The Cake Bar Show: A California Adventure

I have been quiet for some time now- but I promise it was because I was SUPER busy!

Doing what you ask?

Why, planning an awesome birthday trip, finishing Etsy orders, and creating some award winning entries for The Cake Bar Show in Long Beach, California!

So a little background about me and cake shows- I ALWAYS drive to them. No matter the distance, I hop in a rental car with my best friend and we just drive. (Some how I always convince him to come with me, and now it's a hilarious tradition for him to attend cake shows with me.) Long story short, this was the first time that we flew to any show- and we did it WITH MY COMPETITION ENTRIES!

Yes, that's right, we FLEW across the country with ultra fragile sugar pieces and not only did they make it in great condition, but they both took 1st place and Best in Division in both their respective categories- Cupcakes and Special Techniques not on Cake! (How did we do it? Literally my ENTIRE carry on suitcase was full of Fraggles. Kevin's carry on had all the Labyrinth toppers. I can only imagine what TSA was thinking when our bags went through the scanner! From there, we just had to handle our bags like they were made of glass!)

Now this was the first year that The Cake Bar Show happened- Kassy and Joyce put on an amazing show with a KILLER theme and they managed to nab some super cool judges (Nicholas Lodge, Karen Portaleo, Jarid Altmark, and Rebekah Wilbur) and awesome vendors (*cough cough* Icing Images *cough cough*). As soon as I found out it was 80's themed, I HAD to go! I could not resist recreating some of my favorite Jim Hensons characters!

Without further adieu, here are my award winning entries:

Down In Fraggle Rock

Division: Professional

Category: Special Techniques not on Cake

All of these Fraggles were modeled by myself out of Satin Ice fondant. Creating these guys took me about two weeks in between working and sleeping and they literally took up an entire carry on suitcase. Packaging these guys for their cross country journey took a whopping 2 hours just to make sure nothing would break in transit!!!

You Remind Me of The Babe

Division: Professional

Category: Cupcakes

Hands down, The Labyrinth is one of my all time favorite movies. I have seen it so many times I have lost count- so I knew I could not waste an opportunity to create all my favorite characters for my cupcake entry! These characters were all modeled by me using Satin Ice fondant, poppy paints, cookie crumbs, isomalt, and royal icing! They were SO fun to create!

Now I know what you are thinking- "But Kristi, you were gone for more than a weekend! What were you doing?"

The short answer? Celebrating my 29th birthday. Kevin and I had one mission for the second half of our trip: go see some of the largest trees in the world. So we drove over 2,000 miles within 9 days and did just that. We visited the Sequoia National Park, Redwood National Park, drove through the Avenue of the Giants, and more!You can check out some of our pictures below!

Stay tuned for more tutorials and fun new items in the Cakes by Kristi shop

coming soon!