Baby Bootie Buds

Gertrude Stein said, "Rose is a rose is a rose."  I'd have to agree with her.  I love putting fresh flowers on cakes turning them into centerpieces when it's a cake-and-punch type function.  My flowers always come from Wade the Florist, where I also work when he needs another set of hands.

 Christmas Eve wedding cake

That was a huge honkin' cake!

Mama's 80th Birthday cake

Sometimes though, the shop is closed and fresh flowers aren't readily available.  Yesterday evening, when I decided I wanted to decorate a baby shower cake with flowers, it was too late to stop by.  Wade had a delivery and wouldn't be back in town for a while, so I decided to make baby bootie buds!  I've made them before, using baby wash cloths as well as booties.

When the baby cake is for someone I know, I like to add in

all the little extras you see here:  pacifiers, thermometers,

aspirators, hairbrush, etc.;  It's my gift to the prospective 

parent!

I'm sure someone else must do them as well, but the inspiration for them arose from diaper cakes!  There are a couple of talented ladies in the community that make the cutest diaper cakes.  I had thought, "If they can wad up diapers to look like a tiered cake and tie them together, I bet I can do something for a REAL cake with baby stuff..."  And I do!

It really doesn't take any special equipment.  If you're a do-it-yourself kind of gurl or feller, you already have a pair of wire cutters (for the greenery) and scissors for the plastic holder-thingies keeping the socks bound together and the curling ribbon.  If you have chenille wires, those work well, too.  Mine have disappeared:  I suspect the dog.

 I use the most economical skewers available (I think they're $1.00 for a hundred?) and a big roll of curling ribbon can be bequeathed to your great grands.

Cut the booties out of their packaging (duh).

Start at the toe end of one bootie

Ewww!  You can tell my hands and wrists are swollen

from major use, splitting and hauling wood yesterday

evening.  Middle age BITES!

wrap tightly around a bamboo skewer and secure 

with a length of curling ribbon or any ribbon you want to use.  Tadadaaaaaa!  Congratulations on making that rose bud!

Now do that exactly as many more times as you want to!  The baby booties and socks were on sale at Family Dollar so I purchased enough to make 18 buds.  To assemble the cake, cut the greenery with stems long enough to penetrate several inches into the cake.  I usually leave mine about six inches long.

All you need is a cake.  This one is for a baby girl.  It's a chocolate cake with chocolate Bavarian cream filling and butter cream icing.

When making fresh cut arrangements, Wade puts his flowers in first and then fills in with greenery.  His mom, Mrs. Jane, does just the opposite.  She always makes her basic arrangement shape with greenery and filler and then puts in the flowers.  It's easier for me to arrange HER way than his ('cause he's just good that way).

 I like symmetry.  The silk greenery is mounded as high

as it is out.

It's a perk from working in a florist:  I make bows their way!  The use of a bow depends strictly upon whether there's ribbon in the house or not.  Distribute bootie buds randomly but evenly through the greenery, not forgetting to place a few close to the cake.  See those cutters?  They're my Cutco pruners.  They don't leave the kitchen.  I have them in the cake stuff to cut dowels and skewers with.  You might have to trim a few skewers shorter getting closer to the edge of the cake to avoid having the middle slap full of holes.

AND, don't freak out if the bud slides off a skewer.  It happens all the time.  All you have to do is slide the skewer back through the middle of the bud.  Or cut the ribbon and retie.  Either way, it's not a big deal.

So there you have them!  Try them for a baby shower in your neck of the woods!