Jacqui's Birthday Cake

Last week I made this cake for my friend Jacqui's 24th birthday. This was my birthday gift to her, so I really wanted it to be special. Of course it had to be delicious, but I also wanted it to be modern and feminine, just like her.

As you can see it is a black and white striped round box with a white lid, and topped with a fuchsia bow. I also covered the cake board in the same colour fondant, but this hasn't quite come out in these photos with the lighting. The pink was definitely more fucshia than hot pink, created using Wilton 'Rose'. At any rate, I think it makes for a really striking and classic combination.

Working with black and white fondant sounds simple, but it's actually quite tricky to do. For this cake I covered the whole cake with fondant before attaching the rolled strips one by one to the sides and smoothing them over so that they looked as is they joined, but without any unsightly black smudging!

Jacqui shared the cake with friends over drinks at the Opera Bar, and after a few, this fondant bow ended up adorning the birthday girl's head! ha ha :)

Should I ever realise one of my (many) dreams to become a professional cake decorator, this design will be known as The Jacqui!

This is a short and sweet post today, so I thought I'd make it worth your while by making my very first cameo appearance on my blog! Here's a picture of me, Ladybird (left) and Jac (right) with the cake...

Love,

Ladybird x

Reverie Room & a Giveaway!

Last month I happened to be in Kensington while UNSW Open Day was on. I heard that there were some markets on, and that there would be many College of Fine Arts (COFA) students selling their creative wares at the event. I thought I'd check it out, and I was so glad I did. On the day, however, I did not have my camera on me, but luckily the girls were able to provide me some great shots for you to peruse in this post.

Whenever I visit markets of any sort really, I often feel amazed by the amount of creativity and talent out there. I then often reflect on the fact that such people do not often get the exposure that they perhaps deserve in light of their skills and abilities. So it is in this headspace that I decided to introduce you to this little label I discovered at the market - Reverie Room.

As you will see from some of their creations, there is quite a bit of food inspiration here. Not quite edible, but beautiful nonetheless! Cards, jewellery, felt items, and more...

Berry cakes, anyone?

 

Felt-cake ring  

I asked Jacqueline and Wendy, the creators behind Reverie Room, to tell me about more about the label.

How did Reverie Room get started?


We’ve been designing & making things to sell at our campus’ annual design market throughout our years at uni. Now that we’re almost graduating, we want to get more serious in our designing+making, thus we came up with Reverie Room. It is also a pathway to get our creations exposed to more people outside. We’ve also always been working together on our assignments, so we know that we have built up a good team. The name Reverie Room came up during our tea-time, while chatting about our dreams & ambitions in life. We’re both dreamers, that’s why the name “Reverie Room” fits us well!

How would you describe your collection?

The brooch-frame-card is our first category of cards to fulfill our loves and ambition in creating products for people to share their happiness with their beloved. We also want to pass on our blessings and happiness to anyone who receives our card from their friend. Don’t you think that is a great way to spread the happiness?

The images on the cards are a combination of our snap shoot together with our hand-drawn illustrations. We love photography and we just snap away at beautiful things (especially FOOD), so we thought it wonderful to use some of our favourite photos on our cards.

 

Cards

 

More beautiful cards

Besides the cards, we also have a range of older works. It consists of needle-felted cakes & doughnuts; besides looking tasty, they can be used as brooches or rings. We will expand our needle-felted range – we are considering the possibilities of introducing a limited edition series of ‘blind box’ needle-felted items. Stay tuned for our latest news!

How does food inspire your work?

Both FOOD and DESIGN are two of our biggest loves in life – and they do relate to each other (for us anyway). We always come up with ideas, concepts, get inspired or struck by epiphanies during our dinner-outings, over dessert (our favourite!) or drinks.

What's your favourite piece at the moment?

Jacqueline: My favourite piece is the crane “Good Luck” brooch-frame-card because it has a dreamy feel to it – cranes hanging from the sky, above a cruise ship that would take you to a dreamy surreal land where everything is beautiful (and maybe full of yummy food too!)
As for the needle-felted cakes, my favourite is the blueberry-topped cake, as I like anything with blueberries in/on it!

Wendy: For the cards, “You Are Beautiful” is my choice, which is attached with a flower brooch and a creamy rainbow color tone; the whole combination is light-hearted. I would be touched without doubt regardless who the sender is.

For the felted cakes, as they are my favorites, I love them all! However if I can only choose one of them, I would love to have the one with blueberries topping; they look the most delicious among all!

Mmmm.. blueberries...

How can people find out more about Reverie Room?

We have a group on Facebook – just search “Reverie Room” and you’ll find us. We are also selling our cards on http://www.etsy.com/shop/reverieroomdesign and http://www.reverieroom.bigcartel.com/.


If you have any special requests, ie. custom-made cards, needle-felted items or anything design, feel free to email us at reverieroom.reverieroom@gmail.com

*** GIVEAWAY***

Thanks to Reverie Room, one lucky reader has the chance to win this lovely bundle of items from the label, including a card, needle-felt cake and necklace.

To enter, simply comment on this post! This giveaway is restricted to Australian residents only sorry. Entries close October 13, 2010 at midnight AEST.



This giveaway has now closed. Congratulations to JanJan!

Ladybird x

Mushroom and Potato Soup

The wet, dreary weather over the weekend saw the return of soup to the Ladybird household. I chose to use the ingredients I had on hand to make a comforting a nutritious soup. It's packed with mushrooms - one of my very favourite vegetables. Not only are mushrooms packed with B vitamins, but they are also high in particular antioxidants.

Mushroom & Potato Soup
An original Ladybird recipe

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 large sebago potatoes (400g), peeled and diced
250g swiss brown mushrooms*
250g button mushrooms*
1 tsp fresh, picked thyme leaves (plus extra to garnish)
1 bay leaf
5 cups vegetable stock
1/2c thickened cream
salt and pepper, to taste
* rinsed and patted dry with paper towel, then sliced (no need to peel)

Method
1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add the onion, garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Saute for about 5 minutes, or until the onion softens.
2. Stir in the potato and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Turn the heat up to high and add the mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season well.

4. Add the stock and bring to the boil, then reduce to medium heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Blend (I use a stick blender) until smooth, and season further if required.
6. Stir in the cream, and voila, tasty soup is ready! Serve in bowls garnished with fresh thyme, along with some crusty bread.

All in all a delicious and quick soup, and satisfying to create something with the most basic of ingredients. Soups are great like that, you can use whatever you have a create a wholesome meal out of it!


Love,

Ladybird x