Best Friends Forever

I feel like a very lucky girl to be surrounded by great friends.  This year two of my great friends got married  and I feel privileged to have been part of their special days. 

The first of the weddings was J and V in June of 2012 at a beautiful coffee plantation in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.  Obviously, for logistical purposes, we weren't able to make her wedding cake, but we were able to throw her a very special Tiffany inspired bridal shower. 

We started off with a Breakfast at Tiffany's (well more like brunch...) invitation.

Then we got to work on making all the special things we were going to have for our guests.  

Guelcys put together an awesome candy station and adorable royal icing cookies shaped like little black dresses, purses, and diamond rings.

For favors, we gave Tiffany-style boxes with a cupcake for the hubbys who were left at home, miniature Tiffany bags with a tiffany blue compact inside, and our friend H made these gorgeous blue bracelets for our guests. She also made the white Pearl bracelets which we used for a game and guess who won?

That's right!  Our very own Guelcys!  No one else stood a chance!



 

 

And these tiffany blue glass coasters were the prizes for our game winners.

And, of course, there was the cake:

We were so happy to be able to do celebrate this very special event for our friend. She was so surprised and loves everything Tiffany, so this was definitely a dream for her :)  

Here's the happy bride-to-be and all the guests wearing their little black dresses.

Next time, I'll give you the rundown on my second wedding, which was just last weekend.  Can't wait to share :)

*Viv*



Princess Power

This past weekend was a very special one for me and also the reason why we've been remiss in blogging.  My princess Celeste turned 4 years old!  I cannot believe how time flies.  The past month and a half have been spent preparing for her royal celebration and, of course, her princess cake!   My daughter chose the six princesses she wanted represented on the cake: Rapunzel (with Pascal), Tiana (with Frog Naveen), Belle, Jasmine, Ariel (with Flounder), and Aurora.  We topped it with the most important princess of the day - Princess Celeste (with her doggy, Chiqui).  All of the princesses were hand-cut our of sugar paste or fondant, Aurora's fountain was made from white chocolate, the stained glass windows were made of gelatin, and the rocks were chocolate.

The party was a great success and my princess loved her cake! Seeing her reaction that morning made the many many many hours of working on this cake 100% worth it.  :D

Since I'm sharing my own daughter's princess cake, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share two other princess cakes we've done. 

This one was a representation of Rapunzel's Tower from Tangled.  We loved making this cakes and the birthday girl was in absolute awe.  Her expression was priceless!

And this Aurora cake was for my daughter's good friend's third birthday.  The girls had a grand old time wearing the sugar crown :)

These cakes were some of our favorites because no matter how old you are, what girl wouldn't love to be a princess, right?  :p

*V*

Happy Holidays!

Make your own free digital greeting

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays!! It's such a treat to be able to have dinner with the entire family and enjoy what's really important in life. And I actually LOVE making the turkey. I wake up early, turn on the Macy's parade and cook all day. And although by dinner time I'm exhausted, I love to see a table full of yummy food and the smiling faces of my family. I am thankful for so many things...a loving husband, a great family and an amazing business partner!

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!!
 Love, Guelcys

Sisterly Love

What better day to share these next cakes than today...
my brother's birthday! Happy Birthday Chris!!!

Making cakes for family is so much fun. Especially when it's a surprise, like these.

Dad, Mom, Chris, Me & Ray

When I was ten I was blessed (and at times cursed...lol ) with a brother. I had been begging my parents for a sibling for years. I can still remember the day my brother Chris was born like it was yesterday. I wanted to do something special for his 25th birthday last year. We were super busy with other cakes that weekend. I told Chris I hoped he would not be disappointed, but we just didn't have any time to make him a cake. But I lied!! Viv and I had a plan all along. His PS3 was my inspiration for his cake. We even added some Netflix DVDs with special titles. My parents, Ray and I had him meet us for breakfast (we wanted Viv, Jorge and Celeste join us and they were leaving for a cruise so it had to be an early celebration) at a local Cuban restaurant. He was totally surprise!!

