Kim and I form a team for our kids’ birthdays. Kim bakes the most amazing tasting cakes, and I make something with fondant to decorate the cake.

Luca has loved Tom Fletcher’s There’s a Monster in Your Book from when we first started reading it to him, so for his second birthday, I wanted to make a simple version of this character.

I’ve mentioned before that I try to do something new each time I make a cake topper. I do think I’ll be reaching the end of the line on that, and I honestly didn’t really know what I did differently this time. And then I clicked: this was the first time I worked with our daughter Mila. She also wanted to make something, and when she saw the monster, she imagined a purple monster. I’m honestly more proud of her creativity than anything else.

It was a new experience in the sense that I constantly had to balance answering her questions and helping her when needed. It was probably more challenging than some of the other new things I’ve tried as I don’t really do well at multi-tasking, especially when the fondant starts drying out if you don’t handle it fast enough.

In the end, it was a great experience to express our creativity together for a few hours while Luca was napping. Here are some more pics of the process and the results.