The "SWEET" life of Chelsey!

Happy 60th Birthday!

2011-01-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

Happy 60th Birthday!! Here's a 60th birthday cake full of the jobs that this man has had the last 60 years! Hope it was a great surprise!!!

Cake Update!!!

2011-01-26T15:01:00.001-08:00

It's been awhile and I've done some cakes that haven't been put up yet! So here they are.....

October: Halloween Cupcakes: Witches Hat, Pumpkin Patch, and Ghosts.

November: Happy 30th Birthday April! Celebrated with an '80's cake...pac man, neon glasses, and all! November: This was my wedding cake, we had a simple black "J" on top. :)

December: Happy 50th Birthday Kim! So glad I got to see you guys!January: Rittenhouse wedding cake! January: Happy Graduation Amanda, Purdue Grad!

More to come! Stay tuned, or check us out on Facebook!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

2010-10-14T16:14:00.001-07:00

Happy 75th Birthday to my Grandpa Lyle!!!

THE UPDATE!!!

2010-10-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

Hi again, Remember me?? haha... :) I know its been awhile, but now I'm here to add a lot of my creations...

I've had a "Transformers Bumble Bee" cake, some Lime Green, Pearl, & Purple cupcakes for a rehearsal dinner, some Oreo truffles for the Buckeye Womens Club, a Birthday Cake for a man who is a dentist, has a background in farming and loves his family and the gospel (each of the tiers), also an "Anniversary gift", and a "1" year old birthday cake for a sweet little girl. September was really busy, but things have slowed down..So Here is the update.

There they all are! I had a lot of fun with all of them! Stay tuned soon for my Grandpa's 75th Birthday cake!!!! Thanks for checkin' in! If anyone needs a cake for their special occasion you can leave a comment or find me on facebook! :) Talk to you again soon.....

Jamie & Jennifer's cake

2010-09-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

Jamie & Jennifer got married on September 4 in Salt Lake City, Utah. A week later they had an open house here in Mesa. This was their cake for their open house. Lots of chocolate inside. Their night was beautiful and we're so excited for them. Thanks Jamie & Jennifer. Hope it was good!

Corine & Linda's Walk for Life Cupcakes

2010-09-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Hi again! Last week I did some cupcakes for a great cause!

I'm excited that I was able to be a part of this great event that remembers 2 great women who "paid it forward". I am blessed to have known them when I was in school and I hope the cupcakes went well!

A "Sweet" Car!

2010-08-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

A quick break from cake....

This last weekend my ward at church had a Pinewood Derby, Jacob and I and a couple of our friends spent an evening cutting and sanding and adding weight to our cars and had a lot of fun! We gave them a quick coat of paint amongst everything else that was going on and we went to our activity! I wanted to show you my car....what a fun sweet treat (made of wood)!

A twinkie car!!!!!! On the side, instead of Hostess, its "Chelsey... That's the stuff" haha!! It was fun! This little baby was voted "best block of wood"... I'm thinking its because it looked so good they wanted a bite... ;) This also had lead cream filling! Anyways, I just thought I would share this "sweet" car with you!! I'm having so much fun getting to experiment with all types of sweet!

No cakes this week, but I'll be back next week with cupcakes and cakes! See you all then!

Clint is 16!

2010-08-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday 16th Clint! I can't believe Clint is 16, pretty crazy, but he got a cool football surprise! His mom asked for a Football, BUHS cake....and there had to be some "horsies" in there since thats what he played with when he was little. :) This cake was lots of chocolate, but what else could you need! Hope they liked it and had a great party because it was fun to make!

Happy Birthday Mani!

2010-08-22T00:28:00.001-07:00

Happy 15th Birthday Mani!!!! Jacobs baby sister Mani turned 15 yesterday and got a cookies and creme cake, with cookies and creme buttercream for her cake this year. The bottom is chocolate cake with cookies and creme buttercream. Brittany helped me design what she would like and she ahd no idea she was getting a cake, It was way fun! Since she doesn't like pink (just like me) we went for some wacky colors. If you can't tell, the white on the bottom are volleyballs. I'm pretty excited about how this cake turned out. I hope Mani had an awesome birthday because this cake was sure fun to do! See you all soon, I have more orders for the next month! :)

Also..... I have to add, yesterday was my moms birthday too! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! (She was 31 again this year ;)

Happy Birthday Phil!

