Now that September has arrived and the orders are beginning to slow down, I can finally reflect on the last few months. We moved our shop from Keizer, OR to Portland, OR three months ago (why we decided to move in the middle of wedding season has much to do with a huge kitchen and a double oven…) and it’s been a whirlwind ever since.

We have been getting some wonderful orders from my fellow Portlanders (and surrounding areas) creative too! Just look at this awesome boombox cake ordered from Stephanie H. out of Hillsboro

One of my favorite wedding cakes of the season came from Emily H. in Portland. We delivered to the outdoor patio at Departure, a really excellent modern Asian restaurant in downtown Portland. The view was quite the backdrop for the cake!

And last but not least, I have to mention the 200 mini cakes made for Ashley P. for her wedding at the Crown Ballroom in downtown Portland. These little cakes were individually crafted for each of her guests and really complimented the opulence of her big day ! (photos via alturastudio.com/blog)

I have a few more fabulous cakes coming up before the season wraps up and look forward to more birthday cakes and special occasion cakes that are just as unique as the fabulous portlanders who order them!

~Liz

It’s about time I posted some details about my epic ceramic project from the winter. The process was long, there were a few bumps in the road and a few scares but I finally finished my beloved castle and it’s time to show it off!!

I have had a love for ceramics and building whatever pops into my head out of clay ever since I took a ceramics class for my elective back in 2007. There is something so relaxing and fulfilling about building something with your hands that becomes a functional/beautiful permanent thing.

My Howl’s Moving Castle project began with a love for the movie itself. When I first saw Hayao Miyazaki‘s film, I instantly fell in love with the characters and the dreamlike story. Who wouldn’t love a magical castle that transported you through dimensions?

I began the construction process by making the base of the castle and the upper part in two separate pieces so that I could make sure it was very stable and not too heavy. I planned on gluing them together after the Raku process.

I had to plan the piece very carefully so that it was not to big to fit into our Raku kiln and I also had to keep in mind that we needed to somehow pick up this molten hot piece of clay once it was done firing and move it to its reduction can. I made some handles for the sides and the back that would appear to be pipes and hopefully compliment the style of the castle. I wasn’t able to find good photos of every side of the castle to know how to accurately reproduce every detail so I pretty much made some things up but the spirit of the castle was definitely there.

Usually a Raku piece is so small it is not a problem to just pick it up with the tongs but this castle was very large (the largest they have attempted to put into the Raku kiln) and needed THREE people to lift it out of the kiln and place onto the prepared sand pit where it was then covered with a metal trash can.

You can watch the video process here. It’s quite the sight to see!

When we pulled the paper away and I saw that beautiful copper I almost fell over. The piece managed to make it through this whole process and didn’t explode AND the color turned out perfect! All that broke was a wing when we put the can over the top right after it came out of the kiln. I managed to glue that on later and you can’t even tell! I got so dang lucky on this one I couldn’t believe it.

I have entered this piece into the Oregon State Fair Art Competition. You can see it in person at the Hart of the Garden building where it is on display with a lot of other awesome artwork. Guess the judges are a fan of Howl too because I won first place It’s nice when hobbies pay off isn’t it?

Holy cow! One of my cakes (the Geisha cake) has been published in the 3rd installment of Cake Central Magazine!!! *falls over from shock

Here is the cover of the latest issue

If you are in the cake industry and if you have EVER seen an episode of Food Network Challenge, you know who Kerry Vincent is! The judge you love to hate may be harsh but she is extremely talented and is held in very high regard by cake decorators. She is also the creator of the supremely popular show and website www.oklahomasugarartist.com, the largest sugar artist show in the united states. She has also contributed to cakecentral.com where cake decorators from all over the world show their stuff, enter competitions and get advice from other decorators through forums. It’s an EXTREMELY helpful, inspiring and informative source for decorators and just lovers of cake.

Jackie Shaffer (creator of Cakecentral.com) recently launched Cake Central Magazine. Only on their 3rd installment, it’s already reached supreme popularity. This magazine features the best of the best when it comes to every type of cake, in full color, glossy pages. When the first issue launched, they put out a request on Cake Central to decorators for submissions of cake. It is a HUGE honor to be chosen and they never tell you if you made the cut, you just find out when you get the issue.

Well I didn’t make the cut the first two issues and my third issue was late in coming to our new address due to address changes and such. I finally got it today and just flipped through and caught a glimpse of a familiar cake. I paused in disbelief for a moment, thought “no way” and then flipped to back to see if my name was listed under Oregon contributors…IT WAS!!!

*commence freaking out

They chose my Geisha cake to be featured under the section “Party Cakes. You won’t believe it’s cake!”

How awesome!

Thank you Cake Central Magazine for publishing my photo. I hope this isn’t a one time thing! I feel so completely honored and blown away.