The End of the Beginning

Oh boy oh boy oh boy....the YOUNGER brothers have graduated high school!!  If you are on a personal level with any members of my immediate family, you are well aware at what an incredible accomplishment this is...and what an enormous relief it is! To my mother, especially. :)  Well, younger brothers graduating high school requires a better-than-average gift from big sister, so I decided to create little booklets with advice and tips that I learned from my collegiate career.  I called them "The Ten Commandments", and split the booklet up into different categories- each with 10 "rules" or guidelines to follow.  The book ended with space for hand-written notes from their family members and several pages of family photos.

While I spent a lot of time (and money!) writing them, formatting them, printing them out, laminating them, cutting them, and binding them...I regrettably decided that my brothers probably wouldn't appreciate them very much.  Maybe later on in life, but not now, as they are being showered with hundreds of "cool" gifts! So....the universe smiled on me and sent my long-lost friend (who moved to Florida for her job) back to Huntsville for the week.  This particular friend happens to make spectacular sculpted cakes.  Voila! I knew for a fact they would appreciate an "Ace of Cakes" style cake that they could devour.  So, we rolled up our sleeves, channeled our inner "Duff"s, and cranked out this Graduation Cake masterpiece!  It took a lot of time and even more patience...but it turned out pretty magnificent and the family absolutely loved it.  Maybe I'll be a pro by the time they graduate college. Ha.

 

A very special thanks to Stacey Munoz, for all the time and patience you put into helping make this cake and another special thanks to Heather Petersen, owner of Slice at a Time, for lending me some of your cake-making equipment!!

Cheers,

The Chef Next Door