We are always inspired by the choices our brides make for their wedding cakes.  Most recently, we were INSPIRED to check out the options that exist for cake toppers and immediately headed to Etsy.com.  This site has so many fun things to shop for!  Upon entering our search criteria, we noticed there are ALOT of bird cake toppers…here are some favorites!

We heart love birds…and we heart cake.  These little treasures are doubleheartlove.

Again, all of these gems are off Etsy.com and we are noting the makers of each so you can find them if you love them as much as we do!  Click the photos to head to their Etsy profile!

cottonbirddesigns's design from Etsy.com

ginpins's design from Etsy.com

vintagegreenlimited's design from Etsy.com

For those of you new to my obsession called ‘350 Degrees of Cake’ it is basically a imitator of the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, however I chose 350 as a reference to a popular baking temperature and to give myself plenty of wiggle room for those toughie challenges :)

So, here we go with SHIRT suggested by Facebook friend Shaneekqua…

The first thing I thought of was…Keep your shirt on!  I wasn’t even sure I had the phrase correct or that it meant what I thought it meant, but now that I know, I just can’t wait to find a situation where I can say it!!

Before the days of machines doing just about everything for us, shirts and other clothing items required a lot of labor to make…thus making them EXPENSIVE by today’s standards.  Someone thinking of starting a fight might take his shirt off to prevent damage.  Telling someone to ‘keep their shirt on’ was the equivalent of telling them ‘I don’t want to fight’.  Thus the definition has evolved to calm down, be patient.

…moving on from calm…

Keep Calm and Carry On was a poster produced by the British government during WWII.  It was intended to raise the morale of the public in the event of an invasion.  It wasn’t well known at the time but has now be rediscovered and you can find it with MANY different sayings…KEEP CALM…and tweet on…and rock on…and quack on…and…and…(you get the picture)…but the best one is…KEEP CALM AND BAKE ON.

And this wonderful cake related phrase comes in the form of a t-shirt!

How does one get from Iced Tea to Cake?  The answer is not easily!!  However, I was DETERMINED…

I have always wondered what is correct…iced tea or ice tea…had I known all along that the answer right there in Wikipedia this lingering question would have been solved long ago…(and one must ALWAYS believe what the internet says!)

As usual…starting with the definition: Iced tea (sometimes corrupted to ice tea) is a form of cold tea, often served in a glass with ice.  It may or not be sweetened.

I must confess…it was SUPER tempting to just run with the SWEET angle on this one but decided that just wasn’t playing fair.

So, let’s begin…

Iced tea the DRINK:  In the U.K., they prefer it HOT…but here in the US of A,  ICED tea makes up 85% of all tea consumed and is a popular alternative to soft drinks.  While looking for some iced tea facts, I came across more than one website dedicated entirely to tea!  Wowsers…who knew!?!

Ice-T the MUSICIAN and ACTOR:  I was really hoping for some outrageous and funny direction from there…but NOTHING!!!

About now, there is legitimate concern that I will be defeated by Iced Tea.  I am STRUGGLING…but one must never give up!

Iced tea the BRAND:  Lipton Iced Tea is a popular brand of tea…and every brand needs a spokesperson!  In walks Hugh Jackman…(I think I may be on to something here, and I am not at all disappointed this direction involves Hugh Jackman!)

The oh.so.SWEET (looking) Jackman has been in many movies…most notably, the X-Men series and another lesser known film titled Someone Like You…His co-star in this movie was Ashley Judd…Ashley has some pretty famous relatives…her sister, Wynona Judd is a country singer…one of her songs is called ‘A Girls Night Out’…one form of a girls night is the popular tradition of bachelorette party…

I ALMOST just took this the direction of wedding but since I have referenced wedding cake as the solution previously, I decided to make myself to get more creative.

…so picking up from bachelorette party…a bachelorette party, hen party, or hen night is held for someone who is about to get married…hens lay eggs…and well…eggs are in CAKE.

Whew!  That was EXHAUSTING! But alas…the SWEET powers of cake have prevailed!

As I always do, I must start with the definition.

A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship’s amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way.

Anyone who has been on a cruise is acquainted with the silly feeling of standing in your assigned location wearing a life jacket even though the ship hasn’t even left the port (or has just left…I don’t recall this detail)…ANYWAY knowing what to do if the floating hotel was in trouble is of vital importance!

So there you stand…among strangers…wearing a life jacket hoping that all they are teaching you never becomes reality…and that if it does, your life jacket floats.

