Thomas The Tank Engine Cupcakes

"Thomas! Thomas!" Says my nephew Brody. One of his current obsessions is crazy old Thomas the Tank Engine and the many train buddies Thomas has... What is it about Thomas that appeals to so many little kids? The basic friendly yet almost slightly mad face and myriad of expressions, the strong identifiable colours? Oh to see trains again for the first time through a little two year old's eyes... fascination!! Especially trains with FACES!

Sharn emailed good old Coco Cake headquarters with a request for two dozen Thomas themed cupcakes for her little guy's birthday! I thought they turned out pretty cute and Thomas-like... Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream in blue plaid cupcake liners, topped with sugar fondant Thomas, Percy and Gordon train faces! :)

I made an extra Thomas cupcake especially for my little Bro... !

We Interrupt Our Normal Blogging With...

It was my BIRTHDAY on Sunday! Hooray! I turned... gasp... 33. THIRTY THREE! thirty three. See, I have to write it a bunch of times to get used to it. Actually, about 6 months before every birthday I start thinking I'm the next age already (in order to mentally prepare) so I guess I'm used to it already. Er... actually not quite. Above is the picture of the AMAZING ICE CREAM CAKE (mocha ice cream, almond ice cream and chocolate crunch) my husband Rich made for me! He even piped that cute border and used my fondant to make my name and a funny all-blue ice cream cone. I had a super fun birthday party and was surprised with a DESSERT PARADE of sweets made by all of my friends. I was very teary eyed. That's me in a blur of SHEER BIRTHDAY TREAT EXCITEMENT!

Hooray for birthdays... and for not having to make the cake! :)

Alanna & Ben Cute Wedding!

You know when you just get the nicest feeling about someone? Alanna, the sweet and beautiful bride of this story, emailed me a while back with a request for cupcake favours for her upcoming wedding... she was so sweet and cool in her emails, and had the cutest ideas that I was pretty stoked to make something for her!

In total I made over 150 watermelon-pink buttercream topped jam-filled Coco Cake Berry Good cupcakes in black liners! Super stylish and cute! And monkey topped cupcakes for the kids... ! I also made Alanna and Ben their little monkey bride and groom wedding cake toppers... I think they turned out adorably cute! Alanna requested them to look "Totoro"-like... !

Congratulations Alanna and Ben! Here's to a life of happiness, good times and a good sprinkling of monkeyin' around too...

Siblings!! Twin Cupcakes & More

Sorry I'm a bit behind on my bloggin' world this week! I took a relaxing little train trip down to Portland, Oregon to visit my dear friend Helen, who is doing her MFA at Portland State University. I had a mega fun time, eating my way through Portland and doing a little shopping too. I came home with a beautiful vintage purple silk dress for $18, three records from Mississippi Records, a book from Powell's Bookstore, and a lovely felted wool plaid wool scarf for my hubby! Fun!

Two sweet sibling stories this week at old Coco Cake HQ:

First of all, I received an email from Brie, who lives in the Netherlands, with a special request for her sister, who lives in Vancouver! A super secret birthday delivery to Janna's workplace, with Coco Cake Snowball cupcakes to the rescue! Gerry Sung helped me deliver these out to a printshop in Burnaby. An email from Brie a few hours later:

"I wanted to thank you again for making the wonderful cupcakes and helping me give my sister a birthday surprise---she was completely surprised and told me I was a dork."

Ah, sisterly love!! Happy Birthday Janna!

Next: the very pretty and stylish Kim (who works at stellar Vancouver store Jonathan & Olivia) was plotting a birthday surprise for her main man, and his twin brother! She sent me the CUTEST mock up drawing (bottom pic) to base the cupcakes from... and ordered matcha green tea buttercream cupcakes to boot. Very cool!!

Happy Birthday Freddy and Roddy!

Wilder and Wilder! Where The Wild Things Are!

OH CUTENESS!!! Lovely Samantha phoned me at good old Coco Cake HQ with a request: a Where The Wild Things Are cake and matching specialty cupcakes for her son Graydon's 1st birthday party!! I was excited to attempt WTWTA in cupcake form, and to make my cute little pal Moishe into a cake face once again!! This time I also made little Max faces, all in various stages of emotions! Lovely vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and sugar fondant made up this delightful order. Samantha ordered 4 dozen of the specialty cupcakes, so you can imagine how long I spent making those ridiculously cute little faces!! Thanks as usual to my honeybun RT, who helped me cut out the mini Max crowns! :)

Apologies for the photo explosion-- but I just loved doing this order, and thought everything turned out super darn cute!!

Happy 1st Birthday Graydon! :)