Cakes for Cakes

My niece, Sunny, turned two yesterday!  She's so stinking cute.  My sister asked if I'd do cupcakes for her to take to daycare and her birthday cake.  I said sure (cuz you know, I don't have anything else going on right now).  My sister never lets me down when it comes to finding an appropriate challenge for me.

Here's what we created this go round:
These were the cupcakes we made to take to daycare (thank you pinterest - you fantastically evil invention you).  Apparently Sunny quite liked these.  She insisted Cassidy bring them in the house Wednesday night & let her eat one!  I told her her daycare lady probably would want to kill us since they were 1-cupcakes, 2-had frosting, and 3-20 m&m's a piece on each one!

My sister wanted me to create a mermaid cake for her birthday cake.  Then she found gelatin bubbles (thanks again pinterest).  I have never done gelatin bubbles before but happily accepted this challenge.  I'm always looking for ways to improve my skills :)  The gelatin bubbles weren't as bad as I thought they'd be.  The worst thing about them was that once I opened the water balloons I then had four kids blowing up water balloons & drawing faces on them with sharpies (which Brookelyn found & proceeded to color on her own arms!)  The sponge, coral, starfish & sea weed are all marshmallow fondant.

I think the cake turned out really cute.  I wish I would have done an 8 inch on the top layer instead of a nine inch.  Then there would have been more of a ledge for me to put stuff on between the cake layers.  The original picture my sister found also had purple fondant flowers & sea shells, pink sea shells & some grey rocks.  Had I had a bit more time I would have done the rocks.  I didn't have the right cookie cutter to do the flower & I'm not sure how they did the sea shell and made it look so real.  Next time!

In sad news, my mixer died today.  I've had it five years or less (I didn't get it until after we moved into our house and we've been here six years this April).  At least I finished Sunny's cake & cupcakes before it died.  Now to find a new one...