2010-08-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Miken called and wanted to see the Chelsey cake show, so I went to her house today and decorated this cake for her husbands birthday. Her daughter wanted to be the helper too so she got to cut out the stars. We had a good time, candles included because thats what she wanted on her daddy's cake. Thanks for letting me come and be with your family Miken and Phil. I had fun. Hope you enjoyed the cake!

Happy Birthday Cowgirl!

2010-08-12T23:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Melissa! This cake is what I like to call the true cowgirl cake.... U of A colors and all. The cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I sure hope they enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun! This week has been a lot of cake, but it was sweet! ;)

Happy 95th Birthday Grandma!

2010-08-12T01:32:00.001-07:00

Well Happy Birthday to my Great Grandma King! She is 95 years old and going strong!!! It is tradition that she gets a watermelon for her birthday.... This year that watermelon just ends up have brown sugar cinnamon cake with buttercream frosting on the inside. :) Hope she likes it!

More to come......

2010-08-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Hello all!
I just wanted to check in and say that the next month or so is going to be crazy. I have a bunch of orders coming in and I'm excited! So stay tuned, because there will be more pictures to come!

Truffles

2010-07-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks Debbie for ordering truffles. I think they are so good. I have also started making Oreo Peanut Butter truffles also. Even though I can't have peanut butter, I've been told they are pretty good. If anyone is interested in email me at Checkw7@aol.com

Birthday Cake!!!!!

2010-07-11T01:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday BJ! Yesterday was my friend BJ's Birthday, I got to do his birthday cake and it was fun to do. For those of you who might think that the pink color is funny for a boy.....its an inside joke. I always tell him this shirt that he has is pink, and he always tells me its "Salmon," so i had to do "Salmon" color in it. I had a lot of fun.....we also had a good time celebrating at his party! Happy Birthday! Thanks for letting me do this cake.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!!!!!

2010-07-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hi again! I had so much fun trying to be festive for the 4th!!! First, my little sister had her tonsils out, and as one of her requests I made her some Oreo Truffles... But Why not make them look cute... So We have Red, White, and Blue Truffles....

For the cake that I made I have to thank my friend Alli, who had given me a link to this cook DIY website. On this website, she had done a super cool 4th of July cake that I HAD to try....I turned out SUPER GOOD and WAY COOL! I was SOO excited!!! So here's some pictures......and Thanks again Alli for the site!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!!! I'm so happy to live in a free country and thankful for all those who serve and have served for our country!!!!!!

Bridal Shower cupcakes

2010-06-21T20:14:00.001-07:00

My friend decided to take a chance on me, which I appreciate. They are just some simple green and yellow...I think they were a little deeper of a green than what they had at the shower but still totally John Deere. :) "T"s for the bride-to-be's new name.

I thought they turned out good.... after a couple issues. No biggie.

Graduation

2010-05-22T00:40:00.000-07:00

Hello again... I'm staying busy, so thats good. My little brother graduated from 8th grade so of course we had to have desserts! I just wanted to show off our grad cap sugar cookies... They turned out good I think.

We also had some little cupcakes and a few other things, but I didn't get very many pictures.

Happy Graduation Spenc!!

Happy Mothers Day!

2010-05-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day has come and gone, and what a wonderful mom I have. I'm so grateful to have such a good mom, grandma's, and wonderful women in my life. So when my mom asked for a cake for mothers day....a cake is what she got. :) Here it is....

The Wedding Cake

2010-04-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

I did it, I made my first wedding cake!! I am very pleased with how it turned out, even though the week was super busy. The daughter of a friend of my moms was getting married, so my mom was over the food (which was AMAZING, if you were wondering).. I did the cake, and we kind of helped set up, either way... it was busy but good. I'm so excited that it turned out and that the bride LOVED it, I was glad she had something that she chose and loved.

