Reppin' da LBC!

WE LOVE LONG BEACH: To know and serve the People, the Neighborhoods, and the City of Long Beach.

 
I cannot say this enough, but I reallly reallly reallly do LOVE Long Beach!! I'm not the only one! There's a reason why Snoop Dogg represents the LBC in everything he does. There's a reason why I decided to reside in this beautiful, eclectic city. There's a reason why Scott Jones founded the organization We Love Long Beach (WLLB).  And there's a reason why I wanted to give back to our Long Beach community.

My friend David Leonard (who's very involved with the community and helped me with my first Great American Bake Sale) presented me with this brilliant idea that turned into a wonderful opportunity. I couldn't pass it up. He hooked me up with Scott Jones' contacts and the idea to do a cake for their Launch Party to celebrate their newly revamped website: www.welovelb.org. I thought a simple cake was not enough to embody all that Long Beach has to offer...they needed a cake table! My dear friend, Kappa sister, and fellow Long Beach lover, Caroline Cervantes was the perfect person to take on board with me on this project. She helped me take our vision to the next level! 

Our ideas for this table consisted of these different elements: 1)Represent the 9 Districts of Long Beach, 2)Beach/Ocean along with the City-scape, 3)Being Green and Bicycle friendly, 4)WLLB's mascot, Hearty! 5)Dots to represent the graphics used in their website.  We created individual cupcake picks to represent the various landmarks.

Provided cookies, cupcakes, and a cake.

A turquoise table cloth was used to represent the ocean, green astro-turf to represent the land, and black boxes to represent the downtown city scape and backdrop.

District 1: LA River, Renaissance School of the Arts

District 2: Shoreline Village, Queen Mary, Aquarium of the Pacific, Pine Ave., Ocean Blvd, East Village District, The Pike, The Long Beach Depot for Creative Reuse

District 6: LB Polytechnic High School, VIP Records, Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Pacific Wind Arts and Sculpture Garden

District 7 & 8: Wrigley, 710/405, Metro, Bixby Knolls, Rancho Los Cerritos Park, Long Beach Clothing Co.

District 9: LB Jordan High School, 710/91 Frwy

District 3, 4, 5: Belmont Shores/2nd Street, CSULB, Naples, Wilson High School, Traffic Circle, El Dorado Park, Millikan High School, LBCC, LB Airport

The dots are a big part of the WLLB website graphics, so I used that idea for the cake decoration. The lovable Hearty tops the cake.

Lisa Hernandez and the Long Beach Depot for Creative ReUse helped us keep this table Green by supplying us with many reusable items for the table-scape. We absolutely LOVE what Lisa does for Long Beach...she means a lot to the community and we can't thank her enough for what she represents.

Caroline talking with Founder/Director of WLLB, Scott Jones. They were kind enough to hook us up with an awesome shirt like the one he's wearing. We made some amazing new friends that night!

Mama Jones is a very sweet lady :)

The man on the left is David Leonard....can't thank him enough!

We make a fabulous team! This is just one of many.

Had to pose with our favorite cupcakes. I chose Long Beach State, and Caroline chose VIP Records :)

We both realllly realllly realllly do LOVE Long Beach!

Table Concept Design and Styling: The Sweet Love Chain Events and Design & Abs of Cakes

Cake, Cupcakes, Cookies:  Abs of Cakes

Photography provided by: Eloisa Nadine Hernandez Photography

It was such a pleasure working with Sweet Caroline and I'm so excited to share what we have in store for you. We've also worked on a Dog Party and Lips & 'Stache Bash, so stay tuned for those blog posts! We would both like to give a special thanks to our friend Eloisa "Ellie" Nadine Hernandez for being our amazing photographer for these events.

One of the bigger and more important events we are collaborating on is happening this weekend [June 11] in the City we love....LONG BEACH! It's an Art Show at the Pacific Wind Arts & Sculpture Garden called NOZOMI to raise money for Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief. There will be ART, a RECYCLED DRUM CIRCLE with BREAK DANCING freestyle, BAKED GOODS and TREATS, CRAFT VENDORS, LIVE ART & MUSIC, FILM screening, and much much more! Please check out www.nozomiartshow.blogspot.com for event details. We hope to see you there!

Once again, thank you for stopping by.

~Abs of Cakes~

Monkey Balls :)

[Life has been happening. I've been busy. I apologize.] 

Monkey Balls....it's not what you think. Get your mind outta the gutter people! During my Adidas Cake delivery, I was lucky enough to score another cake order.  Keisha Leilani, a server from Basic Pizza in Downtown San Diego was turning 25.  Her best friend, Nelli was turning 23 and she wanted to have a joint birthday cake. Keisha told me that Nelli loves monkeys and tennis, so that's what I made. This was also the first request for a gluten free/dairy free cake! (Note: Only the actual cake was gluten free/dairy free. The fondant covering and monkeys may include gluten and/or dairy.)

I started by making monkey figures out of chocolate fondant. Sculpting figures out of fondant is probably my favorite decorating technique. Here's how I did it...

 I made the monkeys some fun party hats for the celebration :)

Probably the most distinctive features on monkeys are their ears and tail. 

Next thing to do was make the tennis balls.  I decided on using three balls for a well balanced design. Tennis balls have a very recognizable yellow-green color with a white striping. In order for them not to look like any other spherical-shaped cake, I had to stay true to to these distinctions.  I waited until the tennis balls were completed before I permanently adhered the limbs onto the bodies. 

The cake board for this order played a very important role in my overall vision.  This cake needed to withstand a 2-hour drive to San Diego, so the cake itself needed to be structurally sound.  I couldn't do whole tennis balls in fear of damage during delivery, so I made three hemispheres instead. The cake board I chose was silver metallic that was slightly reflective, so that when the hemispheres were placed on top, it would create an illusion of whole round balls....tricky tricky.

Through my tennis ball research, I analyzed the various logos, and created a font of my own to add the "happy bday" greeting.

Last thing to do was add the monkeys. Keisha requested that I write "Monkey see, Monkey do" so I made the monkeys gesture accordingly.

All that was left to do was box it up and get ready for delivery. This order is one of the most unique design requests I've gotten. I can't wait to see what other challenges get thrown at me.

I have so many more fun cakes to share with you. I hope I can catch up on my updates, so please stay posted. Thank you for stopping by.

~Abs of Cakes~