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I can officially say I survived my first BlogHer conference. I wasn't sure what all to expect as I flew off to Chicago. I started out my first BlogHer in the best way possible (for me). I was among 30 bloggers who were invited to visit Wilton. Yes that was this cake decorators dream visit. I had 5 hours at the Wilton school, store and test kitchen where we had the opportunity to work with icing, new snack cakes and making owls with the new Shape N Amaze dough. I freaking love this stuff. Its like fondant but cooler.

As soon as you walk through the door your nose is awakened with the smell of what I think was the aroma of butter cream icing. The awesome people that work at Wilton say that after a while they stopped noticing that smell but if someone brings in a pizza and the entire office comes running.

We had a contest on who could decorate their snack cake the best. It was fun. I didn't win but I didn't care. I was a winner just by stepping foot in the the Wilton building.

Once we were done with the sprinkles, icing and snack cakes I moved over to the 3D modeling station where we got to make our own Ollie owl out of the Wilton Shape-N-Amaze edible decorating dough. It was a hoot! I was proud of my Ollie. He had one wing a little thicker than the other but other than that I am proud of my work. The fun thing about the Shape N Amaze is that it's a little better than modeling with fondant. If you make a figure out of fondant and want the arms to come straight out from the body they will most likely flop down or break off. With the Shape N Amaze we saw pieces that were made months ago and they still held their shape and firmness. It really is an amazing product and I was glad to find that in the gift bag we were given some packs of the Shape N Amaze decorating dough.

We even got to peek inside the Wilton in house photography studio and watch the designers as they worked on some decorations. Sorry no photos were allowed in that part of the building because there were some hush hush stuff in the room we aren't allowed to share. I have hopes that the time I spent on the Wilton tour and all the hands on demos we were able to be a part of will help better my decorating skills. Thanks to Wilton my first BlogHer conference had a pretty sweet beginning.