This is a chocolate cake with espresso coffee buttercream filling; covered with dark chocolate ganache. The hard hat is made from pastillage and the figure is made from gumpaste. The whole thing is (technically) edible LOL.
I had trouble with the hat and didn't think it was going to dry in time; but it all came together in the end.

This cake was made for a 4yr old who is made about dinosaurs and dragons. It's chocolate mudcake, covered with a layer of ganache and a layer of fondant. It even survived a road trip of over 10hrs!

This is a vanilla fondant and dark chocolate ganache covered chocolate mud cake. I live close to the beach here in Australia so in the past few weeks I collected some shells with great textures and made moulds from them by pressing them into some plain pastillage. Pastillage dries very hard. Then I used some ivory coloured gumpaste and pressed that into my moulds and made shells; these were allowed to dry for a few days before I coloured them with cream petal dust; the dolphin bride and groom and the frangipanni (plummeria) flowers are also made from gumpaste. The widely spaced cornelie type piping is done in royal icing. The tiny frangipanni flowers on the bride's veil were tiny ejector flowers.

I didn't tell the bride that I was including some frangipannis (plummeria) on her cake - I knew that they were a favourite flower. When she arrived she had frangipannis (plummeria) in her hair and was just blown away that I had included them on her cake.

Cold porcelain and acrylics. Everyone who golfs should have one of these. A putting fairy, or drive fairy personally I think a washing up, tidying up or cooking fairy would be good. At my age, the toothfairy just doesn't give value for money. Tee hee

This is made from cold porcelain, and coloured with acrylics. The little coffee bags were printed, cut out and glued to the base. He was a commission for a lady golfer who is mad about coffee. The colour of the scarf matches the colour of their uniform.

This was the first etched piece I attempted. I love celtic and medieval design. I had this round piece of mirror and it just seemed to scream spirals.

My very first piece of stained glass was a mermaid. I just love that sound as you run your glass cutter across the glass. It's very satisfying for some reason. So what should I do with the mermaid now I've made? Hmm she'd look good on the side of a mirror. So that was my next project. I love the glass colours and the glass nuggets for bubbles.

This is a fondant covered dark fruit cake. As summer is coming to Australia thick and fast, I very nearly got to the wrist slashing stage with this one purely because the humidity here was about 80% which made the fondant sticky and difficult to work with.
   
I had covered a the cake the previous night when the humidity had dropped. It looked fab. The next morning I moved it to put onto the fondant covered cake board and one of the cakes fondant sides tore off!!!! ARRRRRRGGGHHH! I did the dance of a thousand tanty's (tantrums) then deep some deep breathing and rolled out a replacement piece of fondant and mended it. The "fix" was almost seemless. Phew!

The shoes were another source of headache. The pastillage wasn't behaving itself in the humidity so I resorted to using a piece of acetate film and florist wires to get the shoes to keep their shape. I live on the midnorth coast of NSW and the cake is being taken to Brisbane which is more humid and tropical than here! So I was hedging my bets.

But as you can see, it all came together and the client was very pleased with it.

The original spec for this cake was two hearts as one. The picture that was supplied was white, a frill and a few roses which, believe me, was as interesting as the box my RTR icing comes in.
So I carefully asked if she knew the sort of colours and things that were available these days. She was amazed and then excited. I made a dark chocolate mud cake, covered it with ganache and then pink vanilla flavoured fondant. I also made a heart shaped jewellery box from cold porcelain. So now the bride to be is under the impression that she is having a birthday party with a lovely cake provided by her boyfriend's mum. After being with the boyfriend for 6 years, the last thing she is expecting is a proposal!

This cake is a fondant covered, chocolate mud cake. Everything you see, except the poles and ribbon, are edible. I don't make my own fondant I use Orchard's ready to roll fondant.

The horses and other details are done in modelling paste and royal icing. The top and middle of the carousel are made from pastillage.

There is something about carousels that I just love. Here on the mid north coast of NSW, Australia, we didn't have carousels at our local show (faire) just merry go rounds which are a totally different thing. I used to see the big carousels in movies and tv shows and think how wonderful they were. All those horses with their embellishments and bows or the ones that had unicorns, or other fantasy animals. The artistry that went into those pieces is just amazing!