My new toy!

I've been seeing for a few months all of these awesome cakes on the Facebook group that I belong to for Texas Home Bakers by this really great cake designer who I believe is outside the Houston area.  Crisp clean and CUTE - she would have the cutest lettering on her cakes...I heard that she had a machine called the Cameo by Silhouette America.  Now us cakers have to be creative when it comes to designs and this machine is no different.  What is the Cameo?  It's an electronic cutting machine - kinda like the Cricut machine that you see in the craft stores.  Unlike the Cricut, the Cameo doesn't work with individual cartridges that are full of images.  With the Cameo I can use their editing software (free when you get the machine) and can design literally ANYTHING to be cut out.  Many people use it for scrapbooking and paper-crafting...but leave it to us crazy cakers to find a way to manipulate this machine to work for us!

There is an amazing sugar-artist by the name of Linda McClure who is from Louisiana who is the Silhouette Cameo Guru! some of her cakes (ok, all) are truly works of art - and all created using this amazing machine!
Her website is http://www.thebakerycottage.com/ She has developed and designed a way for us cakers to use the Cameo machine with very thin sheets of a special gum-paste.

Anyway, I kept hearing about this darned machine and dammit I wanted one!  I saw it in Michaels on sale for $279 (yeppers it's pricey) and then decided that I could find it cheaper - and I did.  I was able to win an auction on E-bay and got it for just under $220 (with shipping) - I also had to get a special blade that Linda McClure sells to cut through the sheets of gum paste...I grumbled at the cost of the blade, but after receiving the package that she sells that contains the blade, I was VERY glad that I bought it.

I was able to play with the machine for a little bit and then I finally had my opportunity to use it on a birthday cake the other week!  I didn't use gum paste, I used regular icing sheets!  I was thrilled at how well the machine worked!

Big Bang Theory - Bazinga  Cake!

I definitely cannot wait to use it  again!!  the ideas and designs are ENDLESS!!!