Hmmmm…life jackets FLOAT…that sounds yummy…

A Float is a drink made out of root beer and ice cream…

And Ice Cream quite often accompanies CAKE…

His mother made his cake…which I LOVE!  Being part of a bakery, people tend to think we will be cake snobs but that just isn’t the case.  There is nothing better than a cake thoughtfully made by someone who loves you.  His mother lovingly decorated the cake with icing versions of Batman and Robin with the traditional wording ‘Happy 4th Birthday Gavin’.  I provide these details so that I can now explain the wonderful thing I learned. Their family tradition is to allow each child (starting with the birthday boy of course) to choose which part of the cake they want.  The birthday boy requested Batman, the next child wanted ‘Happy’ and so on…My OCD did scream a bit when I saw the holes cut in random parts of the cake but when the reason was explained I was so touched.  What a brilliant idea to make each and every child at the party feel so special…

I can’t wait to start this with my own family…

What are your family cake traditions?

Cat…Felis catus, katze, chat, felina…no matter what language you say it in, there never seems to be an in-between on how people feel about them.  Either people LOVE them…or…they…well…they don’t.

Let’s ponder a moment on the ‘famous’ cats…Garfield (who out there had a Garfield phone???), Felix the Cat, the Cheshire Cat, and Tom Cat (of Tom and Jerry fame).

For grins and giggles, let’s focus on the Cheshire Cat :)

From Wikipedia:  The Cheshire Cat is one of many iconic characters depicted in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that have become enmeshed in popular culture, appearing in various forms of media, from political cartoons to television. One of its distinguishing features is that from time to time it disappears, the last thing to be seen being its grin.

Obviously, Alice is also a central character to the story.  In Chapter 1 – Down the Rabbit Hole, Alice is bored sitting on the riverbank with her sister, when she notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit, but through which she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle labelled “DRINK ME”, the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key. A CAKE with “EAT ME” on it causes her to grow to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling.

Did someone say CAKE?

This challenge had me stumped for a bit…but just as trying to recall that thought that is just out of reach, it  WILL come to you!

Let’s start with the definition:  soccer – noun – a form of football played between two teams of 11 players, in which the ball may be advanced by kicking or bouncing it off any part of the body but the arms and hands, except in the case of the goalkeepers, who may use their hands to catch, carry, throw, or stop the ball.

The first train of thought was making a connection using the association to a soccer hooligan.  I looked up the definition and nearly spit out my morning coffee:

From Urban Dictionary (not exactly Merriam-Webter, but funny and borderline educational!): soccer hooligan: an Englishman or Scot who likes to attend football (soccer) games p$%^& (aka drunk) out of his skull, start fights, and vandalize property; unhappy unless someone leaves the game in an ambulance.

I realize this definition is probably not the OFFICIAL one but it certainly is entertaining…alas…I was unable to find any funny videos of crazed fans having cake fights so I had to switch gears…

On a professional level, soccer is much more popular in other countries than here in the US.  Not all US cities have Major League Soccer Teams…and for the purpose of this connection I am going to single out one market…the San Jose Earthquakes.  Landon Donovan is one very notable player to be associated with this team as he was loaned to them by the German club Bayer Leverkusen in 2001 where Donovan lead them to MLS Cup Champtionships in both 2001 and 2003.

SPEAKING of San Jose…there is a catchy little jingle called ‘Do you know the way to San Jose’ by Dionne Warwick.  This song haunted me for a brief period of my life.  I heard it EVERYWHERE…classical instrumental versions while shopping somewhere, in movies, random background music while on hold…so much so that a dear friend bought me a ‘San Jose’ shot class on a visit there with a hand made pop of with the words ‘do you know the way’…ha!

One such movie appearance is…this song was mentioned during a comical scene in the 1997 move ‘My Best Friends Wedding’ with Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Dermont Mulroney and Rupert Everett.   The title sequence of the song is sung during a discussion the characters are having about Dionne Warwick ” Do you know the way to San Jose, LA LA LA , and then Rubert Everett continues with another Dionne song…’I Say a Little Prayer For You’…The moment I wake up….before  put on my makeup….

ANYWAY…In the movie, Cameron and Dermont get married…and well…weddings have CAKE.

From geology.com:

Geology is the study of the Earth, the materials of which it is made, the structure of those materials, and the processes acting upon them. It includes the study of organisms that have inhabited our planet. An important part of geology is the study of how Earth’s materials, structures, processes and organisms have changed over time.

So…my first approach to this problem was oil…the earth is made up of lots of it and there are many things that come from this black gold that end up in our every day use.  When I worked in said industry for Phillips Petroleum, they handed out a list of these examples in orientation.  I remember feeling a sense of job security because everything from lipstick to antifreeze needed what we were discovering, drilling for, and producing.  Having left that industry long ago…I still have fond memories of my time spent there…just don’t ASK about the key to the V door…hehe

Anyway…I digress…

I didn’t like where the oil approach was headed so I decided to focus on the big round ball…EARTH!

The earth is made out of many things, but it is basically a huge ball of rock.  The lithosphere, or crust, is the outermost layer…and this is where we live!  And well…CAKE has crust too…