Cake Pop Christmas Ornaments

It's getting close to holiday time! We've been making plans for breads and pies, cookies and cakes for Thanksgiving. I wanted to share something I came up with for Christmas gifts though.

I love ornaments. I make ornament and light bulb Christmas cookies and had to try something with cake pops! Here they are!

Aren't they super cute! I love them! These are cake pops dipped in milk chocolate. They are then dusted with glittery luster dust. The top is a mini Reese's dusted in silver or golf luster dust.

The box makes the perfect gift for coworkers, neighbors, teachers, your mail carrier.... you name it. You get four cake pops in the box with tissue paper and tied with a ribbon on top. Add a tag and you are done!

Everyone have a blessed Thanksgiving! Enjoy your families!

Guest Blogging

My friend over at Keepsake Blossoms asked my to do a guest spot on her blog. You can see the article here where I discuss wedding cake trends. :)

Featured on Valley Wide Homeschool Spotlight

Hi all! Just wanted to share the article about my business on Valley Wide Homeschool Spotlight.
It's a very nice blog. Check it out and save the site. You might find some new mom owned businesses there. :)

Be sweet!

Almond Joy Scones

I'm a baker. I bake. Everything. So I love scones and bread and muffins and.....
I just had to share this recipe with you. I found it on how Sweet it is. If you like baking, sweet stuff and fun writing check her out! Can't wait to try these!

Almond Joy Scones

Scentsy Cupcake Warmer Winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The winner of the Cupcakes Warmer Giveaway, via Random.org is ...............................

Roxybonds! Congratulations!!!! Please email me at bonnie @ inspired occasions dot com with your address.

Now if you didn't win, don't be sad! Both the cupcake warmer and the birthday cake scent is 10% off for July! YAY!!! Just go to Lindsay's Scentsy site and click on the July online shoppers link.


Thank you all for entering and keep a watch for new giveaway's!

Your Input Needed! (Kids Classes)

I am looking for your thoughts on classes for kids. I have had many people asking me about classes and I would like to be able to help them. So here are some questions and if you can leave me a comment and answer that would be Fab! OR you can leave me comments on the Facebook page as well.

1. What is a good price for a child's class? How long would you want the class to be?
2. What kind of classes would your children be interested in?
       Some of my thoughts are classes on cupcake decorating, cookie decorating, maybe a basics class on how to ice and pipe. Others?
3. Would you be interested in short session you can purchase as a party activity? With or without an instructor?
4. Is this something you would like to do regularly or a one time event?
5. Would you be interested in baking as well or just decorating?

My plan is to set up groups, maybe at the coordinators home and I would bring all the supplies.
Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks so much!

Scentsy Cupcake Warmer Giveaway!!!

You do not want to miss this one! Look at this super cute warmer by Scentsy! I love it and I can't wait to get one!

My friend Lindsay sells Scentsy and is offering this fabulous giveaway for all my cake enthusiast friends! You will win the Cupcake Warmer plus three scents; Happy Birthday and Blueberry Cheesecake and Sugar Cookie! This lovely prize is worth $40! I have been told that Happy Birthday makes your house smell like you are baking a cake!

Of course if you are not into cupcakes like I am.... you can look at the site listed below and choose another warmer from the many, many choices. There are so many scents too you will never get bored. My favorite at the moment is the Hazelnut Latte. YUM!

To enter

1. Go to Have More Scents on Facebook. Like her page and come back and leave a comment telling me you did. When you like the page you will get to see updates on scentsy prizes, specials and new products as well. This is the mandatory entry!

2. Go to Lindsay's Scentsy Homepage, where you can look at all the warmers and choose your favorite. Other than the Cupcake one of course. I KNOW that's your favorite. Come back and post another comment with your favorite warmer style for a second entry!

3. For a third entry "like" Inspired Occasions on Facebook and leave a comment letting me know.

The winner will be drawn and posted on July 22nd via Random.org.

Good Luck!!!

The Anticipated Pan Grease Recipe

Here it is.... finally!

So remember when we had to "grease" the pan with shortening and then sprinkle it with flour and dump it out? I hated that!!! So hated it and my mom wasn't thrilled when I would use a napkin to spread the shortening instead of my hand. haha Really though, I hated having it on my hands. Actually when I first started baking with my mom I was little, little and I hated the feel of flour on my hands too. I am well over that though!

Anyways, I still hate to grease pans like that. So you can buy a pan grease at the craft stores and that works well but there are a lot of ingredients in it and it's kind of expensive for the amount you get. I also tried the sprays, I have used the one from the grocery store and I have used commercial ones. While it is fast and easy and the commercial ones are pretty inexpensive, I don't care for the fumes. I always feel like I have to cough when using them. So I decided to make my own pan grease. It's cheap, it's easy and you can make as much or as little as you like.

