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?

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.

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

Starting May 21st, Artisan Cake Company will be packing up and flying north to Portland! This has been a long time coming and it’s very exciting to see it finally coming to life! My husband works as a graphic designer, commutes at least an hour each way every day and that is really wearing him down. Also, pretty much 90% of all my orders come from Portland so it will be nice to be closer to work on both our ends.

We will be re-locating to NW Portland near Washington Square Mall off Highway 26. Tastings will still be held by appointment only.

I am very excited to immerse my self in the Portland cake culture. The area is so creative and already filled with a lot of talented bakeries and cake designers but I really think I will have a lot to offer with the types of cakes that I do since we specialize in fondant and custom cakes.

It has been challenging moving in the middle of the busy wedding season but we are making it work! I am extremely excited to be in a bigger kitchen and work space to make room for the growing number of cakes we have received this year. Hooray for moving on up!

See you on the west side

Congratulations Amanda Oberst!! You are the WINNER of this months cake give away! You are now entitled to a free custom cake topper or set of cupcake toppers worth up to $200! Thanks for being a fan

Didn’t win this month? No worries! Every month I give away a gift certificate for a cake or topper (amounts vary depending on my mood Want to know how to win your free cake? Just visit my facebook page and head on over to the photo albums. Choose one or all of my cakes to tag yourself in. Odds are, the more you tag yourself, the bigger your chances are of winning!

Click the icon below to go to my facebook page and start tagging!

If you live nearby, you can put your gift certificate towards any of my cakes or toppers and if you are out of state, you can have any custom topper you like shipped right to your front door Sorry, we don’t ship cakes. My thoughts are, if a cake is durable enough to be shipped then it’s probably not edible and that’s not the type of cakes we make ’round these parts

Remember, tag yourself in ANY of the photos from my albums. The winning photo is chosen randomly as well as the tag.

So keep tagging yourself and good luck!

~Liz

Special requests were for hummingbirds and sparrows and the rest was up to me! I decided to go with some owls and blue birds (my fave) to round out the mix. The end result was some cupcakes with a cute factor off the charts!

Just look at those little toesies!

I used some gold dust (did you know gold is edible?) to add some shine to the hummingbirds head

I think the little blue birds might be my fave but they do remind me of another little blue bird…

Tiana is an independent fashion designer from Russia.She has  a degree and postdegree diploma in architecture.

You can see some of her collection at her youtube channel:http://www.youtube.com/user/TianaAgapcheva.

Tiana donates a percentage of  sales to the “Give Life” Foundation. How awesome is that?? Talented and generous. Truly a one-of-a-kind artist. http://www.podari-zhizn.ru/ The founders of the charity are actresses Dina Korzun and Chulpan Khamatova who have been helping the leukemia children for several years now.

Her bolero’s are hand made and extremely eye catching. They are definitely unique and you can just tell that Tiana adores what she does. Her talent shines from every piece she does. My favorite color is red and I practically fell over when I saw this beauty.

The detail is just jaw dropping. Here are some more gorgeous examples

Do you not adore those little feather cap sleeves?

This one is just too cute with the little polka dots

Wouldn’t this one be so perfect over your wedding dress if it got chilly or part of your going away outfit after the wedding? Simply to die for

Tiana makes more than just boleros. Check out all her wonderful creations for sale at her Etsy Page or visit her blog

If you ever want to trade a cake for a bolero just let me know Tiana

Check out that psycho smile! I think I felt my face crack  with happiness lol!

Then it was time for the group shot! That’s me with the drummer! ohhh ya!

Thanks to fellow finalist Darren for this photo!

After we met MUSE, we barely had enough time to check in to the Jupiter Hotel, go to dinner and meet up with the limo to take us to the concert! It was the craziest/hectic/most fun day of my life! What was really great is the driver let Devan and our other friend Elizabeth ride with us!

Here is the opening part to the concert. The first half is kinda long but they really built up the suspense! Freaking loved the effects of the whole show!

One more pic of me and the girls at the end of the show

The Jupiter hotel is the really hipster place on the East side. Our room was very trendy and we decided to take some photos in front of the backdrop. Going with the fancy, spoiled theme of the evening, we decided to pose as vapid models looking into space. I think we pulled it off well. lol

So I just have to wait for the radio station to contact me with info on picking up my awesome iPad and Autographed guitar! I am soooooooo insanely excited!

Thank you soooo much 94.7 and MUSE for giving me this awesome prize. I am seriously overwhelmed with honor and disbelief (if you don’t believe it, just watch the video one more time lol). I will remember this day FOREVER! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!

Her latest order was this lovely basket of pansies for her grandmother’s 92nd birthday. Her birthday is the first day of spring and her favorite flowers are pansies. I really enjoyed making this cake and tried to make it extra special for such a good client.

This cake is chocolate hazelnut and is very moist. It’s my favorite gluten free recipe because you can’t even tell there isn’t any wheat in the cake! It’s very soft and fluffy.

Everyone who clicks the Like button will get a free custom cupcake topper! Not bad for 2 seconds out of your day

Thanks for all the support and wish me luck!

And people say facebook is a waste of time haha!