Art- My Passion. My love. My life.

Growing up I was always interested in art.  Art class was my favorite time of the day.  Getting into high school I realized a had a little bit of talent.... Just enough talent to think "Hey I should be an art teacher someday." So after I graduated I went off to college with the dreams of studying art and one day teaching it.
One year later I got married. Ended up moving back to Iowa and going to DMACC for a few semesters before becoming a mommy!  Insert putting my life on hold here   ___________________________________________________
One day while I was thinking of jobs I could do from home I thought hey I could take photos and my friend could make cakes and together we could rule the wedding scene. I began taking classes to become more familiar with the camera and she wanted to take classes to decorate cakes.  I thought "why not learn with her then if she needs help I'll be able to step in." I loved it!

Going on 7 years ago I started my first Michaels Wilton class and took 3 classes from them before I ended up teaching for them.  I taught the first and second class for them for about 6 months.  It was fun but I moved to a new house farther away so I quit the Michaels gig.  I wanted to focus on my photography again and didn't advertise the cakes anymore.  At one point I knew I had to choose though and I thought to myself... "Man Michelle it's a LOT of work to go to a wedding take photos all day long and then go home and edit them for a week." Where as yes you have prep for wedding cakes but you get to do that all at home with your radio on.  You take the cake set it up and you get to go home you are done for the night! It's amazing really!

I chose cakes!
I promised myself last year I would learn 1 major new thing a month for a year.  Which I totally blew out of the water.  At the beginning of this year I have already started that promise again.  I have watched countless informational videos and have tried 3 new techniques.  I will be trying out hand painting cakes soon and have already busted into the modeling chocolate world more. Learning what I did wrong when actually making the chocolate to begin with...(That helped a LOT!) 

Going to school 10 years ago to become an art teacher may be a thing of the past but I didn't go too far off the road.  I know I didn't finish college but I KNOW this is where God has planted me and I'm thrilled to see where he takes me in the next few years.

Goals:
1.)When I get my youngest (now 2 in 2013) into school open a shop.
2.)Step out of my box - get uncomfortable - make new designs I wouldn't have imagined before.
3.)Bring HOME as much money as my hard working husband.  (Which as I've said before means I actually make at least x3 as much for taxes, supplies, rent, employees.)
4.)Have at least 3 full time employees.
I'm sure there are more goals but I'll leave you with a few photos of new techniques I've learned!

 This cake I learned how to make and use one continuous line of fondant with an extrude that would normally be used with clay.  Makes for a VERY nice effect on cakes! Very happy about that blog find!   

 This cake I put fondant on wax paper and then attached it onto my cake -that way I didn't stretch my design.  VERY handy trick!

30 years young time to play TF2

Happy 30th birthday to my husband Josh.  He works 60+ hours a week for our family so I wanted to make him a special cake this year.  He is really big into gaming so I asked him what kind of cake he might like.  If you look up the two games he plays the most there really aren't many cakes to get ideas from so this is an original cake!  We decided he needed a Crate from Team Fortress 2. 
I made this cake by first putting a strip of black fondant around the middle of the cake and then adding the brown boards. ... Looking back I would have just covered the cake in black and then added the boards.  It was far to hard to add the boards and A)keep them stuck to the side of the already dry buttercream and B) keep the buttercream from showing through the boards.
Once I had all the boards on I painted on the darker accents to make them look more like wood.  I also painted the "Mann Co" sign and "Happy Birthday Joshua" onto the cake.  I added the chain and lock and it was complete.  Pretty simple cake that Josh just loved!