Pan Grease

Mix equal amounts of the following ingredients, in a mixer until well blended.

1. Shortening

2. Oil

3. All Purpose Flour

It will be the consistence of glue. Just use a pastry brush to put it on your pans. They come out clean and perfect every time and no fumes! :) It doesn't need to be refrigerated. Just keep it in a sealed container in your pantry.

Enjoy! Let me know if you try it.

Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Everywhere!

I really do love cupcakes! They are so popular right now too. Here are some more of my puppy theme cupcakes. These have been really popular. They work for boys or girls, for any puppy character party and more. These were made for a Kindergarten class where the theme for their room was puppy. :)

These cupcakes were for a Mother's Day Hopekids event. It was a Mother/Daughter spa party.

These were for a little girls birthday celebration.

Remember we do ship cookies, cake toppers and cupcake toppers. All the toppers pictured can be shipped!

Featured on Raising Arizona's Kids

I have been waiting for this feature to come out. Today I went and looked online and see that it has already been posted. I am not sure if it's coming out in the magazine or not but here you go!

RAKMompreneur

(and I hate the picture!) haha

Sugar Name Topper- Tutorial

So I thought I would see how everyone likes tutorial's. If you like this one and are interested in more please let me know.

This is for a Sugar (Gumpaste) Name Topper.
If you don't know what gumpaste is... it is a sugar dough that dries very quickly. You can make your own gumpaste or you can buy a mix where you just add water. They sell that in the craft stores. I believe there is also one that is premixed but it always seems really hard to me. I either make my own or I get the mix where you add water. For this sugar project I would mix half gumpaste and half fondant. That way you will have a little time to play with it.

OK So you want a sugar name topper? You can free hand this, like I did, or you can print out a template to follow. You will also need a clay gun with a round disk tip. (they come with many tips, just choose the one you need)

Extrude a long piece.

Then start forming your name. You will need to play with it a little. See how the pieces fit together and look the best.

Keep playing with it until you get the look you want. This is why the 50/50 works best because gumpaste alone will dry so quickly you will not have time to play. You can use water to attach anywhere that you need to or if you have to cut and start again. At this point you can put wires or toothpicks in if you need those for support and let this dry. Make sure it's in the shape you want, this one was curved a bit. Depending on where you are is what will determine how much drying time you need. Here in Arizona this would dry overnight for sure.

This is the cake that this name went on. It wasn't right on the top so I didn't need the wires or toothpicks.

So please let me know if the tutorial's are something you are interested in seeing because I love to share and will do more. If there is something specific you would like to see please let me know that too. :) Thanks!

The Savvy Socialista!

Hey all! Rememeber when we made the cupcakes for Jami, The Savvy Socialista? Well she blogged about her experience on Sonoran Living today and she talks about our cupcakes. :) Go and check it out and leave her some love!

Here are the pictures I took also. :)

A Review

A new review from one of our wonderful clients! Thanks!

I want to thank you for the wonderful job you did on Michelle and Scotts cake. It was beautiful ! And it tasted great!

Cupcake Boxes

Are you crafty? Do you like cupcakes? If you do check out this super cute tutorial and make a variety of your own cupcake boxes. I keep thinking they would be cute to have candy or cream cheese mints in but you could use them for any kind of gift. You could also make a bunch for a display. So cute! Enjoy!

Brilliant Bridal Grand Opening!

The newest bridal boutique in the Phoenix Metro area will be hosting their Grand Opening the weekend of April 16-17, and you won’t want to miss it! Brilliant Bridal specializes in selling designer overstock wedding dresses for 30% to 80% off retail in a modern boutique setting and they are going all out for their Grand Opening weekend. Saturday morning there will be door buster giveaways including a $500 gift certificate for a wedding dress, free food tastings from wedding caterers and cake bakers, and raffle giveaways every half hour including a FREE engagement photography session with Kimberly Jarman Photography! Other giveaways include jewelry, wedding invitations by Paper Mango, tiara’s, veils, and even a Samsung HDTV (check that off your registry!). For all the details of the weekend including a schedule of the giveaways, a list of participating wedding vendors, and more visit their website at www.brilliantbridalaz.com.




Brilliant Bridal

1946 S. Dobson Road Suite 3

Mesa, AZ 85202



480-897-0013

A funny!

Last One (Daughter's Birthday)

This will be my last post about my oldest daughters birthday. I wanted to make her a cute dessert table, not just a cake this year. I had a lot of fun with it and I love how it turned out!

We had cupcakes, cake truffles, iced sugar cookies, (which the girls were going to decorate but we ran out of time), marshmallow pops, mini brownies from Bite Me Brownies, (they happen to be having a killer sale right now!), chocolate covered strawberries and of course a cute Hannah Montana inspired cake.

