Wedding Project: The Cake Stand.

This summer I got engaged, the day after, my hometown and childhood home was struck by a devastating tornado. As I was there cleaning up and helping my parents pick up the pieces, we learned that the last remaining trees on the property would have to be cut down due to the trauma they sustained. There was one tree in particular that my family would be very upset to see come down, it was our climbing tree. It had these branches that were just low enough if you jumped you could grab hold and swing yourself up, from there the sky was the limit literal. This was the tree where I lost 4 front teeth, my sister fell and almost (in my young mind) died, and where we spent countless hours doing absolutely nothing. It was the best part of the front yard.

As I heard it crack and fall I did shed a few tears, and then I asked Jerry(the tree guy) if he could please cut me five, four inch wide disks. I was going to keep a part of this tree and turn it into my cake stand so while the tree was gone, I would always have a little part of it wherever the army sent my family.

Cutting it was the easy part. As I soon found out, when trees sustain a trauma this large there are lasting effects just like in people. It had started to absorb as much water as it could to try and survive, thus causing the slices to become infected, and have black spots, this also meant that if I didn't dry it out either very slowly or with a treatment solution the were bound to crack.

So seven months later the slices do have black spots and they certainly did crack, however to me they are beautiful. I have sanded them down just to smooth to top enough to hold the cake level. Thank goodness I have a great cake lady(Hallmark Cakes) who understood when I told her the story, told me not to worry that a little unevenness can be fixed with a sturdy piece of cardboard. Then I sealed it with lacquer to make it food safe, and its all ready for its big day.

I hope that you all find it as beautiful as I do.