We cut it all, it was sad.... but it sure tasted good (not to brag or anything). :) Anyways.... I'm glad its done, but it was so fun to get to do!

Now... My mom has requested a cake for Mothers Day! Easy enough.... I'll have pictures up after that day. Everyone, here is a forewarning....MOTHERS DAY is MAY 9! Its early enough that now there is no excuse for waiting til the last minute! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to ALL the wonderful Moms!! I don't know what I would do without mine!

Ralph and Orlene's 60th Anniversary cake

2010-04-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Ralph and Orlene are a great couple who Jacob and I play cards with weekly, it is one of our favorite times of the week!! So much fun! They just had their 60th Wedding Anniversary and I jumped on the opportunity to make their cake. They love chocolate, so the bottom and top tier are all chocolate with chocolate frosting, they loved it. The middle is yellow cake with white frosting. I had a lot of fun making this cake. I got to try new things.. and I think it turned out good and I also learned a lot. The top tier has (edible) pearls beads all over it, and the bottom tier has the cool lined pattern with the pearl beads, almost looked like a cushion. Anyways.... I'm excited that it turned out and the party was great. It was definitely a busy Saturday of deliveries and parties, not to mention all the crazy days making it before then. But anyways, the sweets continue!! :)

Melanies Bridal Shower

2010-04-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hi again, last weekend was pretty busy. My friend Melanie had her bridal shower and I also made an anniversary cake (my first tiered cake) for a couples 60th wedding anniversary party. Saturday I did these Brownies and Truffles with her colors of pink and maroon. They were a big hit, Oreo Truffles and brownies. The "S" on the brownies is for Melanie's last name to-be. It was fun to have some new people to be able to try the sweet stuff and really enjoy them. Here are a couple pictures....

I also tried a new recipe for the truffles, I tried peanut butter and oreos and they loved them, they really loved them. I have lots of orders for people who would like the peanut butter ones next. I'm pretty excited!

"Death by Chocolate"

2010-03-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, my ward Relief Society had a Relief Society meeting that was a total hit and made me SO EXCITED! I guess all it took was adding the word "chocolate" to the title and we got lots of girls there. It was such a cute night. My friend Nicole put it on, she had all kinds of yummy chocolate treats.... Chocolate vinegarette on salad, Pork chops with chocolate in the rub, chocolate covered bacon (surprisingly good), as well as the norm...brownies, thin mint cookies, chocolate kisses, m&m's, and little Hershey bars. We then talked about the good and bad sides of chocolate and tied that into the word of wisdom and all things in moderation. It was so good and everyone had fun. At the end of the lesson, she had little chocolate sayings like, "I'd stop eating chocolate, but I'm not a quitter" haha, and little pictures of chocolate, and we used hot glue to put them on like clear stones like you can buy at Michaels or JoAnn's, and glued magnets on them. The cutest Relief Society meeting and tons of fun!! Here's what our chocolate table looked like!

Thanks to Nicole for a great job and for everyone coming and making it fun!

Some more sweet stuff

2010-03-03T17:16:00.001-08:00

So I like to make all kinds of sweet stuff, just recently it was Jacob's birthday and I tried making cheesecake for the first time. I tried two different kinds, one was a plain cheesecake that you bake and I think it turned out pretty good, but I can use more practice with that one. I also made a Lemonade Cheesecake because two of the things that Jacob really likes are lemonade and cheesecake, so it was perfect AND it was REALLY good and way easy. Happy Birthday Jacob!! But, Let me know if you'd like the recipe. Anyways, no pictures of those, but just something else I've been working on.

Then a few days later was Jacob's friend Willie's birthday and a week before I had made a big cookie and Willie really liked it, so I told him I could make him one for his birthday and he said, "nah..how about $1,000,000 instead." So when he left I said, well I'll just make him a big cookie with a million dollar bill on it. So... Here it is. He was a good sport and I think it turned out pretty good.

