ICCA Annual Wedding Cake Competition 2011/Ebony

Before I say anything more may I laugh my head off at that "Hot Dogs" sign in the back ground? Hahahhaha!

Wonderful, have I kept you waiting for long? Well I hope I did cause the longer you wait the more you want to read it or maybe.. You would have totally forgotten about it...

Didn't exactly feel like posting much because there were so many pictures to upload and the size or something of the pictures I take with my "new" camera is apparently HUGE so it takes YEARS (As in one picture takes 10 minutes, so by the time everything finishes loading someone would be bugging to use the laptop or I placed the pictures in the wrong order again... Or.. Something like that! Innocent-please-don't-kill-me grin*)

So ANYWAYS, without further adoo (Hmm... Is "Adoo" even a word? I think it's "a due" after all.. Funny how I hear that all the time in "Speeches" and I don't know what's the word they are using..) and if you haven't met/seen her already, Ebony.

If you were wondering how I got her name well.. It was a pretty hard, brian brain cracking task but somehow or brother rather this line from Snow white popped out in my head "Her face as white as snow and her hair as black as Ebony", or... Something like that, can't exactly remember but YAY, I got another one of those things-that-are-black names, I use so many of those names (I think I should make an "Anti black piping or fondant" cake soon or my heads gonna explode..) for my cakes that I can't think of anymore! 

I don't know, there isn't much to write about this year on the competition (I knooow, I didn't write about the competition at ALL last year but trust me I was SO happy I was in tears but this year I was SO UNhappy I was in tears, sometimes I wonder why I cry all the time, yeesh, I'm utterly disappointed in myself.) and I don't exactly feel (As in I REALLY want to but well.. That person would probably not stumble across my blog or anything but err... I am horrible at making up excuses, aren't I?) like bashing people because, ONE it wouldn't make any difference since the whole event is already over, all I can do is just praaaaay that IT won't happen again next year or.. Or.. There WILL be WAR, and I don't want a few "certain people" to think I'm a "monster"... Of some sort. 

ANYWAYS (I can complain ALL day but I have.to.control.control.restrict.control.my.temper. Don't lose my temper so-sso quickly, bobeepbobeepbobeepbobeepbobeep AH! Bobeep- Oops, got carried away...) let me tell you the FULL (Did a pretty brief one when I posted her on my FaceBook wall.) story behind Lady Ebony.. From top to toe! That.. Strangely sounds like those "Top to toe" body wash stuff.. Hah, stinky random things that pop into my mind..

1.

The main "Rosey ruby" bouquet, have been doing pink roses too much, needed a change (And I wanted the flowers to "POP" from the monochrome-ish cake and pink doesn't really "POP" all that much!) so the roses went RED and boy, I am officially sick of red roses and the HUMONGOUS pile of petal dust that is needed for a SINGLE rose, it's seriously CRAZY! 

I had never made an actual bouquet before, you know.. Those that have OTHER things besides the flower and their "Proper" leaf so I relied on Alan Dunn a lot for well... Inspiration on how to put the whole bouquet together?

The bouquet is made out of life size red roses, I-forgot-the-name berries (This was pretty much everyone that saw my bouquet's favorite touch, I think it's mine too! But I somehow like the poppy seed heads just as much since I made them by myself AKA without Alan's books! Try spotting them!), ornamental grass, simple rose leafs or any random green leaf, poppy seed heads, random long leaf/grass thingy AKA my "Trafulla tree" (Oh dear.. I haven't watered it in AGES! Is it still alive?! Press panic button*), I-forgot-the-name seed pods. 

I REALLY dislike my flower arranging, should have done more research.. Frowny face*   

2.

Apologizes for "Monochroming" it, it just looks SO beautiful like this! Well... To me, apparently not everyone enjoys monochrome stuff like I do.

I absolutely LOVE this tier, actually all my "lace" tiers, apparently it's my "strong point" and I find it very unique because well, I invented it? 

I started doing this when I realized how beautiful those damask stencils looked and.. How expensive they were, I couldn't afford to buy them so I decided to kinda.. Pipe them?

But as USUAL, I am a horrible copycat so somehow or rather, I discovered this "lace" technique and I am pretty pleased with this first attempt (That took like 1 lazy week to complete!) and look forward to seeing some lace on my next few cakes!

Oh yes, forgot to mention that I used the so called "Eye lid technique", you know.. Poke random holes in fondant while it is still dry and pipe around it, the holes were the centers of my fantasy lacy flowers and meet my old friend, "Fish net extension work"! 

I know, it's pretty short! Had to do it on the spot, had NO idea I could travel with it but apparently Alan says it's possible (Pipe, dry, travel with it upside down.. How risky is THAT?! Oh well, there's always the "Pipe on the spot" option if it doesn't work out!)! Well, there's always next time!

OHOH, another thing! I wonder if anyone noticed the random "collar" of piped flowers on top of the lace work, I was too lazy to pipe a "proper" collar and some how the royal icing run out I was working with would somehow soften (Ahem, short story: I wanted to do a RI lace fan at the base of the cake board, gave up after making the fan for the 2 1/2 time, it was SUPER time consuming and it always, sob, melted. Sigh, the cake would have look beautiful with it.. I guess Ebony REALLY didn't like fans, sheesh, what a fussy lady.) overnight, even with a dehumidifier...

Oh yes also take note that all of the piping for this cake was done FREEHAND.. Simply because I'm too lazy to stencil stuff out and go over it AGAIN with the icing, such a timesa wasting thing to do! 

