I'm Baaaaack and with a few changes and Pretty Barbie Cake :-)

So I have been a very bad blogger :-(  I started linking my nail stuff to Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest while losing site of this blog. I didn't feel I could keep up with it and that doing the Facebook thing would be easier but it isn't as gratifying. I can't include everything I want to like I can in a blog post and I certainly have my Facebook page exclusively dedicated to my nail art.

 But that is just it... I feel that committing myself to SOLELY nail art is a waste! I have a creative mind and I love doing all types of different projects and DIY stuff! Not only that, but I am not only a nail artist, but a mother, housewife, and a frugal lady with a crafty eye! The fact is I love nail art, I do. I wish I had tons more time to dedicate to it but I don't. In between nail art, I have tons of other things I do around my house, with my kids, and for my family. I want to be able to share all the little projects I do, which will include nail art but not be limited to it.

First and foremost, I am the mother to 3 gorgeous kids and they keep me busy, as does maintaining the house they continuously manage to destroy. This is why I decided to share all my tips, projects, and crafts that I do. You may get ideas or inspiration or maybe you can toss me some!

The first non-nail art thing I want to share is the barbie cake I made for my younger daughter, Alexandria. We had a joint birthday party for her and my son (their birthday are only 30 days apart!) and she decided she wanted a barbie cake for her 4th birthday. I am not a baker or trained in any type of classical cooking or baking techniques. However, the one thing I do go crazy making every year is my kids' birthday cakes. I always make it from scratch and in the theme they want. I added a pic of the cake I made for my son as well which came out great but I didn't take pictures while doing it! I am such a dunce!!

The Spiderman cake 

This is quick-do tutorial of how I put this together for the structure aspect but if you have any questions about the design or any materials used that aren't mentioned, just comment as ask! :-) I wasn't really preparing to do a tutorial with this project of else I would have gotten more pics of everything.

 I used 2 Pyrex measuring cups to bake the cake in. I used a 4-cup measuring cup for the base(on left) and a 1-cup measuring cup that narrows at the bottom of the cup. The smaller cup provided the perfect shape for the top of the dress, when turned upside down. The cake is just a store-bought chocolate cake mix. I was focused on the design of the cake so I went with pre-made mix to make it easier. I let the cakes cool completely then I stuck them in the freezer for a few hours. Yes, I FROZE them! This doesn't affect the cake's taste or texture and makes it so much easier to frost, almost no crumbs! Yay :-)

 I used regular cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract to make a vanilla cream cheese frosting and frosted both parts lightly. I placed the top part onto the bottom and then frosted another layer to seal the cakes together

*Note- You can use skewers to help the stability of the cake but I didn't need to. The density of the cake and the way they were baked, as well as the height, worked in my favor here and skewers weren't necessary to connect the cakes.

 The next thing was created a hole in the center to stick my barbie in. I have seen several Barbie cakes and different techniques on how to do this but this is how I did it.

I had a plastic tube(similar to the M&Ms filled candy cane tubes) and I used this to go into the cake. As you can see from the picture, the tube worked well and the cake came out with the tube! Now my hole is there and it's time to get barbie ready!

 I used a Barbie that my daughter already had and just bought her a new outfit at Walmart for about 3$ (cheaper than a new Barbie!). I picked the outfit based on the top, knowing that would create the top for my dress cake. After Barbie was dressed and her hair was done, she was ready to get wrapped in cling wrap. And yes, I did do Barbie's hair special for this. For one, it was a mess! And two, it needed to be up to stay up to be out of the way and not to get hair in the food.....Oh and three would be that she needed to look nice for her princess debut on the cake :-)

After completely wrapping her lower body in cling wrap, I stuck barbie right into the cake and push her down until her hips met with the cake. 

Then I went crazy! I wish I would have gotten more pictures while I was decorating but as you can see, I used pink and purple frostings (both I made) to cover and color the "dress". The black bow and outline was made with a store-bought black glitter frosting and I bought pre-made sugar flowers by Wilton. I also used some pink and white edible pearls for accents all over to really make sure that something was going on everywhere on the cake!

In the end, my daughter LOVED it and so did a bunch of other people! No one wanted to cut into her and eat her, but we did....and she was delicious! No Barbies were harmed int he making or devouring of this cake :-)


So what do you think? Would you try to make a cake like this? Maybe a different theme would be cool, like Hawaiian Barbie! Any cool cakes you created, have seen, or want to try? Comment and tell me all about it!