We all live in a Yellow Submarine...

I always talk about inspiration, and I make sure you know where it came from when it comes to my cake designs. Music was my inspiration for this cake. Although music is audible, it's still capable of painting clear vivid pictures in our imaginations. I attempted to translate The Beatles' song, "Yellow Submarine" in cake form... 

"So we sailed on to the sun,
Till we found the sea green,
And we lived beneath the waves,
In our yellow submarine..."

Ahhh....The Beatles! Who doesn't love 'em? 

I hand-picked this verse now that Summer is upon us. My favorite season! Nothing beats the warm weather as the sun stays out until 8- sometimes 9pm. I live for warm summer nights. I look forward to being outdoors and being inspired by my surroundings.The best are all the festivals and summer concert series all around town like Long Beach's S.A.M. (Summer and Music) from June to August. Music that inevitably becomes the soundtrack to our memorable summers....whispers of nostalgia...inspirations to our dreams. In this case, my client, Adrian's cake is that colorful edible image that bookmarks his 25th Birthday.

 As you might have already guessed, the celebrant is a Beatles fanatic...A Yellow Submarine was requested. I already knew I would have fun with this one. Now, I cannot take full credit for all the designs. As you may or may not know, "Yellow Submarine" was also an animated feature film already providing me with very distinct graphics and images to work with. I simply took inspiration from them and composed them onto a small personal cake for the Birthday Boy. The animation of the Fab Four was everywhere, so it was a must that I included them onto the cake! I printed out my favorite image of them to use as my template and create them with fondant. Here's what I did...

It was necessary for me to mix various bright colors. It wouldn't portray The Beatles and "Yellow Submarine" otherwise.

Their hair and mustaches brought them to life and distinguished them as Ringo, John, George, and Paul, rather than any other colorfully dressed man.

RINGO STARR

JOHN LENNON

PAUL MCCARTNEY

GEORGE HARRISON

The next thing I worked on was the main component...the yellow submarine! I sculpted this as best I could. Of course I had to start by using the right colored fondant...or at least close to it.

I decided on making a 2-tiered cake where the bottom tier was 6 inches...fairly small. For the colors of each tier, I drew my inspiration from the line in the song: "Sky of Blue, and Sea of Green", so I made the top tier Blue, and the bottom tier Green. I decided on a darker blue like that you'd find on the album cover. The fonts I used was also true to the "Yellow Submarine" characters.

After I got the main components and other little textures and elements, I was ready to work on the body of the cake. Decorating a cake is like painting a 3-Dimensional picture...although there's typically a front and back, it still should look good 360 degrees around. You never know when a person will view a cake from behind. The basic design came from figuring out a good composition on this small cake with all the components I had.

When people ask me what my favorite cake was to design, this cake is definitely one of the top ranks. Maybe it's because I truly LOVE the Beatles, maybe it's because I listened to their music while creating it, maybe it's because of all the fun colors and quirkiness...whatever the reason I hope one day I'll get to design another Beatles cake; there's so much imagery to be inspired by, each album is different! I hope you liked it.

Thank you for stopping by. Have a bitchin' Summer ;) 

~Abs of Cakes~

 

Hello Kitty says Happy Flag Day!

Flag Day week is usually a very eventful one! This week alone there's the NBA Finals, start of Summer Vacay for most students, my birthday ;), Graduations, Father's Day, my Damn Good Friends' Wedding (Yay Bryleen!), and even Hura Tahiti, a Tahitian Dance Competition in Fullerton. Celebrations galore! A time of milestones that allows us to reflect on our successes. Busy FUN!

This Thursday, June 16 is a big day for a special little girl, Brooklynn Rhayne Lodevico! She is graduating from the 5th Grade, but Brooklynn is not your average 5th Grader...as President of Birney Elementary School in Long Beach she will be giving a speech in front of her fellow classmates, faculty, and family. At the tender age of 10 years old, Brooklynn continues to inspire Me at my ripe age of 29. I am proud to call her my niece and goddaughter. This post is dedicated to her. 

Brooklynn Rhayne turned a decade old on December 19, 2010. To celebrate, she had a Hello Kitty Nerd Party! How cool is that? 

There's nothing that screams "NERD" more than nerdy things, like books, lunch pails, and eyeglasses. So that's what I made. I used this Hello Kitty Lunch Pail as my model.

Per Brooklynn's request I made an Oreo cake, but instead of Oreos, I used Joe-Joes from Trader Joes...I love that they use real vanilla beans in their center filling which would just add to the flavor.

 The batter was poured into square and rectangle pans since most of the forms were that shape. 

A couple of cake boards were measured out and cut to size and stack the cakes. I filled each layer with a Joe Joe frosting, then covered the cakes in buttercream before covering them in fondant. I worked on the lunch pail and books simultaneously.

The beginnings of some plaid designs.

Stacked books start to take shape.

I drew Hello Kitty's face on some wax paper to use as a template.

After the main components were completed, I just needed to stack the lunch pail and add the rest of the details that make the design pop.

The rest of the plaid detail punched out with yellow.

The red apple was my favorite little detail to this cake. Like the Zombie Hello Kitty Cake, I used spaghetti sticks colored Black for Kitty's whiskers.

Luckily the delivery was only a few blocks away, but it was on a very rainy day! I guess Brooklynn Rhayne was an appropriate name for her. Here are some fun photos from her party.

BK 4 President!

Brooklynn with some of her NERD Friends.

DJ BK on the 1s and 2s.

Brooklynn with sister Freedom.

Make a Wish...

Congratulations BK! Thank you for being an inspiration! I love you very much and you make me one proud Ninang. Keep up the good work kid!

~Abs of Cakes~