La Tarte Ladurée

I've made this one before, in purple, white and gold for my mom. 

This time I was inspired by the green Ladurée gift bags. The pale shade of avocado that I used, matches perfectly with the bags. 

The cake was made for a lovely lady, she turned the big 50 today.

Have a wonderful Saterday evening and Sunday!

Love,

Nadine

My first pillowframe..

I saw pillowframes for the first time at 24Homes and they looked so cute and easy to make. 

Finally I've made my own pillowframe holding a picture from Paris, which I visited with a dear friend in august.

I used a beige colored fabric and some Paris stamps as it would be used for my Paris pictures. I used leftovers from my curtains for the large piece of lace. The ribbon was bought at Het witte luik,  the pearl pins as well.

This absolutely will not be the last pillowframe I've made. Can't wait to make a second one.. 

Have you ever made a pillowframe?

Be sure to watch the lovely tutorial by 24Homes: Tutorial.

Have a great evening and sunday!

Blanc et noir

A few weeks ago I was asked to make a birthday cake for a lovely lady. I had the complete free hand. 

I really wanted to work with SugarVeil again and thought, black and white would be pretty to combine with SV. 

With the weather is was hard to work with the SV, but with great help from Michele Hester, it turned out pretty good. Thanks for that Michele!

This is my second cake with SugarVeil and it has been a while, since my last cameo cake. But I still adore cameos.. 

I do love making a cake in black and white, once and a while. 

At the end of august I'm making a two layered wedding cake, also in black and white. 

The cake turned out to be a simple, elegant en chique cake. 

Have a great sunday evening!

Lovely Paris

My dear friend Mandy and I went to visit Paris for a few days.. 

It's such a pretty city, with it's old, gorgeous houses, the nostagic feeling you automaticly get when you are walking through Paris and of course, the Eiffel Tower.. 

Soon more on my blog about our visit. 

Birthday High Tea

Last Thursday (the 8th of March) another year was over..
I turned 27.

This time I wanted something to do else than a party in the evening. Ever since I moved in, I wanted to do a High Tea. This was the perfect occasion and I loved planning, baking and decorating the table! I also had help from my mom, who made the wraps and sandwiches with me.

My dearest girl friends were invited and we had so much fun..

It was a perfect birthday party! Here are some pictures of the "sweet high tea table".


Enjoy your weekend!!

The inspiration for my birthday cake.

  

Last, but not least. My girls and I <3

My girl friends (from de left up); Christiane, Belinda, Eva, me (from the right down); Mandy, Carmen and Anouk.

White corner full of inspiration..

I didn't want any completely open closets in my livingroom and as I saw this closet, I fell in love... It's perfectly for showing my home decorating books and magazines, and to hide other stuff like candles.

There aren't that many books yet, but they are such a great inspiration. I keep reading and reading them and everytime I get new ideas...

Besides books, I love home decorating magazines such as Jeanne d'Arc Living and Jo-Anne Coletti's magazines.

Visit their websites and you'll be amazed...

Belle Blanc ~ My first book, my first inspiration.. Many thanks to Mirjana Schnepf and Bianca Aurich!

Shabby chic interiors ~ By Rachel Ashwell, the Shabby Chic Queen.

Inspiration in weiss and Hell & Zauberhaft ~ By Ingela Broling and Petra Eriksson.
I love the look of these books and the pages.. These amazing books are a huge inspiration as well.

Shades of pastel

This is a cake I've made for a friends birthday. Last year she got a white with dark pink one, one of my first mini cakes. This year I made her a layered cake with some new things.

A while ago I've found these lovely pictures on Flick, they are made by Rhiannon Banda-Scott.
I fell in love with these georgeous combination of pastel colours, the green matches perfect with the white and pastel pink on that pretty wooden floor.


So it got a place on my endless to-do-and-inspiration-list. The lace mold is a first, so are the ruffles, they match perfectly.

For the base I've used white fondant with a tiny amount ivory, just to break it a bit.
The green was made with avocado and for the pink, I've mixed pink and peach.
For the gold I've used several colours, untill it was the antique gold I've wanted.

This cake is not so simple, like many others.. I have crossed my borders for this one, but I'm very pleased with it. And so did my friend :)

Congratulations Ilona!

Dit taartje heb ik voor een vriendin gemaakt, ze was maandag jarig. Vorig jaar heeft ze een wit met felroze taartje gekregen en dit jaar heb ik haar een 2-laags taartje gemaakt met enkele "uitprobeersels".

Een tijdje geleden vond ik deze geweldige foto's op Flickr, ze zijn gemaakt door Rhiannon Banda-Scott. Het was liefde op het eerste gezicht, deze prachtige combinatie van pastel kleuren. Het groen past perfect bij het wit en pastel roze op die mooie houten vloer.