More from... My Daughter's Birthday Party! Impression Silver!

I said I was going to post a few things from my daughter's party and I haven't gotten to it as quickly as I wanted! I am right in the middle of all my kids birthday celebrations. M is my first one and the oldest. Her birthday is in February. E is my youngest, she has just turned 2 and her party is coming up. Her birthday is in March, of course. Then K is my middle one. His birthday is at the beginning of April. So right in the middle am I, soon to have one over and then only one more to go. :) It's a busy season at home and work. I love to plan my kids parties though, I want them to know they are special and that day is all about them.

So on to my oldest... Her party is over, I showed you all the banner. Now I am going to tell you about the activity we had. This was just the most fun thing ever! The girls all made their own piece of silver jewelry! M loved it and so did I! If you have a chance to do it, you totally should. I will give more information at the end on how to do that. Here is the website though in case you can't wait! Impression Silver!

Here the kids are picking out the mold they want to use.

Here M has already rolled her silver clay out and pressed it into the mold.

She is cleaning up the mold to get a clean piece.

Here the owner showing them what to do and helping as they work.

One of M's friends rolling out her silver clay.

This is M's finished charm.

This is one that I made. Isn't it cute!?!

Like I said before, M looooved doing this at her party and I did too! It would be a great activity for any kind of party. They stay with you the whole time to make sure you know what to do and help if you need it. They also fire the piece for you and you leave with your charm right away!  Impression Silver teaches classes at Hobby Lobby, the Gilbert Location. They also have classes at their office. You can find all of the information on the website and a video that shows the whole process as well.

Fundraising for Kate

Some of our lovely local ladies are putting on a fundraiser for Kate McRae. If you have not heard of Kate and her story.. she is a little girl from Arizona. She and her family go to my church, Cornerstone, her dad is actually one of our pastors. She was diagnosed with cancer and has had a recurrence. She is undergoing treatment for the 2nd time.

Please check out My Insanity to see all the details. Please keep Kate in your prayers too!

A Fun Wedding...

So my wedding from this past week was a lot of fun. The main cake was a 6 inch topper. This cake was completely vegan for the bride; vegan red velvet and vegan butter cream. Then there were 100 + cupcakes baked in three flavors. Red Velvet, Chocolate Chip and White Sour Cream. There were all covered in butter cream and had fondant polka dots in the brides colors.

The really fun part is the bride ordered a groom's cake as a surprise. She did really well and he didn't know about it. She came out to meet me when I got there with the cakes though, (which was great to see her because I usually drop everything off and go never seeing any of the bridal party). She saw the groom's cake and loved it. I was so happy about that. She decided we should show it to the groom right away so I followed her to him and we showed him. He thought it was a real hat and almost tried to pick it up. :) I think it's safe to say he loved his cake!

This is the Ed Hardy themed groom's cake. I hand painted the geisha on the front.

This shows both cakes and the set up.

This week I was able to paint on most of my cakes and it just reminded me of how much I love to paint! I have never painted on anything but cake but it's so much fun!

Thanks for checking it out and Congrats to Adrian and Jayare! The wedding location was so pretty and the wedding party very helpful too! Thanks for allowing me to be a part of your big day!

New Giveaway Winner!

We needed to choose a new winner for our cupcake purse giveaway. The winner is Veronica! Please contact me ASAP! Thanks!

Cupcake Purse Winner!!

The winner of our cupcake purse giveaway via Random.org is Lindsay! Please contact me so that I can get your address. Congrats! and thanks to everyone who entered!

Birthday Banner!

I am going to have a few posts about my daughters birthday party. She turned 9 this past week and we had her party just Saturday.
The first thing I am going to share is this cute banner made by Nancy at A to Zebra Celebrations. She has an Etsy shop here as well. Shop around! She makes some cute stuff and we loved this banner!

It's a Giveaway!!!!!! Enter to Win this Cupcake Purse!

Look at this SUPER CUTE purse! I love cupcakes (of course), and I love this purse!

This purse is created by Brandy at E.B. Spider. you can check out the shop on Etsy.

She also has a Facebook Page where you can get lots of updates and see new products.

She has sooo many cute things on there!

Here are the details for this fabulous purse!

Cupcake Description:

This Blueberry Cupcake Purse is made of 100% acrylic yarn. The icing is a beautiful light blue, while the cake part is a vanilla cream color.

This purse measures approximately 3 inches wide at the base (6.76 cm), 4 inches wide at icing ruffle (10.2 cm), and is 4 inches tall (10.2 cm).


