Sunday 20 July 2014

If music be the food of love, play on

Remember vinyl? Remember the beautiful artwork on the LP cover? Remember the photographs and lyrics on the inner sleeve? And what about the limited edition coloured vinyls - I remember having a lovely white '45' in my collection.




Son Gareth has an eclectic taste in music and, in addition to the hundreds of downloaded tracks, he also owns a few vinyl singles and LP's - not that we have a turntable to play them on! He asked me to make him a birthday cake for a small party he was having with his friends in London so I created one to look like a record player. 



I managed to source a pack of purple fondant icing which perfectly matched the colour of the Arctic Monkeys vinyl single he has in his collection. The 'label' was a copy of the text on the single, I added in 'Happy Birthday Gareth' and got it printed onto rice-paper - the same technique as used in Sue's  suitcase cake.  A couple of weeks before the party date I modelled the tonearm, cartridge and stylus to ensure they dried hard and would hold their shape when the cake was assembled. The tonearm was suspended above the cake, anchored to the tone arm clip and the counterweight base.




Gareth arranged for his friend Tim to collect the cake from Shrewsbury and take it to London on the day of the party. Tim is a bit of a petrol head and always drives everywhere so I boxed it up carefully ready for the journey. When he arrived and announced he was taking the train the logistics of getting the cake to its destination became a little more complicated. Tim assured me he would get it there safely ....... however a few drinks were consumed on the train resulting in some parts 'breaking off' and hurriedly being eaten to destroy the evidence! I'm not sure exactly what happened but it arrived at the party without the tonearm. 


Gareth was none the wiser until I emailed him some photos of the cake a few days after the party. He loved it anyway!
  

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