Ladybug Party

I ran into my friend Kelly at the grocery store on Valentine's Day.  We started talking about her daughter's upcoming 1 year old birthday party and she asked if I could help her with the cake.  Help with a cake?  Of course!  

I arrived to her house at 8pm with a 6" round and 5" dome cake ready for decorating.  I also instructed her to pick up the ingredients to make fondant and I got started on making fondant while she mixed a batch of buttercream frosting.  I explained what crumbcoating is and we crumbcoated the cakes.  After making the fondant and mixing red food gel into the fondant, I rolled it out to cover the ladybug (dome).

I mixed black food gel for the ladybug details and used the fat circle of a Wilton piping tip for the ladybug circles.  The bottom 6" cake was piped with green grass.

 View of the backside of the ladybug:

 The eyes are circles of fondant.  The antenna in the first photo is a piece of spaghetti covered with black fondant and then inserted into the cake before party time.

We used the remaining green colored buttercream to frost the tops of the cupcakes and the rest of the fondant to make little ladybug cupcake toppers.  

Take a round ball of red fondant and a smaller ball of black fondant for the head.  I like to use the round tool and press it into the black so the red attaches easier to the black.  Roll a thin strip for the middle of the ladybug and then press tiny circles of black for the spots and white for the eyes with black in the center.

 I made 5 and left the rest for her and her 4 year old daughter.  I love her daughter's ladybugs (top left of the photo labeled toppers...go back and check them out if you missed them the first view).

 This is where I left that evening...

 Here is the party Kelly created for her daughter:

So cute!  I love ladybugs.  I have loved them since I was a small child and even had a large ladybug blanket as a baby.  I was so happy to have the chance to make this cake for little Avery.  Kelly also make the cute heart shaped ladybug sugar cookies.  She sent me the first and last photos of this post in a text today to let me know a couple of my tools were returned to my front door with a sweet card and giftcard for my time and instruction.  I'll do it again anytime, Kelly!