Well, I'm glad I'm gifted with being able to just "Eye ball" things.. 

3.

(I just realized you could see a couple of "fishnet drop strings" that didn't make it!)

Second try at "lacing things up", my ABSOLUTE favoritest tier/cake board (But leaning to the cake board side, wait. I think this whole thing is "One piece" so, never mind!), EVER.

The "cake" (Everything is styrofoam.) was made up of freehand over piped fantasy flowers and leafs but somehow my favorite part of that "tier" is the lace boarder on top of all the flowers.

The lace boarder was pretty much inspired by Raven Madison, a fictional character from one of my favorite books, Vampire Kisses with fictional clothes, so I'd just have to imagine how her lovely lacy gothic (I simply LOVE gothic stuff, mainly because well... It's different and all that LACE! I would like to own a wardrobe full of gothic dresses and the other one full of my usual... Colorful clothes..) dresses look like and that's how I see the lace trimming on her dresses...

It was a pretty last minute decision to have that random "Drop strings", I just like the fact that it is "Dripping' with black lace..

Now, the cake board, I still can't believe the cake board (Oh right, speaking about the cake board I think/HOPE you have realized that is was completely FLAT, I decided to well.. Not have a usual FLAT cake board so I cut a random sized round styrofoam into half and filled the rest with royal icing.. And BOY it was HEAVY! I made like.. 3 1/2 batches of the Wilton RI to fill it up THEN put a sheet of fondant over it since I am HORRIBLE at icing cakes with RI and butter cream.. Yes, I still haven't mastered it, how embarrassing is THAT?!) is my favorite part of the ENTIRE cake!   

I was just doing some "table cloth" envisioning and decided that it would be a "Wiggly and squiggly" out line since... I can't really pipe a perfect circle free hand and all round a 20" board!

And a "Boarder" outside the outline just to make stuff more interesting, I can't (Know your weaknesses, you REAAAALLY do NOT want to mess up if you are piping black on white... Be adventurous only when you KNOW you can ERASE!) pipe perfect "Drop strings" on FLAT surfaces and put another boarder on that boarder to complete the look and another boarder "Outside" the "Table cloth". 

Anyone still following?      

I would like to say it's henna inspired but it really.. Isn't anymore, but that was what started it but somehow I guess it isn't all THAT Indianish, It has been Karen Cuppy Cakeyfied! 

Oh yes, the circles holding the "Table cloth" together, I'd like to say it's inspired by that "Chantilly lace" but it really, ACTUALLY, isn't..?

You know how I've been into Korean pop this days, well, their clothes, are simply eye catching and I noticed  this black net shirt in "oneee" of the music videos I was watching one fine day on replay/repeat and only THEN did I realized how nice it would be to use THOSE "circles" instead of those "lines" that I used for the baby blue lace tier!

Only later that day when I was surfing CakeCentral I saw a post on "Chantilly lace".. Strange, eh?

Well, what else can I say? I SUPER lurrrrve this cake board!! 

4.

Jeez, I just realized I didn't have a "Solo" picture of my..-  

Oh wait, I DO!

Oh well, you would have to endure the super blurness since it wasn't taking with my "Super duper" camera! 

I think this tier was indeed, SUPER fun! I love playing with colors and since I had that SK-sent-me-suitcase full of food coloring.. This is what I came up with, it was inspired by one of my "Colorfulish" ink pen drawings and a stained glass cake I saw on CakeCentral and as usual, it didn't turn out looking like it at ALL! Another cake, Karen Cuppy Cakeyfied!

It was all just random piping, joining them together and when you are too lazy to do the "blobs" just pipe some "Spider webs"!  

5.

Okay, lets start with the "Fantasy hydrangeas". I used the "tooth pick" method to make them paper thin, almost transparent, the same method I used for my very first flowers, they were "so-called" daisies and they happen to be my Dad's favorite flowers.

He wanted me to make those flowers for the previous wedcakecomp (Read about it here: ICCA Annual Wedding Cake Competition 2010) but I refused because I thought they were well... Primitive? And he was pretty upset so this year, TADAH, you get a whole tier to yourself Papa! Wide grin* 

Oh yes, I used a simple Wilton (I think..) blossom plunger for them, made them into "Hydrangeas" by cutting out a petal then "Veining and squashing" them with a toothpick!

I really love that little "Cascading" (?) effect down the cake and in white and grey, beautiful!

Okay, moving on to the very..- Oh wait, There is another tier (The grey and black mosaic tier/s with hand painted Patchwork cutter gum paste butterflies around it, placed in "Hidden Mickey" shape! I wonder if any one spotted that "Hidden Mickey"...) , can't believe I REALLY forgot to take any photos of that tier (It's the tier just above the black lacey one, with the rose in the center, it has some foliage but it isn't all that visible in the photo.).. Anyways, that particular tier was inspired by the base of THIS cake (I think they called it the wedding of the century or something so, let me rephrase that.. THIS Wedding of the century cake, the only thing that REALLY caught my eye was the base, no offense! I had never seen the tiers being placed like that, ever. So as usual, I love unique stuff!): 

I think you are probably wondering why the tier below it AKA the Black lace tier isn't a "Hidden Mickey" as well it simply because.. It it... Grew.. Fungus... ARRRGGGHHHH (Read about it here, you may have to scroll down a little though..:Bothers )! And how could I have known that all the cakey shops I went to did have anymore (No, not a single one..) 6" round styrofoam dummies?! Yeah, I kinda dumped the whole thing, I don't.. Think very well when I get angry...

