Fun Goodies!

Happy Friday my dear blog readers!  So, I know I have been MIA for a few weeks now...no worries, I am back!  The hubby and I actually went on a road trip across the US and finally got back home last night!  While our main mission was to see the US, one of my ulterior motives was to visit other cake supplies stores in the states we stop at....just to see the different items I can find outside of California.  And boy did I find a lot of goodies!  Out of 8 stores, I only came out empty-handed from one store...Not bad, huh?  Although it did take a hard hit on the pocketbooks, it was well worth it! 

See, didn't I get a lot of good stuff??  It was hard work finding all these goodies though!  I, of course, did my research on the stores I visited to make sure they would have the kind of items I was looking for: mainly, lace molds, fondant/gumpaste cutters and veiners, and of course, those beautiful dragees that are, sadly, unavailable to me out here in California.  As you can see from the picture above, I most certainly accomplished my mission! 

Of all the stores I had visited, there are a few stores I had absolutely LOVED and would definitely visit again if ever I'm in the area.  The first of these stores was Cake Carousel in Richmond, Texas.  They had absolutely wonderful service.  The ladies who were working that Saturday morning I was there were very friendly!  They also had the best prices on retail dragees...although they only sell in one size containers (which, for me, was not big enough...although theirs were the biggest package I've seen for retail sale).  I had bought a few bottles of dragees when I was in Arizona, only to kick myself because the ones at Cake Carousel were double the size in amount and only fifty cents more!

The ones from Cake Carousel were the 4 ounce bottles on the left.  The massive bottles are from another store (in which I kicked myself again because those 500 gram bottles were a fantastic buy!...more on those later..).  The next great store I encountered was in Norcross, Georgia.  It was The International Sugar Art Collection by Nicholas Lange.  I just about died and gone to heaven when I got there!  We had arrived into Georgia with just enough time for me to check out the store that same day we arrived.  Of course, with the horrible traffic and the time zone adjustment, I only had about 35 minutes to browse through the fabulous store.  The salespeople were really friendly though...they stayed open after closing just so that I could take my fill!  And boy, did I take my fill!  I bought the majority of my fondant/gumpaste accessories here...I now have magnolia flower cutter/veiner, peonies cutter/veiner, cameo molds, lace borders, leaf cutters, massive size tubs of edible pearl luster dust (I'm talking 22.5 grams!).  I seriously did not want to leave the store.  It was probably a good thing that I had a limited amount of time inside the store.  Had I waited until the next day, I may have done more damage! What was even more sweet was when I left the store...I waited on the sidewalk for the hubby to come pick me up.  The ladies inside were closing up for the day, but came out and checked to make sure my ride was coming for me, making sure I'll be ok!  It was super sweet and really touched my heart!

The last fabulous store that I totally loved was in Las Vegas, Nevada.  It is called Chef Rubber.  They had all sorts of goodies in their stores.  This was where I found my massive 500 gram bottles of dragees.  And they were super, super cheap too (I kicked myself several times in that store by looking at the prices of those dragees!)  However, in my defense, I couldn't save all my eggs into one store!  I was never sure if the next location would have these beautiful dragees and if I didn't buy them as I saw them (unless they were horribly overpriced), then I may have come home empty-handed!  But, alas, that was not the case!  Now, I already had enough dragees (before Chef Rubber) to last me a while, but, of course, the greediness in me had set in.  And after seeing the prices, I just had to get more!  My only gripe about Chef Rubber is that there are no prices labeled.  One must pick it out and take it to the cashier, and then she looks it up.  This kind of deterred me from picking up a lot of items, seeing as I didn't want to put a lot back on the shelf if it wasn't the price I wanted to pay.  Luckily for me, I had browsed their website and kind of remembered the prices on items I was for sure buying.  However, too bad on the other items I saw!  Overall, Chef Rubber had great selections on professional items...most were kind of expensive.  The only deal I saw were the dragees...they were priced very well!

So, this road trip served mutiple purposes.  It was something the hubby and I were thinking of doing for a while now and I'm glad we got the chance to finally do it!  It also gave me a chance to visit a bunch of cool cake decorating supplies stores along the way and to pick up a bunch of fun items that I would've had to order online or never, ever be able to get (dragees)!  We had a fabulous time driving through and eating all the delicious food along the way!  And now, back to reality...watch out for the next post:  I am going to have some fun with the goodies I bought and do a trial run with cupcakes!

It's great to be back in cool, breezy California! :)