Animal Cake Toppers

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Elana

Among the many cake requests we get, a lot of clients want to incorporate animals onto their cakes.  Many requests are for the “cutesy” style of animals – cartoonish and whimsical – often used for birthday cakes.  The turtles, honeybees and elephants (below) were all cake toppers – representative of the bride and groom.

For this particular wedding cake (below), the bride sent us photos of various fish she wanted on her cake, but requested we make them in the “cutesy” style.

The other style requested is the “realistic” style where a photo is often shared, and we make an exact replica of the animal.  For the dog cake topper, our client sent us the following photo and asked that we make it exact as possible.  These toppers take a minimum of two hours to make – in this case, the dog took four hours as we wanted to get the detail just right – from the texture, to the color and shading.  In the end it was worth it as our client was thrilled when they saw the cake!

Despite the style, all the animals we create are completely edible – handmade out of gum paste fondant.  They can be quite a challenge to create, but hey that’s one of the things we love about our job!

Posted in A Cake Life, Animal Cake, Birthday Cake, Cupcakes, Hawaii Birthday Cakes | Leave a comment

Year in Review – 2012

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Elana

Another year has come and gone, and it’s been another great year of business for A Cake Life.  First off, we’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  We at A Cake Life are extremely thankful for the love and support you’ve shown us.

Now a few highlights from the past year…

This year alone we created 283 WEDDING CAKES for amazing couples on their special day and 55 BIRTHDAY/EVENT CAKES for people to celebrate with.

Here are a few of our FAV WEDDING CAKES from 2012

and some of our FAV BIRTHDAY & EVENT CAKES from 2012

We participated in several events this year – two of The Wedding Café’s Cake, Cocktails and Catering Workshops, their 11th Anniversary Party and Isle Media’s 1st Anniversary Party.

We have worked with various charities – providing our time, or baked goods for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, Aiea High School 50th anniversary, The Wedding Café’s Adopt a Village, Community Helping Schools, Hawaii H.O.M.E. Project and Women’s Fund of Hawaii.  Below are 2 cake designs we created for the cancer survivors at the American Cancer Society Relay for Life event!  Their theme this year was ‘Rainbow of Nations’.

One of my favorite charitable events was when several wedding vendors, including myself, Leslie from Leslie Fair – Hair Styling & Makeup and Joshua from Fisheye spent the day with some young people battling cancer at the Kapiolani Children’s Hospital.  Eden in Love provided scarves for them, and we taught them how to tie the scarves, and apply makeup for the hair they were losing.  A Cake Life provided the cupcakes for everyone to enjoy.   At The Wedding Café’s 11th anniversary celebration, they provided us with an award for our charitable work with these young children.  We’re excited to continue working with the patients in 2013!

We were also excited to be a part of Pearl City High School Career Fair, and share our passion for business with them.

We survived another tsunami threat, and were super sad for the weddings and birthday parties that had to be cut short because of it 🙁  And also 12-12-12, a very popular wedding day for which we created wedding cakes for 3 amazing couples.

In November, we were thrilled to be part of a wedding cake workshop taught by world-renowned cake and sugarcraft artist, Nicholas Lodge.  Here are some of our pictures from the class!

We were asked to be a part of Hawaii Wedding Professionals, and will hopefully again receive the Best of Weddings awards from the Knot and Wedding Wire.

We launched a new Website, created a Promo Video (courtesy of Isle Media) and were featured in several publications and blogs:

Tropical Oasis (The Frosted Petticoat Blog)

She Walks in Beauty (Pacific Weddings)

All in all, it’s been another wonderful year, thanks to our staff at A Cake Life, fellow wedding professionals and vendors and our awesome clients and fans!  THANK YOU – and we wish you a Happy Holiday Season!  Many blessings and good wishes to you in 2013!

With Warmest Aloha & Mahalo,

Kristin

Posted in A Cake Life, Cupcake Wedding Cake, Cupcakes, Eden In Love, Fisheye Studio, Hawaii Birthday Cakes, Hawaii Wedding Cakes, Isle Media, The Wedding Cafe | Leave a comment

Less is More – Simple Cakes with a Large Accent

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Elana

While we love creating elaborate wedding cakes, there is nothing more beautiful than a simple, elegant wedding cake design with a large accent to serve as a focal point and draw your eye in.  It has always been our design style but with these cakes, we truly feel that “less is more”.

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The Wedding Café Cake Workshop

Photography courtesy of: Kristin Kato

For our semi-annual Cake Trends Workshop at The Wedding Cafe, we created a 3-tier hexagon shaped cake with different sized tiers.  The top and bottom tier are the same size, but the middle tier is shorter than the others.  The shape and size of the tiers gives this cake dimension and is a playful, yet clean look.  A simple purple strand border and a grouping of bright violet sugar flowers and foliage makes a nice impact, drawing the eye to the pop of color against the simple, yet classic cake.

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Visionari Stylized Photo Shoot

Photography courtesy of Visionari

For the photo shoot, as everything about it, especially the flowers, were SUPER lush and abundant.  To provide some contrast, we created was a simple 3-tier round cake.  A contrasting, single, extra large pink sugar peony was set off to the side, between the bottom and middle tier (large flowers are traditionally placed on top of the cake) allowing it to stand out from the rest of the cake.  A simple light soft peach colored band, trimmed with light soft pink sugar pearls tied the entire design together.  You can view more from the photo shoot here:  Visionari Stylized Photo Shoot

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 Eva and Calvin

Photography courtesy of Visionari

For Eva and Calvin’s wedding cake we designed a simple 2-tier round, fondant cake.  A copper/gold sugar band was placed in the middle of the bottom tier (normally placed on the bottom of the tier) with two large, soft, ivory sugar flowers placed in between the tiers.