Whew, I guess I'm done doing the entire list on "Inspiration" for Ebony?

Erh, where should I start? 

I think the night before would be good.. What a SUPER crazy day, I mean night it was! Actually the past few days were as well, no time to eat or.. Drink because time would fly by so fast and before I knew it, it was night fall already and I was "Hey! I only had a slice of bread and butter and a cup of water for breakfast! No wonder I'm starving..". I'm pretty glad that'd over, funny how when you're working you can't feel how hungry you are, only when you stop... You can practically feel your stomach juices eating into you but there's still SO much to do! Funny how those few days relate SO much to this quote (Or whatever you call those stuff..) I saw somewhere. "I am most productive at the last minute"

Well, I REALLY didn't enjoy the last few days. It was basically "Wake up, work, work some more, and more then sleep"..

The night before the competition, at 12AM I still had SO much (As in calyxes to wire and put on the roses, oriental grasses and some other foliage to dust, ALL the foliage to glaze and some other stuff to touch up and stuff..) to do and I was practically doing them with my eyes closed because well... They wanted to rest?

Not long after my "Taxi drivers" (My family, I was working in my Uncle's apartment.. By myself... I am not exactly someone who enjoys being alone, am too used to having Stinky fly, Honey bear and Fluffy head around I suppose.. And at the same time I can't STAND having them around!) came to pick me up and I STILL wasn't done yet.. I suddenly burst out in tears, I am really not sure why... May it was because I missed them or maybe because I had enough of playing with that -bbblleeeppps- gum paste or maybe I was tired.. And hungry, even though there was a load of food in the fridge but it would waste 10 minutes of my PRECIOUS time eating, I vote all of the above!  

Mommy forced some food down my throat and Papa helped (No, he didn't help with anything else, I swearies.) me do some dusting and glazing while I made the calyxes, sob..

Soon Mommy left with the boys since they were tired and I stayed on with Papa till 2AM and.. We had to get up at.. 6AM, niceee.  

The next morning, I mean that same morning when I got up, I had that "Did I even SLEEP?!" feeling as I went up to get dressed and go on a panicy search for some sort of a cloth as a "prop", apparently it adds extra points, I find it stupid. So some one who had HUMONGOUS, beautiful props and a lousy cake would win as well? Ehh....?

I was pretty relieved (As in JUMPINGOVERTHEMOOOOOONWITHJOYYY type of relieved!!) when I went digging in my Aunt's closet and found a nice goldish, shinee shiny curtain!

A very sleep and kinda grumpy Papa drove us over to the apartment to pick up the cakes and OFF we went!

  One of the worst feelings in the world (I think) is probably driving with a cake, a cake you have worked on for an entire month.. I felt VERY sick during the journey to Sunway Giza, as in that vomitish feeling, the exact same feeling I had last year even though I kept asking myself "Whats there to be nervous about??!", one of those feelings when singing "Genie" doesn't help..

After some very sloooow and smooth driving, I practically had a heart attack when Papa went over a bump he didn't realized was there and all the cakes went "JUUUUUUMP"!

I think I death glared Papa to death.. Papa said he was glad I didn't have a craft knife near me or he would have been murdered. 

The first thing I did once the car was pared was to check on the oriental string work tier, WHEW! It was fine, only the of ALL parts the front part was crushed.. Niceeeee.

Carrying the boxes up was... Torturous because I felt like I was going to vomit on them or maybe trip on the steps because my legs felt like jelly...

It was pretty surprising being the first one to arrive, I was the 23rd last year, Ah.. I remember the number of my cake so clearly.

After placing all the boxes at the table, there was certainly NO time to unpack, ran to the toilet (Am glad I know Giza like the back of my palm, even though I don't look at my palm too much but err... Weird person who invented that saying..) and -CENSORED-! (I have a feeling that shouldn't have been written in my blog but err.. I don't have a diary anyways!)

I felt much better after that though (Better as in able to sing and dance Genie with a hop and a skip!), thankfully. 

Later it was all smearing RI everywhere, stacking Ebony up, fluffing the curtain, randomly placing gum paste rose petals on the curtain, florist taping the calyxes to the roses (Didn't have time to last night, too.. tired..), florist taping the berries, seed pod that wasn't the poppies (Who knew Poppy seed heads was the ingredient to make heroin?! I have drugs on my bouquet, hahaha!), arranging the sprays and piping the fish net!

Even though I was the first to arrive I was the last or third last to leave the "rink", it was pretty scary when the staff went "Five minutes mooorreee" and I wasn't even complete piping the fish net all round, my hands got SO shaky that my piping tip poked the already-piped-fishnet and a HUGE piece from of ALL places the FRONT (I know right... I swear the front part of the cake is jinxed.) dropped.

Another going-to-cry (I wish I was those "Kick the wall and then feel better" people..) part, I am not someone who works best under pressure even though I overheard that I piped pretty fast but I don't exactly consider myself a fast piper...    

Above: Rosalind judging my cake

After I was done (I guess you could call it that.. But I would have liked to get at least like.. 10? "Layers" of fishnet..) Nina (She was my "Best friend" or like Papa puts it, "Best fan". I used to arrive super early at ICCA Hartamas when I was taking my Wilton courses, Nina and I would chitchat for ages, she would usually bring some cupcakes and I would help her ice them.. Yeah, I miss those days.) whisked me off for "Coffee", also known as breakfast since she said I was feeling too jumpy!

