Mom's Birthday + Casual Androgynous Photoshoot

Good evening everyone, hope you're all doing well!

Been a while and I know I'm already slacking off with blogging BUT I will try my best to keep things updated :)

Today (27th March 2013) is my mom's 54th birthday so 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! 
Wish you all the best and thank you for everything!
Sorry for always being such a pain in the arse LOL!

Because it was her birthday- I wanted to make a mini celebration with some cake BUT because I don't have the money to buy her the usual family favorite cake (Coffee Pecan Torte from The Cheesecake Shop), I decided to bake her one this morning similarly to the family's favorite.

Here is the outcome of the cake I made for my mom's birthday :

It's a hazelnut & almond sponge cake with coffee cream decorated with chocolate coated hazelnuts and surrounded with crushed hazelnut & almond.

The cake is actually small since the batter I made for the sponge was only enough for one small cake pan .___.;

Tried to imitate the store's cake with the chocolate decoration on top, not bad in my opinion ;D .. kinda messy but I think it works.

Everyone in the house enjoyed the cake and was actually surprised I made it. It's been such a long time I've baked cakes, stopped baking a while ago due to my skin outbreak which caused me to stop baking and eating sweets.

Only problem with the cake is the cream, kinda didn't whip it enough so the cream is a little runny. Oh and I added WAY too much coffee that it's abit on the bitter side.

But overall I think it was good :)

For those who want the recipe to the cake, I used the same sponge cake recipe as Kumigar from Youtube did for her Pistachio sponge cake with peach cream:

Please check it out :3 The sponge is more on the dense side BUT you will love it because its quite fluffy despite it being dense. I just replaced the pistachio nuts with hazelnuts & almonds.

For the coffee cream, I just added some instant coffee to thickened cream and whipped them together whilst adding sugar to liking.

Once again, Happy Birthday Mom! Hope you were able to feel all my love and heart I put into the cake, thank you so much for everything and your present shall come soon (bought some skincare for her online).



PHOTOSHOOT!

In the afternoon I had a casual photoshoot with Pandori-san, Kenny-san & Wayne-san; where I wanted an Androgynous theme, where males pulling off female styles whilst remaining some male features such as shoulders and facial structures. Though I think I didn't do that so well, oh well.

I wanted to shoot with the following look since I just love how the hair bends and styles, and it gives the face an edge, showing off facial features and structures.

Hence the androgynous theme since there are many guys with long hair put their hair on one side and look so nice.

Kept the makeup super simple with a strong edgy winged eyeliner, and alot of contouring and highlighting to accentuate facial features.  

For the clothes, I wore a black singlet under a dark blue oversized drop shoulder shirt from ASOS. The black singlet shoulder was showing through the drop shoulder shirt to fake a strap and the drop-shoulder shirt was pulled to reveal abit of the shoulder.
The bottoms I wore black female shorts with some black high-thigh socks and my black Ebay combat boots. 
Accessories worn was a slouch beanie made by me, hex-nut zipper bracelet also made by me and a wine-opener charm necklace also put together by me.

We shot during the late afternoon because we were aiming for golden hour where the sun starts to set, giving the photography a nice hazing effect. Unfortunately I arrived the destination too late due to traffic so we didn't get to shoot during golden hour for so long but we eventually got some shots for night shooting with some flashes.

Got most of the golden hour shots at Bicentennial Park at Olympic Park where the fountain  is. The sky was just amazing with the sunset, such vibrant gradient- was definitely worth hanging around for.

Once lights were out, we headed towards Olympic Park near the pillars outside ANZ stadium to do our night shoot. There was an event on called "The Royal Easter Show" which really limited us to walk around so freely to shoot hence we just hung around at the pillars near the memorial vision with the tv-displays. 

Ended the shoot at around 9.30pm and off we went to grab some late dinner at Pancakes on the Rocks at Strathfield. Super thanks to Wayne-san for shouting me dinner and Super thanks to Kenny-san for shouting us beverages. And overall thank you Pandori-san and Wayne-san and Kenny-san for attending and making the shoot happen :)

Here's just a quick preview I editted and used for my twitter icon. Photography by Pandori-san (thankyou!)

Updated full pic after asking for permission to edit and use :3

That's it for me now 
Until then, stay well & take care!