Party in a Pinch!
Exciting Announcement!
And a Giveaway!
And Another Giveaway!
Yup… it’s a four-fer!
My friend, Karen Ehman, and I are celebrating some very exciting news!
When I celebrate a special event, occasion, or exciting news, I like to throw on a bit of confetti and make it a party! Sometimes I am very short on time, or the idea to celebrate occurs to me at the very last moment. Or sometimes you find out it’s your friends birthday at 5:00pm on her actual birthday. Ooops!
For these types of events, there usually isn’t enough time to whip up a cake from scratch… or even from a box (which I do all the time!). Sometimes you have to come up with a party in a pinch.
Yesterday was one of those occasions! My son, Nick, received his third college acceptance. This one came with a generous scholarship as well as an invitation to apply for an honors program which brings even more scholarship money. Now this won’t pay for college… sadly… but it sure will help. Besides that… and besides the fact that he may not even choose this university, I am proud of what he has accomplished. And I am proud of his efforts.
So… I picked up a pretty cake from the bakery department at my grocery store, placed it on a cake pedestal, threw on some colorful sprinkles, surrounded it with curly ribbon, threw Skittles around the table to look like confetti, and added sparkler candles for extra WOW!
How festive is this?
Doesn’t it look like a clown car exploded?!
That was my party in a pinch. Now for the exciting announcement!
Karen and I are beyond thrilled to share that we have signed a contract with Revell to publish a book that will be filled with occasions to celebrate and ways to celebrate them. The working title is, Everyday Confetti. Isn’t that a fun title?
We hope Everyday Confetti will be a woman’s go-to guide for celebrating with others throughout the calendar year. It will include organizing strategies, shopping tips, menu plans, easy-to-make recipes and activities for oodles of special occasions. Whether it is a major holiday, a loved one’s milestone, a time-to-throw-a-party happening, a day on the Christian calendar or simply an ordinary day that is just waiting for a little confetti to be added to make it a celebration, this book will guide you step-by-step. Everyday Confetti will also include lots of practical outreach ideas for sharing the love of Christ in the midst of our hectic-paced world.
Cool, huh? Karen and I will be working on the manuscript over the next few months and the book will be available late summer/early fall of 2013. That sure seems like a long time but I know it will be here before we know it. And… you know there will be a whole lot more celebrating… and giveaways… and screaming… and confetti!
Oh yeah… giveaways!
To celebrate our exciting news, I am giving away an awesome book that is filled with amazing ideas for decorating cakes. You can take the party in a pinch short cut method when you don’t have time to crack the eggs but, when you do have extra time, this book will give you lots of ideas along with instructions for baking and decorating amazing cakes.
You will have tons of fun creating show-stopping cakes!
To win, simply post a comment sharing your favorite cake flavor or… because you know I love a good kitchen disaster story… share a funny cake flop story. You know… you used salt instead of sugar; you forgot the leavening ingredients and it fell; a bird flew in the window and landed in it… you get the idea 
A winner will be chosen and announced on Monday!
But… that’s not all! Karen has a celebration giveaway too! Pop over to www.karenehman.com for a chance to win her awesome giveaway.
Thanks, friends, for celebrating with us. Ya’ll seriously make me smile.
Pin ItSweetest Blessings,
LeAnn
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My favorite cake is homemade apple cake with cream cheese frosting or just sugar on top. So great for cool Fall days and smells delicious all day in my kitchen.
My favorite cake is choclate!
Happy Celebrating LeAnn!
Goodness, I have so many favorite cakes – Chocolate is number one of course but then it would have to be a pumpkin spice, apple spice or banana with cream cheese frosting! Just love that cream cheese frosting!
My cake flop story actually isn’t mine but something that happened to my Mom when I was growing up that has made family history. My parents bought and flipped houses all my life while we lived in them. My Mom was also a stay-at-home working Mom – she sewed, babysat, decorated and baked cakes for people from home. She had an order for a birthday cake for a neighbors daughter and it turned out exceptionally beautiful. Among my Mom’s many talents was a God given gift of artistic talent – this cake was B E A U T I F U L! Too pretty to eat. The cake was delivered it to the neighbors house in record time for the party. The next day Mom went over to have coffee with the neighbor and there was the cake still sitting on the counter with just a little piece missing. The neighbor had been too afraid to feed it to her daughter and friends because it tasted and smelled like varnish. My Dad had been staining the woodwork in the living room while Mom was baking and decorating the cake. They had no idea that the cake would absorb the odor of the varnish! Mom felt horrible and gave the neighbor back her money but the neighbor wouldn’t take another cake in return, we think she was afraid of how it would taste. It was quite a learning experience in our household and there were no more smelly remodel projects allowed in the house while Mom was baking after that!