Went for some pastry, I had my favorite mushroom and chicken pie, YUM.

It indeed made me feel less jumpy, met another contestant there, chitchatted some more... 

And when we went back to the "rink" the judges (Rosalind Chan, Lorraine Mckay, ALAN DUNN, Amy Beh and... I don't like that guy.) were already judging!

NOOOO! I wanted to see Rosalind judge my cake, at least Papa took photos...     

Above:

Lorraine (It was strange, I didn't expect her to look SO petite.. I had a tough time spotting her!) judging my cake.

Below:

Alan judging my cake!!

I absolutely loved how both the "International" judges took time to judge the cakes, Alan actually went around with a chair and his favorite beverage (I soon learnt it was since you can NEVER find him without it by his side!), COKE.

Alan (The rest started at cake #1 AKA mine, of ALL people HE had to start at the other end..) started at the far end from my cake and I had to wait, wait, wait some more, have lunch, wait some more, wait and FINALLY he judged my cake but in quite a hurry because he was already late for the "Opening ceremony".. Sigh.

Alright, my fingers and eyes feel tired so I'm going to say this,

Ebony got "Highly commendable" (On the last day I was pretty glad I was there first since I would hear their comments first! Can't exactly remember everything, only the "important ones".. First of all the one that has been ringing in my head until today is that my calyx was placed upside down! When Alan pointed it out I burst out laughing like there was no tomorrow! I must have been super sleepy when I was wiring them, bwahahaha! Rosalind says the colors apparently are pretty dull and wouldn't want to have it as a wedding cake, then she asked me if I would. In my head I was going "DUH" but I tried not to show it outside, who wouldn't want a GOTH wedding?! -Crickets chirping- I guess I'm the only oneeee! Alan said I should take flower arranging classes, I kinda figured that out.. Rosalind said it would be better if there weren't the "blobs" behind the oriental string work. Everyone LOVED the lace! Alan said he would like to see a cake with JUST lace and he loved my flowers! Cries happily* Yeah, that's all I remember.) and here are my favorite cakes: 

Loties of lurvies,

-Karen Cuppy Cake

Chan Tee Lee

Omsk (I don't know what it means but it seems like a pretty interesting word, that I made up one fine day and I think it means "Hi", I think I should use "Omsk" instead of "Hi" to greet people from now one, it would make life a whole lot more interesting, eh?) A thousand apologies for not blogging for a dozen days, hopefully the picture above would make up for my absence, it's a peek of what I'm up to (Not 100% done with it yet, maybe around 80%-ish.), it's one of my favorite tires so far for this particular wedding cake.

Love the edelweiss (I feel like being fancy/showoff-y with color names since I learnt SO many fancy names of colors ever since I got that suit case full of Squire kitchen food colors! Had to open 90% to know what color it was since almost all of them appear black/brown-ish!) royal icing against the.. The... Whazza blue color called again? Runs to cakery and back, puff, pant, puff, pant* Ahh! It's Gentian, I knew it sounded something like gelatin but I just couldn't recall it! A tiny tinge of gentian to be exact!

I have always liked blue fondant as a background but not the "primary color" blue, that blue is an eyesore, yuck.

 Above:
(After browsing through my cake inspiration file for a billion hours, trust me you won't want to open that folder, a mountain of SUPERB cakes will fall on you and you would probably drown from all that fondant...)This was the blue cake that started it all (Now that I look at it again... It doesn't impress me as much as it did when I first saved it, I think that was about a year ago, oh wells.), I LOVE the flawless (Used to think fondant/gum paste drapes were SUPER hard, that's until I tried it, drapes are WONDERFUL mistake cover-uppers! Note* Look at my wedding cake competition's cake topper and try guessing what's under those drapes, I... dare... you.) gold drapes against the I-am-not-sure-what-the-exact-color-is-called blue fondant, it makes the cake look classy, elegant and EXPENSIVE, my kinda cake (Speaking about my cake, I just scrolled up to look at it. My photography is horrible, compared to beautiful goldyblue cake here, sob.).   


Below:
Ahh... Isn't this simple GRAND? I have a weakness for tall (And big, my clumsiness doesn't let me handle big cake very much, let alone tall. Speaking about clumsiness, today would be the third time I stabbed myself accidentally with a corsage pin for this cake competition entry not my entire caking life but just THIS entry, I wonder how many times I have stabbed myself with it in this 2 3/4 years? Gosh... I can't believe I have been caking for such a long time. Anyways the first and third time was when I was "poking" away the dried RI from the tip, I kinda jabbed my finger instead of the tip, oh which reminds me... I am horrible with needles, did you know how many holes I poked in my fingers when I sewed that cupcake tshirt?! And the second time I am not exactly sure how that happened but I usually always have about 2-5 corsage pins lying around my caking table, I use one and it disappears so I have to take another out and another and another, I think you get the point. So I was doing some piping I think for that gelatin blue cake of mine and I kinda wanted to rest my elbow on the table and I wanted to put it down quite quickly since it was getting tired and the next thing I knew something sharp hit my elbow bone, pulled the pin out and it was rather bloody... My elbow was painful then numb then painful then numb for about 3 days! I was pretty glad that I didn't have to saw it off, whew! Omm... I need to keep. Omm.. my corsage pins. Omm... properly. Omm...) cakes, they somehow always "wow" me, heh.

