Fondant: (n) Adult Play-Doh

This past weekend I was super busy getting ready for my best friend's baby shower. We have been friends since the 6th grade and we are so similar in so many ways that I think we were separated at birth and just lived on different sides of town (my side being the better one ha!). She has done so much for me in the past that I wanted to do something a little special for her shower so, I volunteered to do the cupcakes, cake, and fruit salad. In the past we have always gotten together before a party that we are either helping with or hosting and bake up some delicious creations. This was my first solo run with fondant...ahh!  The theme of her shower was Peter Rabbit so I hopped on Pinterest and Google images to get some ideas of what I wanted to do. 

First I found these super cute cupcake liners on Amazon, and these adorable picket fence cupcake wrappers by Wilton at Michael's..

These two things got the vision in my head that I needed. So I headed to Michael's and Shoprite to buy my cake mixes and decorating supplies. I borrowed a beautiful cupcake tower from another friend of mine so I knew I wanted to make a cake to go on the top tier and then also 48 cucpcakes for the other tiers. For two days I attempted to make a 3d version of Peter Rabbit (umm yeah wasn't happening.) So finally I decided to go the route of "simply adorable" (simply the keyword)  and had fun making miniature size vegetables for Mr. McGregor's garden and this was my outcome...

My friend and her husband are not telling anyone the name they have chosen so I made a cute wooden sign and made it looked etched in with "Welcome Baby". I am quite pleased with the final result on my first solo project.

 A lot of people asked me at the party how I made the sign look like wood grain and it was actually quite simple. Here is my little secret...I used Duff's butter cream fondant from Michael's it has a creamy color look to it and as far as fondant goes actually tastes pretty good. I took a clump of fondant in the amount of much I thought I would need and took 2 toothpick scoops worth of brown gel colouring and then rolled the fondant into a fat log shape. Then I took the log and folded it in half and rolled it into a log shape again. Then I folded that log in half and rolled it into a log again, and continued with this pattern until I had a nice wood grain look and rolled it out. I took my back end of my knife and made little indentations in the fondant sign to give the effect of an old piece of wood. I then attempted to make the words look burned into the wood bydotting a brown food color pen in to the fondant to form the letters.

My cupcakes I wanted to look like a carrot patch and a flower garden so I used a #233 icing tip which is a multi-opening tip. I put the chocolate cupcakes in the picket fence wrappers and the vanilla in the peter rabbit liners...

I was also in charge of the fruit salad and for anyone who knows me I can't just go simple for most things so I went on Pinterest and found this adorable picture of a baby in a cradle fruit salad. Here was my early morning attempt and I have to say it came out stinkin cute!

If you guys have any questions on how I did anything or where I got stuff please feel free to ask. I am not one to keep my techniques or were I found things a secret :)

Hoping you all have a wonderful week!

<3 Kris