My birthday is coming up in four days and I can’t wait to taste one of Mom’s cakes again!
Hope you enjoy your weekend! Hugs
When our college aged son became a type 1 diabetic I had to learn to make his birthday cake differently. I tried a low carb, sugar free recipe in a bundt pan and served it at the family celebration. Well, it stuck to the pan so badly I had to throw the whole thing out, pan and all! The “prissy” cooks at the table laughed at my cake but my son told me he loved it because I tried to make something he could eat. I stick with cheese cake now…pun intended
Celebrate everyday! Favorite flavor is chocolate with cream cheese frosting;-)))
My favorite cake is mince pie, I know it’s not cake, duh!!!!!! Can’t help and throw a monkey wrench in the mix, but hey, that’s me!
As a child with an April birthday my grandmother would capture the spirit of Easter when she made my cake. It was a coconut cake, with white frosting that was sprinkled with coconut. Off to the side was a nest of green coconut. Inside the nest were jelly beans. Talk about special! She created a true celebration!
I love your celebration cake – well done and congrats to your son! My favorite cake is Banana with a whipped cream frosting. Like others I have forgotten ingredients…once for a church event. I was making cherry almond cupcakes and forgot the eggs. Of course they fell and the texture was wrong, but I had to have something so what to do? I crumbled them, added fresh custard, whipped cream & cherry – they were the talk of the day!
Looking forward to the book that you two gals are doing! I tried to make an earthquake cake several years ago, and I forgot to put the sugar in…yeah, big mistake, the whole thing had to be tossed!
Carrot raisin cake with cream cheese frosting. My mom used to make this. Sooooo Good!
My favorite cake is a homemade white cake with chocolate buttercream icing. I know a little plain, but I love it.
When my son was two (he is 14 now), I had baked a cake for my husbands birthday and had the icing on just perfect. I put the cake in my tupperware cake carrier and set it on the kitchen table. Before my husband could get home my sweet little boy knocked the cake off the table. It wasn’t so pretty, but it still tasted good.
I was making a birthday cake for my boss. He wanted a German Chocolate Cake. I’ve made many from scratch before, so of course I would make his from scratch. It was late on Sunday evening, the night before I was to bring it to work. At 9:00 when I went to take them out of the pans, they didn’t come out. I couldn’t even get them out to salvage them. I threw it all in the trash and thankfully had a box mix of German Chocolate Cake and made that. Turned out perfectly and no one knew it wasn’t from scratch. My husband said he didn’t know why I didn’t use the box to begin with and if I made cakes better than Betty Crocker, then I was in the wrong line of work. : )
mmmm my favorite cake flavor has GOT to be a toss up between funfetti cake and my moms concoction of jello cake. You take any kind of cake mix, right before its done, mix up a batch of jello, take cake out and poke holes in the cake with a fork…pour mixed jello over the top of the cake, let it all cool together, put in the fridge and then serve with whip cream on top… so yummy.
Congratulations! I’m a fan of any cake with chocolate!
Lemon cake & cream cheese frosting!!!
Actually cheesecake, but I’m not sure that’s what you mean
I LOVE lemon cake! I forgot to add the water to my husband’s birthday cake one year….it didn’t turn out and I had to pick a cake up from the nearest store!
I love Chocolate with chocolate chips or nuts or caramel or something else on it. YUM! We had a cake flop one time for a birthday… we were trying to make a round layer cake. The layers came out a little too “concave”, if you get my meaning. So we iced the first layer and it’s little “bump” in the middle… then we flopped the second curvy layer on top and it split… so we tried to make the cake stick together by using 2 containers of frosting. Needless to say, it was delicious, but ugly. The top layer kept sliding off and we had to hold it in place with toothpicks.
Do I have a cake flop story. I had been decorating cakes for fun and $$$ for thirty years when my daughter got married in 2004. I had made many a beautiful wedding cake. . . successfully and standing straight up. You can imagine how upset I was when, on the day of her wedding the cake was leaning like the Tower of Pisa. It WAS 95 degrees that day and I HAD deviated from wooden dowel to jumbo lollipop sticks on the advice from the owner of the supply store. BIG MISTAKE!!!!! In spite of the horror of the leaning cake at my OWN DAUGHTER’S WEDDING, we got some really funny pics and it was super delicious if I must say so myself. We didn’t take one single serving home with us except the top. I think everyone took to-go pieces.
I LOVE Red velvet cake! Especially made by my sweet G’Ma! — Looking forward to the new book! Congrats on this new endeavor!
I actually love strawberry cake – mmmmm
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