Happy Hauntings Tombstone Banner

Here is my first attempt at making a banner. All cuts were from Happy Hauntings. For the tombstones, I only used the base and first layers and the grass. Any detailed layer was left off. The tallest tombstone was cut at 8 inches, and the rest were sized using my gypsy so they were close in height. The monsters were all cut at approximately 4 inches in height. I used the Vampire font.

It was fun to make, and I love the way the tombstones look instead of a plain shape for the background of the banner, but given the width of bottom of some of the tombstones, I think that the next one I make will have some kind of small spacer inbetween each tombstone.

Cricut Cake Machine and My First Cakes

I won a Cricut Cake Machine at a Cricut Circle event. A Cricut Cake machine will cut frosting, gum paste and fondant that you roll out thin and adhere to the cutting mat with shortening. There are claims that you can cut any food item that can be affixed to the mat, and fit under the rollers. I have seen samples of cookie dough and pie crust cut with the cricut. The instructions with the machine even say cheese! (I am not too eager to try that yet)

I did not think I would want a Cake machine, but now that I have it, and have played around with it, I must say I LOVE it! It takes practice, thats for sure! Many of my cuts didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, or were just too fragile to be handled. That being said, I did enjoy playing around and when I messed up, I just re-rolled my material and tried again.

I have NEVER made a Fondant covered cake before. My 15yo dd rolled the fondant out for my first cake and I did it for my second cake. It looked and felt like it was really thin, but when we cut into the cakes, it was actually pretty thick. That is definately something I am going to have to practice on.

Here is my first cake: I used the Happy Hauntings cartridge for all the cuts. Everything was cut using pre-colored Wilton Fondant.

















Here is my second cake. I used Lacy Labels for the flowers and leaves, and Cake Basics for the swirls. The flowers were made from gum paste and the swirls and leaves were cut using fondant.