 Above and below:
(The one above doesn't have a blue background but it's too beautiful to leave out!)
Since a mountain of cake photos/avalanche already fell on me, I might as well drag a few more of my "fine specimens" out. 
 Next to "grand" cakes I have always liked neat and modern-ish cakes, there are always something very eye catching about them.

 Above and below (I am feeling in a lazy to type mood, I think.):
Mosaic cakes, no one knows how much I am in love with them, I suppose it's because it's different/unique and eye catching again. 

I can't remember where I got these images from but all credit goes to the cake's artist, your cakes have inspired me very, VERY much, thank you.
I just realized that all the pictures I posted have ALL somehow inspired me for this very wedding cake, I am rather shocked, huh.

ANYWAYS (I still love that word.), you are probably scratching your head about the title or maybe you guys are already immune to my weird titles and words, I hope not.
This tier was Chantilly lace inspired, was hanging up the curtains for our house when we just moved into PD, the curtains were lacey ones some I made a note to make one of the tiers lacey and not long after that I some a post in one of CakeCentral's forums about "Chantilly lace", I was pretty curious since I have never heard of something called "Chantilly lace" (I was about to type down all the names of the laces I knew but my mind is very blacko right now, too bad.) before so I opened it up and TADAH!
Beautiful "real" lace specimens appeared before my eyes and boy, were they STUNNING!
The only thing different about them to me is probably the circles and of course the flowers.

And as usual... Things I want to recreate never looks like the original (Unless it's sugar flowers, hahaha!), mine clearly became some sort of "Rojak" piping work!
I just piped out whatever came to my mind and did some of that "circles", more like semi circles though.

Alrightyeo! Now that you know I am still alive and haven't abandoned my blog I shall be off.

~Karen

Bothers

I mean bRothers, my brothers who are bothers. Weak smile*
Oh and some other ACTUAL bothers...

I just realized I haven't posted ANYTHING in about a week... Oopsies?
Anyways, half way through that very silent week... There was this day when it was raining horses and ponies the ENTIRE day and the next morning after (Didn't want to enter and cake since it was wet and I was positive that working with gum paste was going to be hard so I kinda "ignored" the room that whole day.) I went in to find that...

1. My humongous white 22" cake board (I only use such HUGE cake boards for competitions, they somehow scare me that's why I enjoy making mini cakes and mini wedding cakes! But of course what's the point of entering a competition and not err... I mean staying in your comfort zone. Like last year, I used square cake dummies instead of the usual round because I wanted to get over my square sharp corner phobia...) that I was in the middle of completing a gothic lace on top was the color of yeast (And sticky to the touch, all the fondant cover dummy cakes were too! And it felt more like some sort of icing instead of fondant!), obviously it was some sort of yeast colored fungus... (And the 3 mini bottom tiers that were a "continuation" of the gothic table cloth like thing were fungused up too! I took a day for EACH mini bottom tier things with such a small tip that made my right palm almost disabled!)

2. My black gothic (This years entry is very goth/vampire inspired, I think you realized that already..) necklace inspired,  #0 tip was... was... A black puddle of muck around the round grey cake dummy, with the runny, melted black royal icing running down, all round the cake like messed up eye liner!

3.
My (I think I need to stop saying my but that was my SUPER hard aching hands work that was a cake wreck in a DAY! No one would ever know how frustrated I felt at that moment, EVER.) multi colored, hand painted (And piped.) stained glass window inspired tier separator was another eye liner running down mess with a brown not black pool of VERY watery royal icing at the bottom!
I spent about... 3 Days in total on that tier, all ruined, sigh...

That day was another one of those days where I absolutely HATE the country I live in, WHY did I have to be born in such a HUMID country?!
WHY couldn't I have been placed um... A bit... Higher up?
Not long after, the flood gates couldn't stand it.
And not long after that my whole shirt was soaked with tears and I was curled up in a fetal position on my favorite couch trying to concentrate on reading a horseback riding book I borrowed from the Science center library but... My eyes didn't seem to be able to focus on anything.

Now that I recall... I cried last year too, working on my entry.
In the end my entry only had 3 tiers and a cake topper when it was supposed to have five, I am PRAYING that wouldn't happen this year.
And hopefully they won't ask me to go on stage to speak again and if they do I hope I don't start crying.

Conclusion= I think I cry too much... It's amazing how I did not die of dehydration.

So anyways, the only thing that could make me happy was...

You guessed it (Or maybe not...)! K-pop/Kapoop.
So after a couple of days of full time kapooping I think.. I am finally mentally, alright to start over again.
And this time... Armed with those dehumidifiers!
I have my fingers, toes and any other part of my body that I can cross, crossed now and I am also praying that it would make the 1 1/2 hours rather pot holey (Believe me, I tried counting the amount of portholes/bumps on the way to KL! But somehow lost count!) journey to Sunway giza at some very scary time in the morning and I would be 3/4 asleep so... Errh. I think I should think too much about it right now.

Anyways (I LOVE this word! It's my "change subject" word, I think.), my laptop was being hogged by some people/person so I was getting a bit restless this morning...
I can't start my day with out my "coffee" (That's what Mommy calls err... it.), it used to mean just Facebooking but now I think... My SHINee is more important.