For their flavors, they chose our Yellow Butter Cake with Strawberry Cream Filling and Coconut Cake with Pineapple Cream Filling.

This elegant, simple design with nice pops of color allows for the focus to be details.  It definitely compliments our “less is more” theory.

Posted in A Cake Life, Hawaii Wedding Cakes, Modern Wedding Cake, The Wedding Cafe | Leave a comment

Kualoa Ranch Styled Shoot

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Elana

Photos courtesy of Creatrix Photography

Jenna Clark of Creatrix Photography contacted us as they were putting together a photo shoot with various Oahu wedding vendors.  A gorgeous setting, beautiful models, stunning florals and a fresh, modern aqua and tangerine color scheme – we couldn’t ask for a more fun event!!

Jenna gave us free reign over the design – only asking for something “modern” and “now” and within the color scheme.  Two hot trends right now, not only in the wedding industry, but in fashion and home decor, are CHEVRONS (a v-shaped pattern) and OMBRE.  Ombre (coming from the French) is defined as having colors or tones that shade into each other, where the color is graduated from light to dark.  For the shoot, we created a 3-tier white and aqua fondant display cake with a chevron print in ombre from teal to a lighter aqua.  We added touches of the tangerine color to give it that POP!  Tangerine banding and dotting balanced the single, large, bright orange peony sugar flower.  We absolutely adore this cake, and hope you do too.

The shoot has been featured on The Frosted Petticoat Blog and the Adore With Delight Blog.

Cake Design:  A Cake Life

Location:  Kualoa Ranch

Photography: Creatrix Photography

Stylist:  Tyson Joines LLC

Floral Design:  Tamara Rigney Designs

Dress:  The Bridal Boutique

Heirlooms & Extras:  Magnolia

Invitations: Sugarletter

Makeup:  Delish Makeup

Tuxedo:  Phil’s Tuxedo

Models:  Neka Stephens & Ace Conlon

Posted in A Cake Life, Hawaii Wedding Cakes, Kualoa Ranch, Modern Wedding Cake, Photo Shoot | Leave a comment

Cakes With Texture

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Elana

Adding texture to your cake with buttercream is a great way to enhance the design and bring movement to the cake.  There are lots of different options – some of the current popular designs include rosettes, stucco, petals, swirls…and more.

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The Wedding Cafe 10th Anniversary Cakes

Photos courtesy of Kris LaBang

For the 10th anniversary celebration of The Wedding Café we created an assortment of textured ivory buttercream cakes arranged in a satellite display.

Piped buttercream rosette design.  Totally floral and fun! =)

Rustic vertical texture.

Piped ruffles lined with a row of piped pearls makes this cake cute and dainty.

Stucco!  Very rustic, country style.

Horizontal striping of different widths makes this texture very clean and elegant while still being unique 😉

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Nikki+Jared’s Ivory Rosettes Cake

Photos courtesy of Laura Aguon Photography & Taryn Reid Photography

For Nikki and Jared’s Sunset Ranch wedding, they selected a 3-tier cake with ivory buttercream rosettes on the top and bottom tiers, with a purple band on the middle tier and a pearl trim border.  Fresh purple lisianthus served as a cake topper.

To see their wedding highlights video, watch HERE.

Teresa+John Rose Petal Cake

Photo courtesy of Fisheye

Teresa and John chose an all-white buttercream base and with an abstract design of pearlized sugar petals over a 3-tier cake for their wedding at Lanikuhonua.  The petals were thicker at the bottom, and with less towards the top of the cake.

The 3D ruffled gumpaste flower petals colored in a shimmering pearl laid out on a flat, smooth matte white buttercream base cake is what gave this cake lots of dimension and movement. The petals resemble capiz shells which is perfect if you are looking for a tropical cake with a modern twist.

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Julie + Rory Orange Textured Ombre Cake

Photo courtesy of What A Day Photography

For Julie and Rory’s wedding at Loulu Palms we designed a 3-tier square buttercream cake with a textured stucco look and white-to-yellow-to-orange ombre color fade.  Fresh roses and orchids to match their sunset shades color palette were placed around the cake.  The cake topper was provided by the bride and groom.

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Shereen’s Blue Textured Ombre Birthday Cake

Photo courtesy of Kristin Kato

Event Coordinator Shereen, of Ever After Events requested a 2-tier blue ombre cake.  We created a fluffy buttercream texture design for the top tier and continued the ombre look in a swirl pattern on the bottom tier.  The cake was finished with a single sugar magnolia flower on top.  Happy Birthday Shereen!!

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Kevin+Loretta Ivory Rustic Textured Cake with Fresh Orange Roses

Photos courtesy of Kris LaBang

Kevin and Loretta requested, for their Lanikuhonua wedding, a 3-tier ivory buttercream rustic textured cake with fresh orange roses and orchids placed on top and between the tiers.

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Kara+Kelvin’s Rustic Wedding Cake

Photo courtesy of: Kristin Kato

For Kara and Kelvin’s wedding, we designed a 3-tier cake with a white buttercream rustic design.  Fresh green cymbidium orchids with added foliage served as a cake topper and accented the cake.

All cakes created by: A Cake Life

Posted in A Cake Life, Hawaii Wedding Cakes, Textured Cakes, The Wedding Cafe | Leave a comment