Now how to enter!!
1st entry- Follow this blog! Comment below that you are now a follower. If you were already a follower comment below as well. This is a mandatory entry! Do this first and then continue with the extra entries.
2nd entry- "Like" E.B. Spider on Facebook! Post on the wall and let her know I sent you over!
3rd entry- Check out E.B. Spider on Etsy and let me know your favorite item.
4th entry- Share this giveaway on your Facebook page or blog. Leave a comment with a link if you do.
Bonus Entry- "Like" Inspired Occasions on Facebook.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry. You have 5 chances to enter. Winner will be chosen via Random.org on February 28th!

Good luck everyone!!

Wedding Cake Trends 2010- part one

So we are looking back at some great trends in wedding cakes last year. There were lots and lots of cupcake towers out there!


 Cupcakes are cute and fun, kind of whimsical and they are easy! There are no cutting fees, no mess. Plus you can do so much with them. They can be elegant and they can just be cute.

They are also less expensive than a tiered cake. Everybody loves cupcakes! Generally brides will choose to have a 6 inch topper to the cupcake tower as well. This give the bride and groom something to cut still for photos and also a spot to put a wedding cake topper. Not everyone knows this or thinks of it but cupcakes can also have a filling just like a regular layer cake. Now I am wondering if cupcakes will continue to be as popular in 2011. We shall see!

Free tickets to Brides Give Back!

I have two free tickets for two lucky brides. If you would like to go to the Brides Give Back even please send me an email!! This is an awesome event and a great cause! You will not be sorry! You can see lots more information here.

email bonnie@inspiredoccasions.com

Giveaway at Mimi Marie Design!

You must go check out this fun giveaway! Mimi Marie Design is giving away a $25 shop credit to Finley and Oliver! They have some really cute custom clothes for kids! I am loving those cupcake shirts! I love supporting local moms running their own businesses as well. Please go to Mimi Marie Design, another local mom owned business and see how to enter! Tell her I sent ya!

Come and See!! The 2011 Brides Give Back Event!!

I am so honored and blessed to be able to participate in this years Brides Give Back Event. I love being able to give back myself and help out the community we live in. Some of the Valleys Best Wedding Vendors will be donating their services and products and it's all for a GREAT cause. Proceeds from the event benefit Save The Family, a local non-profit that assists homeless families. I have donated a wedding cake valued at $450 which would be a cake for 100 people! Check out all the details below! I hope to see you there!

PHOENIX – January 3, 2011 – Engaged couples have yet another reason to celebrate. Tickets
are now on sale for the February 23rd, 2011 Brides Give Back event. Brides and grooms are invited
to save big on their wedding day expenses by bidding on services donated by the Valley’s top
wedding professionals. The big day soiree will take place at the Historic Icehouse in downtown
Phoenix and will benefit Save the Family Foundation of Arizona, a local charity helping homeless
families get back on their feet.

The cocktail party auction will offer brides and grooms the opportunity to sip champagne, mingle
with Phoenix’s luxury wedding professionals, and bid on everything from photography to florals.
Couples who attended the last Brides Give Back event secured wedding day essentials at as little
as 30 percent of retail value, with all proceeds directly benefiting families in need. The event will
feature musical entertainment, silent and live auctions, and cake samples galore.
For more details or to purchase tickets, visit http://www.bridesgiveback.com/. Following the social
entrepreneurship trend, all ticket sales and 100% of net proceeds benefit Save the Family.

Brides Give Back began in 2009. In it’s first year, the auction of more than $30,000 worth of
donated goods and services helped to provide a night of shelter for 77 victims of domestic abuse.


About Save the Family
Save the Family has been serving homeless families with children for more than 20 years.
Founded in 1988, Save the Family was created to help homeless families become self-sufficient.
On the net: http://www.savethefamily.org/

Contacts
Event Chair
Cicely Rocha-Miller
480.219.8067
cicely@lifedesignevents.com

Event Founder
Sarah Hubbell
480.280.4402
sarahmhubbell@gmail.com


www.bridesgiveback.com •480.219.8067 •info@bridesgiveback.com

Free Book

It's a book.... about a baker! And it's free. Could be a good read so I had to share. Mostly because it's about a baker. :)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00436EZYO?tag=frugir-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B00436EZYO&adid=0QWWX2TN2A1JQN4CJMP2

How to Make a Cupcake Stand

Skip to my Lou is one of my favorite blogs. :) I like crafty stuff. Here is a fun post about making your own Cupcake Stand.

Special Chocolate

These chocolates are a family recipe. They are our coconut balls and we also make a peanut butter version. They are most popular at Christmas time and Valentines day. They are also great for wedding favors.

My Newest Cupcake!

I wanted to share the newest gourmet cupcake flavor I have been working on. This is the Key Lime Cupcake with a key lime drizzle and cream cheese frosting. So yummy!

As a reminder we also have a fabulous Smore's Cupcake and a Margarita Cupcake. What are some cupcake flavors you would be interested in seeing here?