I was asked by some friends to create a cake for their son’s 6th birthday. Toby is having an ‘Animal Magic’ party where creatures and creepy crawlies are brought to the party for the children to handle. As this is such an exciting event when you are 6 (and probably when you are my age too!!) the theme for the cake was decided!

I started by e-mailing the organisers of the event to find out exactly what they take to parties, I was told they have a barn owl, lizards, snake, tarantulas, tortoise, chinchillas……. I chose to make a chameleon, a chameleon type lizard thing (!), a tortoise and a snake. A tarantula would have looked fantastic but I’m afraid I draw the line at spiders!!!

The tortoise is actually a cupcake that was inspired by the fabulous ‘Herman the Tortoise’ by Francesca at North Star Cakes – http://www.facebook.com/NorthStarCakes, the tutorial can be purchased from www.northstarcakes.com

The board is fondant, textured using a wood grain texture mat and the colours were built up on the board and cake with an airbrush. The colours on the models were all hand dusted with Blossom Sugar Art and Sugarflair dusts and lustres.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this cake and I am really pleased with how it turned out.