Ray was lucky to get two siblings. Milly, his older sister, and Midely, his younger sister. And of course I wanted to make each them their own special creation. Milly is an 80's kid so what better than a full out 80's cake! It had it all from the leg warmers and cassettes to Mrs. Pac Man and a Rubik's cube. And of course what teenage 80's girl didn't love the movie Sixteen Candles (and JAKE RYAN!! Yes, I still remember his name). We changed the title a bit, since it was her 37th birthday, and used it as the inspiration for the sugar topper. Here is a great picture of Ray with his sisters.

The cake idea for Midely's birthday came to me as soon as she told me we were celebrating at her favorite sushi spot. I had wanted to make a sushi cake and this was the perfect opportunity. The whole cake was edible. The bowl, plate and chopsticks were made of sugar and the sushi was made of fondant. She walked in and thought it was real sushi. I love that! It's the best compliment when someone says "that's cake?". 

Hopefully they enjoyed their surprise cakes as much as I enjoyed making them. And I'll just keep them guessing as to when they may be surprised again ;)
Guelcys

Invite Inspiration...

Sometimes, people have a set idea of what they want their cake to look like and sometimes they just want something that would match the theme of their party.  Something that everyone who is at the party will have seen and recognize, is the invite.  So, taking inspiration from the invite produces a cake that fits in seamlessly with the decor of the party.  Here are some of our favorites along with the invite that inspired them...



Baby shower cake with sugar carriage topper and butterflies.  The top tier was made to match the pattern on the back of the invite.

The engagement cake for a couple who got engaged in Paris - how romantic, right?!?!  Silhouette couple topper is all sugar.

Baby Shower cake with sugar butterfly topper. 

Baby shower cake with matching cupcake for the daddy-to-be.  The pattern on the bottom tier matches the pattern in the letters in 'baby' on the invite. 

The moral of the story is...anything can serve as insipration for a wonderful cake!!!  We really love taking a general idea and putting our own spin on it :D  We've also done a few baby shower cakes inspired by nursery bedding...but we'll save those for a future post. 

Till next time...

*V*

Aunt Viv and the Fresh Nephews of Miami...

Just this past Thursday, my friend H gave birth to her second son, S, and in celebration of him, I've decided to share some stories about my nephews :-)

Another tidbit of information about me - I'm an only child.  So even though I come from a really big family (11 aunts/uncles and 19 first cousins), I don't have any blood-related nieces or nephews.  However, I am so lucky to have two amazing nephews, A (6) and E (3), who are my brother-in-law's sons.  In addition,  I've been blessed with very close friends whose kids call me 'Auntie' or 'Tía'.  Unfortunately, my nephew D lives in Philly and my niece L lives in Colombia, so I have never had the honor of making them a cake.  However, for the ones who live here in Miami, we've been able to make some very special cakes.

For his 6th Birthday, A had a 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates' themed party.   We came up with this scene from Shipwreck Beach which included a personalized 'Jake' sign, sugar replicas of the five main characters: Jake, Izzy, Cubby, Skully the Parrot, and Bucky the Pirate Ship.  The 'water' is made of sugar and the 'sand' is crushed Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (Yum!).  The treasure chest is the candle.

E had a 'Spongebob' party for his 3rd birthday.  His cake depicted SpongeBob's Pineapple House in Bikini Bottom.  Everything is edible, including the hand-molded SpongeBob.

For my friend H's son, who loves Elmo and was turning 1, we came up with this very colorful cake.  The Elmo topper was handmade out of sugar.

  

Here is little R with mommy H and daddy J, snacking on some frosting.

Finally, as it turns out, little R is, as of Thursday, now a big brother!  In August, for H's baby shower, we made this special cake to welcome the new addition.  S, auntie Viv loves you!  It was designed to match the invite that was created by my sister-in-law, Betty (http://creativeinvitationsbybetty.webs.com/).  I would say creativity runs in the family, but we are not blood-related, so I'll just say, "Birds of a creative feather..." 

So, to my adorable nephews/nieces, I say, "I love you and look forward to being part of many more of your special days!"

*V*