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?

Hello fellow lovers of cake. Just wanted to brag a moment on my recent contest winnings. A couple months ago, www.cakecentral.com announced they were going to do a steampunk cake contest. Naturally my jaw dropped to the floor as I simultaneously jumped for joy. Cake Central puts on a cake contest monthly and the prize is usually a $24 gift certificate to global sugar art (a cake supply website).

At first there was tons of backlash from all the decorators! Apparently steampunk is not well known amongst the classic cake decorators? (laughs). Ya, so steampunk is a type of genre sort of like scifi in which the future world exists but is run on steam power instead of electricity. Also, usually combined with elements from the victorian era. Its incredibly fun and gorgeous looking. Google it some time and you’ll see what I mean.

So Cake Central seeing all this upsetness (new word, just made it up) within the cake central community, they decide to UP the prize to $200! Yeah baby! I was so all over that! The cricut cake cutter had JUST come out and I really wanted one but it runs a hefty $399 price tag. I thought in my tiny brain that maybe just MAYBE if I won, I could use the prize towards the cutter and it would be an affordable splurge. Muahahaha *rubbing hands together deviously.

This really got intrigue going and there were a lot of really awesome submissions from professionals and newbies alike. Here are some of my favorites.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what a steampunk cake should include and what could make mine different than the rest. Gears, pipes, ornate detailing annnnnd….an octopus. Oh yeah. That’ll do Here are the pics of my cake. Sorry the pics kind of suck. I definitely chose the wrong background…

So after the voting and such, I was informed that I was the winner and after much jumping and screaming and social network updating, I claimed my prize! $200 gift certificate to global sugar art and a certificate from Cake Central saying I had been the winner. So cool! I also get featured in an upcoming newsletter. Double cool!

Ok, my bragging is over. Thanks for listening and thank you to everyone who voted for me. You guys make my world go round

Liz