Saturday, August 15, 2009

Graffiti "8" Cake


My baby boy turns 8 this week (sniff). There's nothing that makes you realize how quickly time passes like having children and seeing their birthdays flashing by one by one by one, like a high-speed bullet train. I'm pretty sure a year lasted longer when I was a child than it does now. Had to! Time absolutely crawled back then. Now, it's like a time warp. Every time I turn around one of my children is a year older.

But fortunately, birthday cake helps cure the tiny bit of motherly wistfulness that comes with those birthdays. And with it, an excuse to drag out the cake toys and have some fun.


I was at a loss for how to decorate the boy's cake, considering the only thing he likes right now is GUNS. If he had to pick a vocation today, I'm quite certain I would have a SWAT team member for a child. But somehow, guns on a cake... eh, I wasn't feeling it.

Then I remembered an idea from one of my cake friends, Janet... a graffiti cake.

Fortunately, the boy approved.

I took a few "in progress" pictures and figured I'd share them (I love seeing progress pics, and hope y'all do too).

First, I carved the eight shape from a 9x13-inch cake, using a template I sketched out ahead of time. You can see the template here. I've used the bottom of the pan as a size guide.


For the bricks, I cut a stencil from paper using an X-Acto knife. I gave the whole cake a very light spray of black, to give it a kind of grungy urban feel. Working section by section, I first airbrushed a base layer of red bricks (I laid a piece of paper on the bare part to avoid overspray after I took this pic).


Then I took a clean dish cloth and gently pressed down on the "bricks" to give them some texture. Then I went back and airbrushed another layer of red.


(Sorry for the crap pictures, it was nighttime and I wasn't taking my usual 50 pictures just to get one good one.)

For the "COREY" graffiti, I found some example graffiti letters on-line and used them to make a template on a piece of parchment. I then took some white fondant and rolled it very thin. I laid that over the template, and then laid both over an "embossing light box" so I could clearly see the lettering.

Next, I used some edible color markers to lightly sketch around the letters. Then I used my cutting wheel to gently cut around the edges.


I used an X-Acto knife to cut the edges cleanly and pulled the excess fondant away.


Then I let it sit for a while to dry a bit. Next, I airbrushed the green, yellow, and blue. When the color was dry, I went back with my markers and darkened the lines and filled in the 3-d effect.

For the "WASSUP?" and the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY", I first searched for graffiti fonts on google and downloaded those to my computer. Then I printed them out in the size I wanted and used them as a guide for piping onto the cake free-hand.

Then a small tube, piped kinda sloppy around the edges, along with some spikey bits and voila! barbed wire.

OK, if you're still with me, thanks for following along. Hope you enjoyed it!

Night all!

17 comments:

Snooky doodle said...

wow what a nice cake! This is very original and nice. Thanks for sharing some of your tips :)Happy birthday to your little boy !

Anonymous said...

WOW! Awesome cake. Happy Birthday to the birthday boy!

Julia @ Mélanger said...

This is amazing. I love how you created the stencils. They are awesome. I would be so afraid of hurting myself as I cut them out! I'm a bit of a klutz! Great job. Perfect for an 8 year old boy!

Unknown said...

An amazing cake! Thanks for sharing the in-process pics, they are really helpful!

Lucy..♥ said...

WOW! Totally awesome cake!!! Happy birthday to your son!

Pamela said...

That really is an awesome cake! I'm sure he enjoyed it, even if it wasn't a gun. ;o) Hope he had a great birthday.

Katrina said...

How totally cool and fun! I know any of my boys would love it!

margot said...

What an awesome idea for a cake, it looks fantastic! Hope your son had a great birthday.

Anonymous said...

What a great tutorial! A lot of effort, but what amazing results! Very unique!

Heather said...

I love this cake - it's perfect for an eight-year-old's birthday. Happy Birthday to your little boy.

Bunny said...

OMG that is unbelievable! My granddaughter' s would love a cake like this, all girly of course! Thanks for the how to pics!!!

grace said...

if you're gonna graffiti something, it should definitely be a cake--clean-up is easy and a joy! happy birthday to the kiddo. :)

Molly Jean said...

You're such a cool mom :)

Megan said...

What a fantastic cake! I certainly learned a few tricks reading your post, so thanks!

vibi said...

WOW! What amazing work! I'm floored!

Miss High Heels said...

What a fantastic birthday cake! If this is what your son gets for his 8th what's in store for his 18th?

Selba said...

What a great b'day cake you made! Never crossed my mind of graffiti cake.

Happy belated birthday to your son :)