(I was supposed to complete this post last night but my Dad managed to grab it from me to do his Rotary work so since I had to wake up early the next morning, today, for horseback riding, I went up to sleep.
ANYWAYS I am "half leasing" KC now, can't remember if I said that already in my previous post and "half leasing" give me the ABILITY to ride him 3 times a week, chose Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, if you must know, 3 hours a day! Before leaving I mummified myself with... Looks at tape dispenser*, apparently it is surgical tape but it is just expensive masking tape to me... Let's see I had to tape both my ring fingers at the "middle joint", my left finger had a bubbly blister burst, skin peeled out, healed slightly, cut, healed, peeled off and now it looks fine I think, hopefully I won't cut it again and my right finger is fine but I will be "mummyfrying" them forever because even my right alright finger seems rather painful after riding WITH the "surgical tape"! And... Patching up some random parts of my body. For the record I ACTUALLY ran out of plasters! KCC never runs out of plasters, EVER. So I had to use some nail polish remover cotton and surgical tape to make my own plaster and "patch up" my body..
ANYWAYS, I am going to purposely overuse this word in my post today. Since I was "half leasing", full leasing is 6 times a week I think, I would DIE if I full leased a horse... KC, I OFFICIALLY know what it stands for! KC= Karen Cuppycake's horse, HAH! Okay wait, let me start again, Since I was "half leasing" Karen Cuppycake's horse there of course, were no "instructors" and I could... Go clockwise and anti a billion times so I could sploosh in the big fat puddle that the little bit of rain created at dawn! Disadvantage= No people yelling at me. Kinda miss that...
ANYWAYS after the usual 6 rounds of "fast" walking, not the usual "sleep" walking I do with Key, I mean King, I keep mentally calling Key, King today, I mean King, Key, sigh... Started on the sitting trot, it was getting easier but I think I was getting used to the bumps so I decided to try what Zarina and the riding book I have been reading's technique but somehow I... Bounced around even more!
So I somehow tried err... Different ways to sit in the saddle?
After a couple/handful of minutes I had ACTUALLY got it! I was supposed to "relax" my waist and follow the flow but it was somehow rather tough so instead of concentrating on keeping your waist stuck to saddle your stomach! And kinda push it down and forward-ish, kinda hard to explain so when you concentrate on your stomach your waist is free to do what ever it pleased so whatever it pleases = relaxing!
YESH! I felt as though as I had crack the Da Vinci code or something.. Humongous grin*
So instead of my behind being painful it was my stomach but I guess after 1 1/2 months horseback riding... You are used to pain!
The rest of the 1 1/2 hours on Karen Cuppycake's horse was bliss...
So I had a VERY enjoyable "leasing" today, yippee! Can't wait to ride again in the evening!
Okay! Back to the story!)  

So, yesterday my Dad was hogging the laptop from morning till late afternoon from his Rotary work, rolls eyes*
Wait, I think I already said that and the fact that I was half dead without my "coffee".
Somehow... Fai managed to drag me to read a HUGE Pokemon book (I think it was some annual or something we did "Number coloring" too, 1=Pink, 2=Green typa thing. I kinda forgot that he couldn't color very well since he enjoys drawing more I think and he is pretty good at drawing his knights and other mythical stuff, no way I could draw those when I was 7! I think my favorite things to draw then were fat giraffes and butterflies... So I kinda taught him how to color "evenly" and of course teach him colors!) to him, I think need to tell you that I don't read to my brothers very much but I found it kinda fun and tongue drying so I managed to read about... 3 stories and after every two minutes Zed dabaliewee would reply to my text so I would have to run from the hall to the study since the phone was charging!
It was a fun sister-brother bonding time thingy, then me, Han (Fai wanted to play with the uno stacko..), Mommy and Ean cycled (I cycled with Han, Mommy and Ean walked. Han wanted to stand on the "extended back seat" at first but after 10 seconds he slowly started to squat then after 5 seconds he was sitting because... Apparently (I seem to over use this word too..) I am too skinny to hold on too while he is standing.) to buy some Malay kuai (Nice fresh currypuffies, om nom noms.) for tea, Mommy and ean didn't follow us back because Ean wanted to go to the beach and the moment we reached home Papa was done with his hogging and went to the beach as well, unfortunately for me the "remaining" boys got to the laptop before I did to play their Poptropica, couldn't stand my kapoop urge so I asked them to open up a new window and type "Y" in the search bar and press enter (Hah! Auto youtube. Winks*) while I put head phones on.
Then type "R-I-N-G-D-I-N-G-D-O-N-G" in the youtube search bar (It amazing how happy they can get while typing something out..) and press on the first video that comes out, they were pretty pleased with themselves, still have no idea why.
After a couple of seconds Han yelled out: I LOVE this song (I think he remembers listening to it on Machika's iPod..)! It has angels in it right?!
They were supposed to just go back to their Poptropica after pressing "Play" for me but they wanted to watch the angels then Han yanked out my headphones and said: I want to listen too! Fake frowny face*
After rewatching it for the second time he pointed at Onew and said: I like this angel.
And when he came on again he said: THAT'S my angel!
I was pretty shocked that he could recognize him since I could only recognize all off them after like... A couple of days! I think he has better eyes/brains than me.  Laughs*
Showed him Lucifer but he said he liked the "Angels" one better but this one was O.K and Hello but he said he liked the other two better this one is boringgg... Annoyed face*
Not long after the loaf of bread Ean or was it Han or Fai? Baked was done so we had a nice bread and a slab of butter picnic. Smiley face*

When we were half way through (When the "rest" came back and after dinner was cooked.) dinner Han suddenly went "Fantastic Elastic Fantastic Elastic Fantastic Fantastic" (I still don't understand why ALL kapoop songs like putting in random English words in their songs, I suppose that's like their... Trade mark?) and I kinda fell off my chair laughing and choked on some rice! (Got a deathly what did YOU do to Han when we were away glare from Mommy.)
I didn't expect him to remember ANY of the lyrics from the song..!
He sang that awkward verse again when he was brushing his teeth, hahaha! He enjoys singing the awkwark verse at awkward moments...
I hope this doesn't continue...

