Don’t call me the Cake Lady

Thanks for colleages

Marion — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:54:06 +0000

And here is the professional shot, with thanks to Powers photography out of Portland for helping me out.

A little photography help

Marion — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:45:45 +0000

I’ve always said I stink at shooting photos of my cake creations. I swear I would double my orders if I could just get some beautiful photos of them like you see on blogs like Style me Pretty. Plenty of photographers have tried to give me ideas on better lighting or staging or whatever, but the real problem is that once a cake is set up, it’s not going anywhere. I can’t just pick it up and move it to a spot in the room with better lighting. Wedding cakes weigh 50+ pounds if they are of any size (despite when you see the guys on Cake Boss carrying them in one hand, waiter-style).

So, my current plan is to beg pro photogs for some of their shots after the wedding. Below is my shot of Michelle and Travis’ cake in April. See the next post for a better look.

Wedding season begins

Marion — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:48:35 +0000

My first big wedding cake of the year was this past weekend, and I did a four-tier cake plus two sheet cakes for an adorable couple, Shayla and Geoff at Willamette Valley Vineyards, where I will be spending a lot of time this summer (thanks, Willaby’s!).

The colors were bright (but dark) purple, cranberry (seen here in accent dots), champagne and ivory. One REALLY thoughtful thing the couple did was leave me two toppers to choose from. One was far too big, and the other was perfect. Thinking about the appropriate scale is so helpful to me but is not something most people think about. Here’s a shot:

Chair Affair 2010

Marion — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:42:37 +0000

Once again I was honored to be part of Community Warehouse’s annual Chair Affair fundraiser. I provided the desserts (nearly 500!) to finish off the dinner that featured food from Relish Catering. The theme was Pan-Asian, so I went with natural tones: brown, tan, redish-brown, green and white. My favorites were the cake sandwiches with lily pads and water lillies. I also had chocolate-dipped shortbread with roasted almonds, chocolate dipped strawberry with a lime green chocolate drizzle, white chocolate cupcakes in rustic brown wrappers and white chocolate-covered petit fours with triple berry jam.

The MO is to put the desserts in the center of each table on a pedestal of some sort so that guests can just help themselves as soon as they are ready. Here are some shots:

Harlequin hot spot

Marion — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:48:07 +0000

In addition to the pink, I somehow latched on to the harlequin pattern (giant diamonds in a grid, like argyle). I’ve never really used it before, and suddenly it was everywhere. Here’s a couple. By the way, the cake on the stand was made for a client who was going to bring it to a dessert auction fundraiser. I’m told they held it until the end to people would be excited to bid on it, and it made more money than any other dessert at the auction. Sweet!

Plenty of pink

Marion — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:35:24 +0000

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of smaller cakes for bridal/baby showers. Many of them have called for a lot of pink, sometimes with brown. One was an Alice in Wonderland theme, and others weren’t so specific.

Topsy turvey cakes are not my favorite, but on the small scale they can be cute. So here are a few:

Loft design

Marion — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:14:29 +0000

When we had our open house at the Willaby’s Loft in September, I’d planned to have a stencil with my business name and logo on the wall so visitors would have it seared into their memories.

Alas, the stencil has been sitting in my kitchen for months, unpainted. But I finally got the inspiration to get it up, and after mulling the best location for quite some time, I painted it as a wrap around the right window edge in my section of the loft space. What do you think?

Color combinations

Marion — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:07:36 +0000

I’m hearing from other bridal service companies that jewel tones are the hot colors this season. Does that mean we finally are done with the “brown and insert color here” trend? That’s kind of too bad because I bought a lot of brown ribbon…

Anyway, I had a lot of turquoise in my designs last summer, and I think that will be one of the hot colors in the jewel-tone palette. Here’s a cake that combines turquoise, brown and orange. This design got rave reviews on the Myriad Facebook page (which you can find a link for on the Myriad home page).

Cakes for friends

Marion — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:00:06 +0000

Some business owners are wary about having friends for customers, but I love it. First of all, it’s great to see someone you are friends with being so happy and in love. When former coworker Lin Ly and her fiance Denver came to see me for a consultation, I had such a great time chatting with them, the hour flew by.

Lin’s sister had created a logo for them that they were using on all their wedding items, so we incorporated that onto the cake as well. They got married in Portland but had their reception on the coast, so the logo linked the two places on a map of Oregon. Such a nice, personal touch for such a great couple.

Little White Cake

Marion — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:33:17 +0000

One of the exclusive offerings we have at Myriad is the Little White Cake. It is for a bride on a tight budget, and starts at $2 per serving for buttercream and $2.50 for fondant. It’s mostly a plain white cake (you can get polka or swiss dots in white added for free) that you or your florist or your future mother-in-law can dress up however you like: ribbon, flowers, feathers, car figurines — whatever you want.

You can find out more on the Myriad Web site. And here’s an example of how cute a Little White Cake can be. This was at Deepwood Estate in Salem, and the couple may have decorated the cake more after I delivered it, but I loved how it looked here in the gazebo where they had it.