Paint the Town Red

The tradition of Paint the Town Red continued this year and we jumped on board. It was a lot of fun coming up with a window display idea and then actually doing it! Not really knowing what to expect or how it would all turn out in the end we did pretty well. Most of all we had a great time doing it. We got to support our local football team, be a part of the community and show the town our creativity.

Here are a few pictures of our decorations just in case you didn't get to see them while they were up.


This is a front view of the shop. We decided to use plastic to cover our windows so that we wouldn't make a huge mess on the sidewalk when we cleaned it off...to our surprise you could see the Sweet Designs Cakery letters through the plastic. But, it still looked okay and did the job. In the right lighting, you couldn't tell. The huge fork and piece of cake were pretty cool and helped out our theme.


We borrowed (more like bribed them with cake) a Gorilla from Miller's for our window. We had the Gorilla setting at a table with a slice of cake that had the rival team's logo on it. He was getting ready to devour the Bronchos (yes, we spelled bronchos wrong on the window). We had lighting on him so you could see better.


And on the other window our friend Justin Troutman painted this Grrrilla. A scary one! Maybe that is why we tied for 2nd place??? The judges were too frightened to give us 3rd? =)

In our division we tied for 2nd place getting beat by Sara Lorees Bridal and Formal. We tied with Everything Sew Sew and Celebrations by Lori got 3rd Place. This year was very stiff competition. It was a lot of fun to see all the different themes and ways to decorate. We didn't go as bananas as the City of Pittsburg, but maybe we will next year? By the way, Pitt State won their game on Saturday and we were there to see it. Our first PSU football game! What an overwhelming turnout of people and support. Go Pitt!

Fun with Birthday Cakes

Really all we have time for these days is to blog about our Wedding Cakes and special events. So, we thought we would throw one in to show some of the fun birthday cakes we have made recently. Others that are not shown here can be seen on our website at: www.SweetDesignsCakery.com


A Cinderella Themed birthday cake for a pretty little princess.


A Mystery Science Theatre themed birthday cake. If you don't know what Mystery Science Theatre is, you should definitely look it up! Funny stuff.


A Beach Baby themed First Birthday cake complete with small Smash Cake, sand, sun glasses, beach chair, bucket, shovel and umbrella.


Birthday CupCake Tower decorated in a Monkey theme for a cutie named Kendall


Kendall with her very own cupcake and daddy.


More CupCakes anybody? This two tier cake was made for a 1st Birthday with a CupCake theme. The CupCake at the top was for the birthday girl. Her mommy provided a sketch for us. We hope we made your cake idea come true!


Who can forget Sponge Bob! We made this cute little 4 inch cake to go along with some Sponge Bob Cupcakes. A lot of color packed in a little cake!


How stinkin' adorable is this one? The grandmother of the little girl brought in her shirt with the tiger on it and asked if we could do something similar, so we did and it turned our trrrrrriffic!

Well, that is all we have time for for now. As we said before, check out more pictures of cakes on our website! We will try and keep them up to date.

Have a great week everyone!

Wheeler & Smith Wedding

Christina and Michael were married at the Crimson and Gold Ball Room at our very own Pittsburg State University. We never asked, but perhaps that is where the two met each other and fell in love? Love was the theme for this wedding, as it is in most, but Love and the symbols of love, such as hearts, were used throughout the decorations and on the cake. We took some of the couples vows they had written and put them on the cake. They wanted an elegant cake with minimal decoration. So, here is what we sketched for them:


You can't tell in the sketch, but they wanted the Square cake to be offset on each tier which would add a little more interest to the cake. So, that is what we did:


The cake turned out beautiful and from what we were told everyone loved the taste. Thank you guys and best of luck to you!

Taylor & Colgrove Wedding Cake

Amanda and Kyler were married on Aug. 8th, 2009 in Galena, KS. It was a beautiful drive to the reception site, even if we thought we were lost =). But, we found it just fine and even on time! The entire reception was decked out in reds, blacks, damask patterns and Cherry Blossoms, just like the Wedding Cake. It was all so beautiful and such a wonderful day for an out door reception.

Even though Amanda gave us pictures of cakes that she liked we decided to do up a sketch so that we would know exactly where we wanted to place the Cherry Blossoms along each tier of the cake.


This was a good idea, so when we started decorating, we knew just how we wanted it to look. I always thought my painting instructor was crazy for making us sketch over fifty sketches for just one painting...but now I get it. You get a feel for the movement of the objects and when you start actual making your final product it is easier. Those professors do know what they are doing some times =).

Adventures in Cake Decorating- 3D style

Since the rise of Cake Decorating t.v. shows such as The Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss the general public is catching on to what cake decorators can really do with their passion. Luckily for us now everyone wants a 3D cake for their special event. Don't get us wrong, we love a typical birthday cake/occasion cake, but we have to admit that taking on a 3D challenge is a lot of fun! This 3D frenzie has even prompted us to create a 3D Cakes section in our photo gallery. Here are some that we have done so far:


We know, you're thinking...what kind of 3D cake is that? Well, we wanted to start you off slow. So, check out the city scape and sky scraper made from our MMF on this Batman Birthday Cake.


