And so time flies ....

And so time flies away again and here I am only blogging again 7 months later ... FAIL!  Oh well such is life.  Working half day, doing to kiddie runs and the normal ups and downs of life happen, so I'm not going to feel too guilty about it ... not much anyway.  ok, so maybe I'll just agree to disagree with myself about feeling guilty about it :).

So whats been happening in the meantime.  I've been busy ... but not making a huge amount of cakes unfortunately.  I joined the South African Cake Decorators Guild about 2 years ago and go to monthly meetings.  It's really a great way to get in touch with like-minded people and the women are really wonderful.  They are always full of ideas, tips, tricks, recipes and hold wonderful Dem days and workshops.  The branch I belong to meets on the 3rd Saturday of the month and there is normally a Dem of some description that takes place and if we are really lucky ... a workshop!  I love workshops. Unfortunately as many of you know, doing cake workshops are normally really costly.  Through the the various branches of the SACDG they are really reasonable and affordable.  The Guild also has various Exhibition days in the various regions throughout the year.

I had previously only entered once before at the National Show in 2013 - the theme was masks and I got a silver for my entry. I was quite proud of it.

The next entry I was disappointed when I only got a bronze for my floral entry. The event was tied to a Garden show in PTA and the entry needed to be a sugarpaste version of a hand-held wedding bouquet. I lost points on the base being the wrong colour and I had a fair amount of difficulty due to the weather suddenly turning very wet and having rain for 2 weeks solid. The flowers didn't dry properly, the paste was very sticky so it was difficult to try to roll it very thin and dusting was a nightmare as everything was wet ... not something I'm used to dealing with in JHB.

In March this year, the Bloemfontein branch had a show day with an African theme. Now I'm a novice still (you need to get 3 gold certificates in any one section in order to move up a section).  I was really surprised and very chuffed when I got my first gold, and won "First Gold" which means I won the section.

Last week (8th Sept 2014) was the Orchid Show at the Sandton Convention Center and I decided to be ambitious and enter twice. (In show days there are normally two options per section - a fondant creation and a cake)  I entered the sugarpaste section as well as the cake section.  I was sad to get only an bronze for my Orchids and a Silver for the cake. For the Orchid stem (second picture) I must have made over 50 orchids before I got some that looked realistic and didn't break when I wired them together.

Anyway, that's it for me for now. 

Love

S