Dus kregen ze een plekje op mijn te-doen-lijstje. De kant-mal heb ik voor het eerst gebruikt en past er perfect bij, net als de roezels. Die ik ook voor het eerst gemaakt heb.
Voor de basis heb ik witte fondant met een ietsiebietsie ivoor, om het wat te breken.

Het groen heb ik gemaakt met de kleur avocado. En voor het roze, heb ik pink en peach gemengd. Om dit goud te krijgen, heb ik enkele goudpoeders gemengd, tot ik de kleur kreeg die ik wilde.

Dit taartje is niet zo eenvoudig, zoals vele anderen... Ik heb toch wel mijn grenzen verlegd voor deze. Maar ben er erg blij mee en mijn vriendin ook :)


Van harte gefeliciteerd lieve Ilona!

Vintage romance

In May I visited London with my friend Tessa. We both fell in love with this 30's style, georgous mint-green china from Royal Albert. I just had to wait a little while before I could make a cake to go with this cup, saucer and dessertplate.

The rose is a second try with petals on thread. The inside petals of the rose are glued on, the other two layers are on threa. I tried to use the same colours as the china, I just love these soft tones combined with gold.

It's a gift for my friend, she completed her study and is celebrating tonight. 

Congratulations Carmen!

******************************************************************************

Afgelopen mei hebben mijn vriendinnetje Tessa en ik London bezocht. We waren beide meteen verliefd op dit jaren '30, mint-groene servies van Royal Albert.
Moest alleen een tijdje wachten voordat ik een bijpassend taartje kon maken.

De roos is een tweede poging met blaadjes op draad. The binnenste blaadjes zijn vastgelijmd en de buitenste twee lagen op draad. Ik heb geprobeerd de kleuren van het servies na te bootsen, vind de zachte kleuren in combinatie met het goud zo mooi...

Het is een cadeautje voor een vriendin, die vanavond viert dat ze haar diploma behaald heeft.

Gefeliciteerd lieve Carmen!

La Menthe Verte

What a suprise! Such a lovely package from my dear aunt..

A big notebook to collect pretty pictures as inspiration for my cakes and a small notebook for my cakedesigns.
Love how she wrapped it up :)

She has her own blog now; filled with memories, inspiration and other things.
Maybe you like to take a look at:

La Menthe Verte

Inspired by Peggy

A while ago I made this mini cake for my aunt. I was inspired by the magnificant Peggy Porschen.. 

It was hard to get the right colours! I constanly took my fondant to the computerscreen to see if the colours matched...

My aunt was very happy with it and send me a few lovely pictures she took at home. Here it one of them.

The roses I would do different, but I still like the colour combination :)

Inspiration

A while ago (still "Happy Cupcakes by Nadine")  I photographed my cake books and never placed a topic about it here. So here it is!

Last year I saw a picture of stacked books and it looked so pretty and I wanted to make one too someday. I don't think the picture needs more explanation :) Don't the books make a pretty picture? 

In Dutch:

Een tijdje geleden heb ik een foto gemaakt van mijn taartboeken (toen nog "Happy Cupcakes by Nadine") en heb er nooit een bericht over geplaatst. Bij dezen dus!

Vorig jaar zag ik een foto van gestapelde boeken en dat zag er zo leuk uit, dat ik dat ook een keer wilde doen. De foto heeft geen verdere uitleg nodig denk ik.. :)

Ziet de stapel er niet mooi uit...? 

Happy International Womensday!

For some years now I know that my birthday is on the international womensday, the 8th of march.  And this year is the 100th anniversary!

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1910
A second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands.

In Dutch:

Internationale Vrouwendag is de actiedag van de vrouwenbeweging, jaarlijks op 8 maart. Internationale Vrouwendag werd voor het eerst uitgeroepen door Clara Zetkin op de internationale vrouwenconferentie in Kopenhagen in 1910, waaraan 100 mannen en vrouwen deelnamen uit 17 landen. Hoewel de aanleiding de massale staking was op 8 maart 1908 in de Verenigde Staten van vrouwen in de textiel- en kledingindustrie voor een achturige werkdag, betere arbeidsomstandigheden en kiesrecht, stond de strijd voor algemeen kiesrecht aanvankelijk centraal.

Great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.


Happy Womensday!

Something new to work with..

My friend wanted a cake for her friend's birthday in the colours eggplant and purple. 
I never made a cake in these colours, so I tried finding inspiration on the internet and asked my friends Monica and Tessa for help. Finally I've made a design inspired by this picture:
 

Picture from eventhouseblog


Today I coloured the fondant, but didn't realize that eggplant as a colour is so hard to make.
My fingers and hands still have a dark purple colour...