Mom kindly offered to throw me a baby shower, and I only asked that we do it well in advance of my due date so I wasn't too uncomfortable or crabby, but mostly so I didn't look like a total cow. Well, my plan worked, except for the cow part.
Unfortunately, I'm not the type to just sit back while other people work really hard to throw me a party. Mom says it is because I'm controlling- and has even coined a new name for me: Colleen Control, or CC. Okay, that's part of it. But mostly, I find it insanely awkward to sit around the week before a big event/party my friends or family are throwing, and not be able to offer a helping hand. It makes me incredibly uneasy. And if it's a party for me? Forget about it! I think I blow dried, curled, straightened and re-curled my hair the morning of my bridal shower because I was so antsy not having a thing to do. So I forced the madre to let me bake my own baby shower cake.
The theme from the beginning was "Cute as a Button," which CC picked out. I think she was going for something just plain cute and baby-ish, not wanting something that screamed "COLLEEN IS HAVING A BOY!" Yes, I'm having a boy, but he's a baby and I can definitely wait on all the fun boyish themes for when he is here. Right now it's pastels and baby time!!
Satisfied that I had a cake to worry about, CC went away and I focused on finding inspiration. There are a lot of button cakes and cupcakes out there, but this was by far the cutest:
I quickly learned how easy it is to make a fondant button.. punch out a circle, use the bottom of an icing tip to make the inner circle, and then use the tip of a small round tip to punch the holes in the button. Breeze! Since we were having the party at an Italian restaurant, I knew I wanted a lighter cake, so I went with a white cake with alternating filling layers of raspberry and lemon curd, topped with a light swiss meringue buttercream. I actually really don't like fondant, so I opted against covering the whole cake in it.
I wanted the cake to look as fabulous as the one above, but also stand out on its own. So I decided to pipe teal/turquoise ombre ruffles as a border. I love ombre cakes right now, and it seems a lot of other people do as well (pinterest). That wasn't enough though.. it needed something more. I went to a wholesale cake supply website and found "designer sheets" which are basically edible sheets of paper/stickers that you can put on to fondant and buttercream etc to give it that fresh-off-the-press look. I found it made the buttons pop, and the texture also made them look like fabric buttons (close up).
There are no epic tales to tell about the process of making this cake, unless you count swollen ankles every night for the three nights I spent making it. I think it came out great!
The banner at the top says "Baby Langan" and I made that as well.. I didn't like the idea of a giant fondant button on top. Brad said the color wasn't a real blue, which made me kinda sad until I realized the is the last cake I get to make before our baby arrives and tells us he likes Thomas the Train or the Ninja Turtles (let's hope it's Ninja Turtles!!). Okay so maybe the hot pink was a little too much.. but I had to throw a little me in there :)
This one didn't come out as great, but you get the idear:
Oh, and the shower was a lot of fun. I don't like being the "center" of attention but still had a good time seeing a lot of my friends and family. The majority of them not only drove or flew very far, they also brought along some of the most generous and adorable Little Langan gifties.
Getting married and then becoming pregnant a week later really makes me feel like I'm gouging people :/ But everyone's sincerety really made me feel better! It didn't hurt that pretty much everyone told me how awesome I look. I know it's a sweet little lie but it truly helped me get through the painful process of looking at all the gift opening pictures:
And on that note! you won't see my face again until I've lost at least 30lbs. :) p.s. that was the most EPIC diaper cake ever, made by my Fairy Godmother Geri. Batman themed with handmade burpie cloths, a quilt, and pretty much everything else our little man will need!
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