Now, Here is a blast from the past... My little sister Marley had a Hawaiian themed birthday. So we attemped the big cupcakes, with luck the big cupcakes looked more like little tiki huts, so we went with it. Totally lucky.... But I thought they turned out super cute and completely perfect!!! They have little "m"s on them for her name and the flowers and bright colors and we had cupcakes there too. It was really fun, but I thought I'd put them up here as well.

Just more "sweet stuff," and I am having lots of fun!!! Thanks for checking in!

Stormy's Wedding

2010-03-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

So better late than never right? I made a wedding cake for Stormy and Spenser to cut into at their reception, and made some Oreo truffles also. They were great (if I do say so myself). I was really excited that Stormy would trust me enough to make something as noticed as the cake at her reception, which was a gorgeous reception. Also a gorgeous bride. I love Stormy. Anyways, her wedding was November 21, 2009. So like I said... now that its March, I should finally get some pictures put up. The theme was the movies and Hollywood, which was such a FUN idea. So the cake has red stars (which was one of her colors), the spotlights, some movie reels, and other fun movie stuff. I totally loved making it. Also, the truffles were a big hit, also colored with her colors....Red, Black, and White. Anyways... Here are a few pictures of the cake, truffles, and the set up at the reception. Thanks for letting be a part of your special day Stormy!!! I also have to add that my friend Cody made the cake topper for me! He did great, but I am the one who added the "bling" to it. He needed me to be sure of that part. haha. THANKS CODY!

Stormy's Bridal Shower

2009-11-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

So, my friend Stormy is getting married and I got to make " the sweet stuff" for her shower. It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. :) Anyways.. here are some pictures from the event. Some brownies with "G" for Garner, cupcakes with stars for their hollywood theme and if you can't guess, their colors will be black, white, and red, and a little silver. We also had some chocolate stars, and cream puffs with chocolate frosting. Tasted great, and looked pretty too.

Ok, and here's a fun one.... we had a great time!

More Cakes

2009-05-31T23:34:00.001-07:00

So Jacob's sister Tiffany is in charge of girls camp and she needed decoration and dessert for their Psych night a while back. So I volunteered to see if I could do anymore cakes. Well I did 9 cakes. The theme is The Road to Virtue. They also used the VW bug and the VW sign, but in mormon terms it turned into Virtuous Women. So Hopefully the pictures will work this time!

Take a look..... There is a round for each of the young women value colors and a road (Road to Virtue.)

Well it was definitely a lot of work, but it was fun to do and learn!!! Not the best job, but a good time and did the job. Hopefully more cakes will be to come! :)

So I'm making cakes....

2009-03-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

Well I'm switching my blog from what was my Human Relations class... to now being my personal blog, but I have more to learn about it. I figure why not start now. My bring break started with making cakes. I've started to make fondant cakes.I love watching the shows on TV when they make all the awesome cakes, so it's pretty cool so be able to start, but by no means am I good yet and haven't even started with the multiple tiers, but I'm really enjoying learning about them and I already got my first big "job."I made one for Jacob for Valentine's Day and I must say it turned out quite well. My first one and he really liked it.

So that was the first one, I was quite proud. Then I tried making these other ones on a day I was bored, but I didn't allow myself as much time as I should have, so they were not great at all. Anyways, my first job came when my mom's friend and Jacob's sister Tiffany, she's the girls camp director for our stake and they were having "Psych night" for all the girls, so I did a cake for each of the 8 values, and a road because their theme is, "Road to Virtue." So they are using cars and road signs and that whole theme. They wanted me to use flowers with the VW is the middle of it, VW not just for Volkswagon, but for Virtuous Women. They are so clever. Anyways, I think the cakes were a success, which is good because they took 3 days of my Spring Break to do. But here are the pictures. There is lots of room for improvement, but turned out pretty decent.

Blogger is being slow, so my next post will show the pictures.

