Archives for February 2011

New Class: Fondant Fabric Flowers

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Erica OBrien in fabric flowers, fondant | 1 Comment

I’ve always been inspired by fabric, and I love the fabric flower trend. I developed some signature fondant fabric flower techniques, and will be teaching my original designs in a new one-day class. Students will learn four kinds of fabric flowers, inclding the rosette seen below.

For more information or to register for the class, please go to our website: ericaobrien.com/classes

Fabric flower pillow by Dwell Studio:

Fabric flower cake:

Noelle’s 8th Jewelry Birthday

My daughter Noelle is the girliest of girls (her ancient-Egyptian themed party of 2009 being a fluke), and for her 8th birthday she wanted a jewelry-themed party. Colors? Pink and purple, of course. Her birthday is in December, so the stores were selling lots of Christmas decorations which doubled easily as jewelry. We decorated the door with ribbon and some Christmas ornaments…I mean earrings.

I decorated the table and backdrop using more jewelry, like the pearl garland (I mean necklace) on the front of the table which I picked up at the 99 Cents Store in the Christmas section. I also filled jewelry boxes with candy bracelets and necklaces, and purchased some pink and purple votive holders.

I’ve been experimenting with sugar recently with moderate success, and I made some edible sugar gems for the cupcake toppers which were made out of fondant and outlined with fondant beading that I made using a small bead mold.

The cake was white fondant with bows outlined with fondant beading.

When we were kids growing up in Queens, NY, my mom always made treasure hunts for our birthday parties in the park across the street. (Remind me to tell you about the time Alan Schlanger, the neighborhood bully, looted the treasure box.) We always loved the treasure hunts, and now I make one for almost every party. I typed out the clues and hid them all over the house and yard.

Instead of giving out goody bags, I made a bag for each guest and put them in the treasure box.

The kids always take the rules very seriously.

It’s fun watching them run around finding the clues.

Of course finding the treasure is the best part.

No party of mine is complete without some crafts, so I bought a bunch of jewelry boxes and had the kids decorate them with stickers and craft paint (fun but messy), and bought a variety of beads for making necklaces and bracelets.

Some questions you might have are:

1. Who took those incredible photographs?

and

2. Was the party a lot of work?

The answers are:

1. The incredible photographs were taken by Shannon Lee of Shannon Lee Images. I am eternally grateful to her.

2. Yes, I worked my ass off, but it was worth it.

Pastel Mexican-Inspired Wedding

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Erica OBrien in Featured, vintage | 4 Comments

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but when I see a blog post on a wedding, whether it’s a real wedding or a styled shoot, the first thing I look for is the cake. I guess it’s fair to say I’m pretty much obsessed with cake, and since I figure anyone who reads this blog shares my obsession, I focus almost exclusively on cake in my posts. However, I contributed a cake to a shoot for Green Wedding Shoes recently, and everything about it–from the details to the flowers to the models–is just so beautiful, instead of of scrolling down for the cake, I found myself looking at each gorgeous photograph. That said, I’m sharing more pictures than I normally would, but only because they are that good.

Last year, Jenn Campbell from Green Wedding Shoes created an inspiration board for a Cinco de Mayo wedding that incorporates dusty pastels instead of the traditional bright colors.

Jaclyne Breault from Heavenly Blooms contacted Jenn about bringing her inspiration board to life, and created this inspiration board to illustrate some of the other elements she wanted to incorporate.

Jaclyne asked me to design the cake. I really liked the papel picado in the inspiration board, and I recreated it out of fondant using tiny cutters, cake decorating tips and various ruffle and frill cutters. I hand-cut the monogram, and sculpted the succulents out of gumpaste.

Here are some other photos, including the gorgeous model, invitations by Posh Paperie, florals by Heavenly Blooms, styling by Green Wedding Shoes, and photographs by This Modern Romance.