~K

P.S
I changed my mind about having no pictures in this post, here are the disaster photos I took while clearing out my cake room: Entering crime scene*

 Above:

My "Stained glass window" inspired cake separator, I guess now it REALLY is stained, the grey dummy cake was the gothic necklace inspired one and now the top of it has a photo copy of the stained glass inspired cake's RI piping!

And... Try spotting the pale pink (Un-dusted, whew!) roses.

Below:

My stained glass inspired cake separator working place, notice the black watery pool, it was stiff consistency black RI awhile back... (Ignore piping bags.)   

Above:

My 3 tiers on 3 base (Inspired by the royal wedding cake.) with a half completed cake board. FUNGUSY!  

Below:

At least I managed to save two tiers of work... They are now "drying" in my cake room.

Above and below:

YEAST FUNGUS THINGY

Above:

Managed to save the cake board as well by scrapping off the paper!

Goodbye... My beautiful (Freehand piping in monochrome...), sob.

Below:

More fungus?

Peek-

A-boo?

I have a feeling I haven't posted in ages, I wanted to but after writing half a post I got, as usual... Lazy. Grin*

Anyways just in case you were wondering what I wanted to post about it was about our trip down to KL on... Thursday to the science center since Mommy organized another one of her lab experiment trips there, the boys went for some air/parachute experiment/making thing and I went for some robotics with Lego thing.

Let's see we were there a COUPLE of hours early, I think we were there at 11+ when the lab session things were supposed to start at 230 PM so we had a bit of brunch (I don't think we had anything before leaving PD so I suppose it's more of a breakfast.) at the Malay cafe that was right outside the science center, the last time we visited the cafe, it was newly renovated and VERY empty but at least now they had some Malay "Chap fun" (Lets see that's basically... Rice and a range of dishes to choose from and pile on top of your rice.) and my syrup, no Malay meal is complete without my rose syrup (It's basically sugar and lots of pink food coloring, I wonder if it was made with real squashed roses last time? As in a.. Few hundred years ago? Or maybe it didn't even come from Malaysia... Oh well if it were made out of squashed roses I wouldn't get my beautiful pink tongue after drinking a whole cup!)!

After brunch I kinda remembered how super freezing the library (Had a feeling that we were going to hang around there for awhile since I was dragging some very heavy library books around for some time..) was (For the past... 10 visits I became a human bag of frozen butter cream.) and decided to borrow my Mom's green sarong scarf thingy to wrap around my neck and that made me feel rather posh so I decided to do my fancy posh, flippy hair (I mean scarf.) walk (I always seem to do that when I feel "posh" and I can't exactly describe  what I have to do to feel posh... Oh well, at least you know wearing a scarf is one of them.) back to the building which made burst out laughing less than... 2 Minutes, it's funny how I can never succeed in doing that.

Above:
Decided to walk around the science center (Oh right! The first section was this dark place with lots of LED lights that reminded me of one of my favorite kapoop songs, Lucifer! I mean the Lucifer set for the music video so I kinda mind sang that song for the entire day...) for a while and explore the un-explored... Mysterious eyebrows face* Found a MIRROR maze! The temptation of posing throughout the whole maze was too hard to resist... 
Oh right and there were fake walk ways AKA glass panes, I think by the end of the maze I had a rather flat nose. Sniff*   

Below:
Heard a couple of bumping into the glass with noses and they weren't mine...
Turned around to find Fai (He looks more interested in looking at the mirror instead of the camera..)! Took another photo! Smiley face*

 Above:
My next favorite exhibit!
The run-into-a-red-wall-of-chopsticks thing!
I (Sob!*) NEVER enjoyed running into a wall quite this much before! 
(Pull the lever to run into the wall again*)


Below:
The other side! 

After a quick visit to the library we Never mind the rest was pretty much  not that fun, to me the person that enjoys mirror mazes and running into walls!

So anyways I just wanted you guys to have a peek at the first two (Uncompleted, see? No borders and the cake board is rather... White.) tiers of my entry for the cake competition.

Will post random sneak peeks till it's finished!

~K 

Interview w/ SinChew Daily

Yippee! Feeling SUPER hairpee and hyper right now!
The interview and photo shoot ended about 15 minutes ago, I feel so proud of myself. (For achieving a solo interview and making Onyx Ophelia Moonbeam (I just uploaded her on CakeCentral and there are 35 views and 1 Fav already! She's gonna be on the most favs in no time!) in 2 days! Oh and waking up at 7 AM, I haven't done THAT in a while...)
Singing Billionaire repeatedly in my head right now because I feel that I will be smiling next to Oprah and the Queen VERY soon, you just wait and see!

Mommy took a photo of me with Onyx Ophelia Moonbeam after the reporter and photographer left:
(It's been some time since I actually had a "real smile" and this is a real one. proud proud proud!)

Cupcake Tee! (And necklace! Try spotting it!) (And turquoise finger nails!)