Here is a Volcano Cake that we created a while back. The Volcano is made of cake and actually erupts red icing lava. The volcano was covered in our MMF. We flavored it with Strawberry Kiwi Kool-Aid for a kids birthday party. The cake was a hit!


This Red Sox themed birthday cake has an edible cake Baseball on the top of it. Still not enough 3D for you?


How about this cigar that we created for Dr. Huerter? It was carved from two sheetcakes, stacked and then covered in our chocolate MMF. The gold band around the cigar is edible as well.


This Coors Light Beer Bottle was made for a Groom's Cake along with a Longhorn shaped cake. The bottle was covered in our chocolate MMF and the label was hand piped onto MMF.


We were asked to do a cake for the Girard Medical Center annual Golf Tournament, so we decided to make something everyone would remember...a GOLF CART! The entire thing was edible except for the white polls holding up the top of the cart and the handles on the golf clubs. We really hoped they enjoyed it, because we sure had a good time making it!


Although this one might not be as impressive as the golf cart, we loved it and thought we would throw it in here. It is a 45 record player with a 45 Etta James record playing on it. It is all edible.


Last but not least is the Jeep we did for the Petroski Wedding. If you follow our blog you have probably already seen it. A few pictures of 3D cakes that we don't have are a life size, Dime Bag Darrel Guitar complete with an edible fondant hand and a Lightning McQueen (look a like) 3D Car Cake. If any of you were at these parties and have a picture, please send it our way. The camera decided to eat our photos from that weekend. Of course we have our famous Bachelorette party cakes, but we can't post those on here!

We might not be as good as The Ace of Cakes, but we try and we have fun doing it. So, hopefully with some luck there will be plenty more of these in the future!

Johnson & Putman Wedding

Angela and Clint were married August 1st at Rosie's Cabin in Union Town, KS. It was a slightly cloudy day but made for a beautiful outdoor wedding...at least we hope...it wasn't raining when we set up the cake and looked gorgeous.

Here is a sketch of the cake:


And here is the real thing:


This three tier, round Wedding Cake was iced in BC frosting and accented with a Red and Pink MMF Ribbon on each tier. The Roses were also made from our MMF. We love the way that the simplicity of this cake turned out. Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Johnson!

Harris & Pope Wedding

We created these cakes for Sara & Josh back in April. We really enjoyed these cakes because they really let us have artistic reign. We'll show you the cakes and then you can read a little review Sara so kindly wrote about us on Wedding Wire. She was so sweet to write all that she did we thought we would share.


We used a burnt orange tinted BC frosting to cover the cake with golden yellow large sunflowers as accents all over. We really like the way it turned out.


This was a cake we created for the Groom to reflect his love of four wheeling/mudding.


This cake was for the Bride. Since she is from Kansas, all of her fellow army men and women nick named her "Dorthy". We made this Wizard of Oz themed cake complete with Ruby Red Combat Boots and the Emerald Tower.

Here is what Sara had to say: My wedding day was as wonderful as it could possibly have been. I am in the United States Army and am stationed at Fort Louis in Washington state. Needless to say, I had to plan my wedding from several hundred miles away. I only had a brief window of opportunity in February to choose and book my cake. I was pleased that Heather made herself available to fit my rushed and hectic schedule on very short notice. It can be overwhelming when you are trying to make decisions and choices, and you are provided with such a vast array of cake designs--nothing was outside the realm of Heather's capabilities. Anything that came to our imagination, she was game to try. She was very helpful in helping me narrow down the plethora of cake choices. We had no idea how much cake we were going to need. We knew we had to have enough to serve about 200 people, but we didn't want too much cake left over either. Heather seemed very knowledgeable in this area. She suggested the cake size and we went with it. After the wedding, there was very little cake left. People loved it so much, they kept going back to get more, especially the chocolate with the creamy filling. We didn't need to worry about how to "get rid of all the leftover cake." People were more than happy to help us finish up the last of the tasty remains. Heather kept in contact just the right amount--enough to share information and stay on track, but not so much she was annoying. She emailed pictures of cakes and made numerous phone calls to make sure everything was the way we wanted it. When we had to change the location of the reception, she didn't even wince; she just said, "Oh, that's no problem. I'll just stop and see my mom on the way home." What a trooper. Not only is Heather pleasant and knowledgeable, she is quite the cake connoisseur. I would highly recommend her services to anyone; especially anyone who has trouble making choices and decisions as I did. Good luck Heather, and we look forward to our 1st anniversary cake from Sweet Designs Cakery!
(other reviews can be found at: WeddingWire.com)

Well, thank you guys! We appreciate all of the kind words and hope that we can do the same for all future couples who decide to let us sweeten up their special day.