Edible Image on Cake

For my Grandpa's 80th Birthday we decided to celebrate with a birthday party. It's not every day that you turn 80. I was making a cake for the party and wanted to do something different. I had a picture of my Grandpa when he was younger and serving in the air force. He also worked his career and retired from Disney Studios. I took the picture, scanned it into Photoshop, added some balloons, a Mickey Mouse & some words. I took the picture to our local grocery store, Harmons and in their bakery section they printed the picture out on their edible printer (someday I want to get me one of these). On the left side you see the picture and the frosting edible image on the right. It is an 8x10 image.

You can tell the edible image is not as vivid as the printed picture and it ended up a bit smaller than the 8.5x11 inch image that was printed. 

However it is a great duplication... and went onto the cake nicely. (Check local grocery stores or bakeries for the option to have your image printed cause it makes for a super easy & personalized cake!)

Here is the cake right after I finished decorating. I made a simple chocolate layered cake, covered in a basic white buttercream (had to be a light color so the image would show up). Before I added the blue star border I peeled the image off the backer paper and applied it onto the white background. So easy! Peel & Stick! The edges were super noticeable at first but with time the image blended into the frosting more and more. I didn't really know what I was doing, but it turned out. When they printed the image, there was an ink blur at the bottom and it transferred as well... I should have cut that off. I could have trimmed around the image as well since the cake was bigger than the image and I didn't put the border next to the edge of the image.

I used a large wide open star in blue tinted buttercream for the border.

Grandpa (and Grandma) loved the cake! And that's all that matters. I had bought some camouflage material to use as a tablecloth for our party. The cake cut up nicely when it was time to eat it. I made sure I got a piece with the edible image and it tasted like sugar.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Polaroid Pictures

I found this website that converts any photo that you have into a Polaroid and gives it that old fashioned look including some of the developing imperfections. Click here to get the link to the website. There is a program available for both MAC and PC users.

Preview:
POLADROID generates images the same way that a Polaroid™ would do (Polaroid™-like).
It produces high-definition images (400 dpi) with the real aspect of a Polaroid™ and perfectly suitable for printing.
Using Poladroid is straightforward: just drag and drop any JPEG directly on the icon of Poladroid and wait until the image appears... slowly... very slowly.
POLADROID is an unusual software, completely crazy, which reproduces all the strange behaviors of a popular picture camera with its unique result but... so much copied: the Polaroid!
POLADROID is an addictive software (you’ve been warned!) because it is so easy to use and unexpected:
- square frame
- colour shift
- vignetting
- premature aging
Eventually, you’ll be surprised to discover pictures that were thought to know.

Instalation:
Drag and drop the application in the ‘Applications’ folder.

Usage:
1) Drag and drop one or more JPEG files on the icon of POLADROID.
2) Wait several minutes until the photo gets developed.
Hint: if you want to speed up the process, shake your image from right to left.
3) Once the image is ready, a bell rings and the image is marked up with a red cross.
4) The final file (in JPEG format) will be generated in the same folder than the original image or your ‘Images’ folder, depending on your settings in the pre- ferences. The resulting file name is the original file name with the suffix ‘-pola’ appended.

Specifications:
The resulting images reproduce all imperfections of a real POLAROID photo, such as:
- colour shifting and vignetting
- having to wait to get the result... can you believe this in a fast-running world?
- processing limitation of 10 images in a raw... yes, a Polaroid cardridge only contains 10 films! You’ll have to quit the application and relaunch iit to be able to process 10 more files.
Have fun!

When it is done a red X appears. You can right click on it and it will take you to the high resolution version that has been saved on to your computer! (these settings can be changed -read the manual to see how)

Since it is high resolution this means you can print it out or use it on a digital scrapbook page! How fun is that?

And one last funny Poladroid quirk...you can only "develop" 10 photos before you have to close the program and reopen it - just like a roll of Polaroid film!