10 Tips for Improving Employee Motivation

2008-12-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Here is it, the end of the semester, the last Motivation Blog. Its been fun to learn about different companies, see the different ways they work, and how it is always changing. No doubt, we are having some hard economic times and right now it seems like people are being motivated just by the fact that they cannot get another job if they do not like the one they have. As the employer, you know that might put you in a good place if you know that they'd like to stay. Here are some tips on how to improve your employees though. We all know that it is important that the employees enjoy their work as much as, if not more than, the incentives they receive. It is important to have employees who want to be at work, and
Here are 1o Tips to Improve Employee Motivation:
1. Build a Foundation. Give the employee background on the company, let them know your plans for the future, and let them give their imput on the company and where they would like to see themselves go with in the company.
2. Create a Positive Environment. Set an environment where all employees feel important and appreciated. Let them know that you are there to help them as much as they are there for you.
3. Put people on the right path. Employees are looking for advancement. If you can help them get on the right path, help them set goals and help them find ways to achieve them, the employees will get excited about what is to come. This will make them more invested in what they are doing now.
4. Educate the Masses. Give employees the opportunity to improve their professional skills, learn new trades that can benefit themselves and the company. Provide workshops, training, classes paid for by the company. This will make them feel like you have taken a sincere interest in them and will boost their interest in the company.
5. Don't forget the Fun! Once in a while you need to put work aside and treat your employees to pizza, ice cream, birthday parties, or shut down shop an hour early or so, to encourage fun and give people a break.
6. Acknowledge Contributions. It is so important to take the time to recognize employees for a job well done, a task completed, or any accomplishments. Be generous with praise.
7. Provide Incentives. These can be small such as a gift card to big things like a raise or bonus. Also Employee of the Month recognition is a good start. If employee know they are working towards something, it will encourage more motivation.
8. Honor your promises. If you are willing to promise a raise or incentive, and they follow through, you have to follow through as well. If you are not willing to follow through later, do not make the promise to start with. Breaking promises will hurt trust and harbor bad feelings.
9. Provide Career Coaching. Bringing someone in from the outside to help employees reach the next level will really help them along. I also think that having an outsider for this will allow for honest comments and what their true goals are.
10. Match tasks to talents. You can improve employees self confidence by giving them tasks that you know they will enjoy or be good at. Once they have accomplished that task and their self confidence has had a boost, they will be more confident with other tasks.

I feel like these are great tips to boosting employee motivation and not all require funds to go forward with. Companies have been hit hard in the last few months from the economy and may not know what to do to continue to motivate since funding or benefits may have been cut. These are some way that motivation can still be improved with out throwing a lot of money at the issue. These were also very helpful to me for my own motivation factors. I hope you have learned something that you can take and use in your life. This has been so fun and so educational.
Enjoy and Have a great day!

Employee Motivation and The Economy

2008-10-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

We all are familiar with the problems in our economy, which is also one of the major topics of the 2008 Presidential Election. Due to the problems with the economy, the credit crisis, financial institutions closing left and right, the downturn in the housing market, and our stock market being so vulnerable, people are getting more and more nervous as the weeks go on. We are all seeing the tightening of our budgets, trying to get out and stay out of debt, and some worrying about if they will have a job next week or a house to live in. Things are getting scary, but in this time, I think we are seeing changes in what actually motivates our employees.
We have seen the times where the things that motivate us to come to a job is the vacation time, company vehicles, employees allowances, and retirement packages. I think we are now seeing and heading more towards the time where people are becoming satisfied with just having the job that will pay the bills. It is more important to see that we can get insurance packages to support our families and having the essentials, not all of the luxaries. It is so important to just keep the job you have because our the scary possibility that there won't be anywhere else to go. I'm not exactly sure what the direct effects or differences in employee motivations that might come from the new President, but they will have an impact on the economy changing (hopefully for the better) which in turn will change the way we are looking at our jobs.
I am attaching a link to a website that describes ways a leader/manager can help in motivating their employees. They are the simple things such as your mood when you show up to work or giving feedback to your employees, that can help at any time, times of plenty or times of less.
http://humanresources.about.com/od/motivationsucces3/a/lead_motivation.htm
Enjoy! I hope everyone has a good day and remember not to take the little things for granted, try to focus on the things that we have, instead of the things we are lacking, and be grateful for them!