Let's continue from my previous post where I stopped to take the cupcakes out of the oven...

These are the cupcakes with uber chic cupcake liners (I am pretty sure they were meant for muffins but... err... never mind!) I bought from the City bakers sale:

I had a couple of them for my breakfast! I was starved... To the BONE!
Only iced them when photographer arrived, she was late.
It was just a simple white and light pink "poo" ( I couldn't find my large star swirling tip so I had to use the round 2D tip, bleh.) swirl with my signature miniaturized rainbow rose on top, I am pretty sure you can imagine them!

Mommy took such blur photos of the interview so they are not going to be up!
Just imagine me with 2 ladies chatting and being surrounded by Onyx Ophelia Moonbeam and some cupcakes or in other words a tea party (With rather strange questions being asked!)!

So anyways the interviewer entered my very empty (Half of my room is already in my brand new caking studio in Port Dickson!) caking room and saw Onyx and the un-decorated cupcakes, she.. Wasn't impressed.
So NOT the emotion I was expecting, my heart sank... Deep, Deep down... Trallalaa

The first question she asked me was how old I was, I said 13 with a huge DUH in my head.
She should have done more research on my blog because she looked rather shocked, I know I don't look 13!

Then I talked about the deco.. Blah blah, string work, blah, billowing, blah blah blah hand painted butterflies.. Then we got to the flower.

Her: You MADE the cake?!!
Me: Annoyed face* Yessssh... (Another huge DUH.)
Her: And the decorations?
Me: Nods* (Why would a cake that isn't mine be in MY cakery?!) Yes, everything including the roses.
Her: Touches the rose* I thought it was FAKE!!
Me: (She REALLY didn't do any research on my blog about my sugar stuffies..!) No, it's made from gum paste.
Her: Wazzat?!
Me: Explains* (Question to readers: Aren't interviewers supposed to do some research about the person's interests and stuff they use before the interview? At least some basic things? Curious face*)

It was scary... Having someone so blur interview you, blinks*

She had plenty of questions about me home schooling as well, most of them were asked before by "other" people around me.

Ugh, I just wished I was interviewed by someone who would just do a bit of research to at least know what fondant is!

~K

Onyx Ophelia Moonbeam

I had a request for an interview for a Chinese (WHYWHYWHY?! Not English?!) newspaper, the one I mentioned on my previous post I think.
I didn't get her "Green Light" for the interview email until 2 days before the day they were coming to my house for it!
I had already planned to make a mock wedding-ish cake and some chic KCC styled cupcakes for it but since I didn't get the reply I didn't start preparing for them until 2 days before which was pretty RUSHY but I decided to do it anyway..

Pretty proud of myself this time round because I managed to make 3 full bloomed English roses + The royal icing FISHNET + A freehand gemstone + Play with my lace cutters that were rotting in a corner since the Diploma.. + Foliage, try out the 'billowing" (No, I did not misspell it!) that was trending on Cakecentral (Because they couldn't figure out how to do it! I don't really want to brag but I kinda did the the step-by-step how to make it in my head and got it in a minute! Anyone want a tutorial?) a couple of weeks ago and other cloth like techniques that I have ALWAYS wanted to do and all this in my favorite colors (Which not many people like because there is the awesome color BLACK in monochrome, crazy old fashioned people thinking black is bad when it is actually the color that makes every POP!), Monochrome + P!NK! Smiley face*

I am SUPER glad I managed to squeeze all this into 2 very full caking days and make it turn out perfecter than I want it to. Another smiley face?*

I guess you could say this cake was inspired by (Don't laugh! Mommy was the one that borrowed it!) The Revealing Story of Underwear (Young Reading Series 2 Gift Books) so this is pretty much like a dress-ish cake and I want to try billowing so this was the perfect cake to make! 
It said in the book that some rebellious (I guess it is supposed to be a very "Hush hush" matter wearing underwear?) women during the Victorian age or something like that.. (I have a horrible memory I think.) Purpose made their underwear (This long white frilly pant.) show from the bottom (Can you spot the white lace underneath the black err... waterfall of gum paste?) of their dresses so therefore my Onyx is a rebellious cake! 

As for the cake topper I made the same pink roses like I did for the Rosey Posey Cake.. Only I COMPLETELY forgot to curl the last few layers of petals back. By the time I realized it all the wired petals were already hardened! But I guess they still look alright!

After placing everything on the cake I thought the top tier (The one with the roses, DUH.) was pretty plain looking so I added some colorful hand painted (Getting quite addicted to painting on gum paste/fondant, it's super FUN!)  patchwork cutter butterflies to cheer it up!
I think it looks MUCH better and no so empty!
Have I ever mentioned that I absolutely HATE making the big butterfly because the wing are too big for it's body so it always septate/breaks?! Oh well... I used royal icing to piece it back as usual cause I can never make a PERFECT one! Soby sob soblah!

And of course I mixed a little Vampire-y Goth-y-ness into this cake, check out the black lace work and that ruby onyx gem stone, LOVIT!
I piped the "Fish net" (Tweaked the original design a bit, it has um.. stuff hanging down now? I wanted to pipe a tassel of some sort but it didn't really go very well so I just left it the way it was.)  at 7 in the morning when my eyes were barely open because I didn't want the humidity to collapse it if i piped it the day before!
I am glad it turned out pretty and even. Yet another smiley face*

Ooh! The cupcakes are out of the oven! Time to gooo... Can't wait for the interview! Stay tuned!