Grace Goes Double Digits

It's that time of year again - another Gracie birthday party...and I went a little crazy on the sugar.  She had the planned a movie themed birthday party so I found a cake at Martha Stewart that had Hollywood Walk of Fame theme that I was going to use as inspiration.

I actually wanted to do the hand print cookies too - but time was not with us.  I still had a ton of decorating doo-dads left over from my trip to Calico Bean in Dubuque for our work holiday retreat...so I went a little nuts with the glitz and glam.  But I wanted my cake to look more like the sparkly marble and gold of the actual walk of fame (or how I interpreted it from the photos I found online.)

 And notice the little inlays there for what type of art the person is famous for?  I created a birthday cake one...though it got so tiny in the end I was try to place individual orange nonpariels into the shape of a flame with tweezers for my candles.  (Not so successfully)

A count of all the ways sugar was incorporated into this decor:

1. Chocolate buttercream frosting tinted black
2. Silver/Gray sugar granules for the 'sparkle' on the black
3. Yellow flow icing for the star
4. Gold dragees for the 'pearls' as the girls put it around the edges of the star
5. White jimmies for the candle sticks
6. Orange nonpariels for the flames
7. Gold shimmer dust painted onto the yellow surfaces for just a little more shimmer.

And yes, I probably should have made the star from fondant and I could have had perfectly straight edges, but I still don't like the stuff.  Maybe I'll get over it some day.

Happy Birthday kiddo!