Google

2008-10-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

Well the other day in class we had a guest speaker, who was great by the way. She was talking about different companies that are known for their high employee motivating environments. One that was mentioned was Google, which sparked my interest and reminded me of their great employee packages, so i'm going to let you all know about the environment at Google.

Google claims that they are not like conventional companies, the only thing that makes them like other companies is their focus on innovation and smart business practices. Even though they have branches all across the world, they still strive to keep the small company feel. "Googlers thrive in small, focused teams and high-energy environments, believe in the ability of technology to change the world, and are as passionate about their lives as they are about their work." Google provides tailored compensation packages, they can be comprised of salary, bonus, and equity components, and also the opportunities to further their financial situation.

Their work enviroment is also a huge deal, they have excellent food, nap time, child care areas, game rooms, massages, and still with a comfortable small company feel.

On their website they have the 10 Reasons to work at Google. So here they are:
10 Reasons to work at Google
1.Lend a Helping Hand
2.Life is Beautiful
3.Appreciation is the best motivation
4.Work and Play are not mutually exclusive
5.We love our employees, and want them to know that
6.Innovation is our bloodline
7.Good company everywhere you look
8.Uniting the world, one user at a time
9.Boldly go where no one has gone before
10. There is such thing as a free lunch after all
There are explanations for all of the reasons on the website.
Here is the link to find out more about this employee focuses company if you are interested:
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html

Health Care Benefits

2008-09-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

With healthcare, or the lack of, health care coverage being such a hot topic in United States life today and a major topic in the Presidential race, I decided this would be one of the employee benefits that would be interesting to see how companies are changing for their employees. I found one company, Financial Corportation, that is helping their customers, but in this business it is their customers that kind of serve as their employees. They serve their customers by just providing benefits for their companies, which is to help by providing programs that bring efficiency to their customers businesses. These programs include benefits and in this article, they are now providing discounted health care and medical programs and services to their existing customers. This program will offer them 10% -60% decreases to most all of the big medical carriers of any kind. Launching this program will possibly effect 45 million individuals who do not currently have health care.
What an amazing program they are trying to set up. This company saw a need and is putting a plan into effect that will satify the need. This is truly something that would motivate me as their employee or customer, and especially with such a widespread issue. I think they are setting a great example, and maybe not every person will take advantage of this offer, but 45 million people is a huge undertaking and in my opinion would help most morale and stress in many work environments.
Here is the link to read into the finer details. Some of my information was taken straight from the article to get the facts right.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dalrada-provide-affordable-healthcare-products/story.aspx?guid=%7B164DCAE6-A038-49BA-81B9-FD8B3A675C23%7D&dist=hppr

Employee Motivation

2008-08-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

Like I said, my posts are going to consist of a Human Relations topic. The topic I have chosen is Employee motivations and benefits. I want to be able to find out what really makes people tick. We all have had jobs we like or dislike, but what makes this happen? This truly is a human issue because it is not as easy as we may think to find out what motivates people to go to work. There are many things, not just one in particular, that motivate employees. Giving the same thing to everyone for a job well done, may not be the best thing for everyone. Since we are human, we know that we all have different needs and wants. These priorities are different to everyone, but some of them include money, insurance plans, other benefits, vacations, parties, or personal recognition. I also think that motivation can depend on the type of company you work for. Is it a fortune 500 company, a mid-sized corporation, or a family business? I believe that this will effect what drives people as well. I am excited to see what the results will be and I believe that this research will help me become a better manager because hopefully I will be better able to understand my employees later on.

http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/
Here's a link that talks a little about my topic and is where I gathered some of my thoughts from.
Enjoy and I look forward to learning more about human motivations.

New blog

2008-08-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

Well I am new to the blog scene. This is going to start as being a blog for a class. I will be talking about a Human Relation issue at first. Hopefully it will turn into a real life blog after that. We'll see what happens.