the eyes or nose, it's no longer Hello Kitty, it's more like "Hello Katty" (quoted from Bonnae).  First night of making Hello Kitty, I almost die with frustrations.  I took a full day break and strategized of how I am going to tackle this character.  I rarely took a commission doing existing characters since they are the hardest to make and if you don't do it right, it's horrible.  I did tackle that achilles heels of mine and I am pretty darn happy with the result.  You don't look so bad, Miss Hello Kitty!  Then I got another call from the hubby (who ordered the cake for her lovely wife, aka my buddy, FC) and requested another small cake with another small cake for a surprise cake.  Oh.  Help.  Me.  Lord.  I couldn't say no to him as they are super nice friends of ours who always so generous and kind.  

And so I did it.....  Here are the two cakes:

The above cake is a 4" personal cake.  The cake is a double chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.  

This is the second cake for the surprise celebration:

Happy Birthday to my dear friend, FC!

                                                    

Black and White

I love the most basic colors in the world, black and white.  Nothing more versatile than black.  You can pair black with ANYTHING.  I don't know how many black items that I have in my wardrobe.  

This month, it's been black and white themed month, well so far.  It's quite striking when they are paired together, beautiful bold contrast.  I've been very privileged to be a part of one of my maternity doctor's wedding.  She picked the elegant, black and white color as her theme color.  It's such a beautiful venue that she picked as her intimate celebration, overlooking a lake.  

It was such a gorgeous day too, perfect for wedding.  

The following week, I made a black and white cake for my husband's close friend's wife's birthday.  The husband requested for an elegant and chic cake.  Very appropriate for his wife, who is very elegant and chic.  I did a lot of handcut fondant, using my x-acto knife.  It was challenging at first, but the looks are lovely.  I wished I took a better pictures of these cakes, though.  

  

Oh, I just can't get enough with Black and White theme cake... I made this one back in March: